Guam Banzai Attack

By Rudolf G. Rosenquist 3MK, Transcript By: Lowell V. Bulger, Originally published in The Patch (Raider Assoc. Magazine).

We landed on White Beach, two hours after H-Hour at AGAT. We transferred from Higgins: boats to Amphibious Tractors (AM-TRACS) at the reef line. When we reached the beach, we were receiving light small arms fire. Some of the tractors had been blown up after running over mines.

As we rolled over the side of our AM-TRAC I saw there were a lot of dead Marines on the beach. One man of our group was hit in the knee almost before he hit the ground...we loaded him back into the same AM-TRAC and he was evacuated back to the Higgins boat.

I could see where shellfire had uncovered what looked like 5OOlb bombs and some still had a land mine perched on the nose. These were playing hell with the AM-TRACS when they ventured too far up on the beach...they just opened them up like a tin can!...There were parts of bodies all over...a torso with no head, arms or legs, was lying about15 feet to my right. We were still getting small arms fire but none of us were then doing much firing. There was a smashed tractor at the water's edge and two marines were firing over us at a small hill to our front but we could locate no apparent sights of fire. Some Marines came from our right rolling out MINE-MARKER TAPE. When they passed between where we were lying and the water, we started moving back VERY SLOWLY!

I took a Navy ..38 Cal Revolver off of a dead Marine and I also cut the M.C. belt he had loaded with .38 rounds off his body, Later I emptied the belt and put the loose rounds in my dungaree jacket pocket.

We moved to our right up the beach along the water's edge and inside the MINE TAPE. I saw the damnedest mess of gear…wrecked AM-TRACS and many dead Marines. Some bodies were still in the water;

Some Marines were busy collecting weapons and ammo belts for salvage. We cut inland and crossed a defile where a small stream emptied into the ocean.

I remember our C.O. 1st Lt. Martin J. Sexton, and some others sitting around a radio and studying some grid maps. I fell on my ass here when my boot caught in some communication wire... (When we debarked, my foot had slipped between the ship and the Higgens boat...the surge of a wave simply separated the boot sole from the uppers....Our steel toed Raider Boots had saved my foot from being crushed)

As we moved up the far incline, we overtook some Marines and a light tank. We noted the start of a Jap trench system and pill boxes which were being reduced by running the tank up as close as-possible, depressing the turret gun to fire directly into the pill box gun-port entrance with H.E. Several Japs were taken alive and wounded. One enemy soldier, had no apparent marks on him, but when we stood him up, he was so dazed he would simply fall on his face. All were stripped and marched back to the beach.

Working along, we came upon some bottles of rice wine and canned goods which were looked at with interest but nobody would chance tasting. After a short hold up, we again saddled up and moved inland across an open stretch and into some coconut palms....We were met by runner who showed us where to set up our line of defense...we were to be the right flank unit. It was dusk…the ground was wet as we dug in. We placed our BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) man on our extreme flank, then two ammo men, then the Light Machine Gun (LMG), then two more rifle ammo men and so on up the defensive line....I could still see a defensive Marine Iine being set up parallel to the beach and across the way from our BAR flank man, so I sighted the LMG on what looked like the end of their line and drove an entrenching shovel into the ground so we wouldn't traverse too far and shoot into our own lines...the distance to their lines looked to be about two good baseball heaves from our position. About this time, our Bn CO Major Hamilton Hoyler inspected our end of the line and asked if we could hold till daylight...We gave him some cocky assurances and settled in.

We had just opened our rations when we heard something coming up behind us.. sounded like Jap troops so we turned the LMG around…it was almost dark. We were scared but it was a Marine ammo & water detail....The strange noise we thought was Japanese was made by several Marines who were loaded down with loose machine gun (MG) belts which they had salvaged from the wrecked AM-TRACS.

Sometime after dark the Navy Ships started putting up star shells: which permitted us to see some distance to our front and around our positions. Around 2300 (11 PM) a small dog came from the left along our front lines. We tried to coax it in but it stayed about 20 feet away and disappeared in the old rice paddy on our right front A little later, we were startled by a single shat that sounded like a small caliber Jap rifle. It came from our BAR flank position...a Jap had crawled up close enough to get him with a single shot in the dim star shell light. After another 20 minutes we heard the click of two Jap grenades being armed directly in front of our position.. (Japs hit the grenade button against their helmets to arm them...they had 10 second fuse to hurl them before they exploded) In the dim light you could barely see the grenades glint as they came through the air toward us. They fell just short of our gun...I ducked and waited…when the closest grenade went off I felt fragments hit my helmet but none hit my person. We knew now that the enemy had our lines pretty well placed so I opened up with the Light Machine Gun, using a FREE GUN (No traverse mechanism) as I hosed down the whole area in front of us…We received no more grenades . All was quiet for another 20 minutes, then the "POP" of 6 or 8 more grenade armings but all fell about 20 feet short of our lines...Again I hosed down the front and a few minutes later we could see a whole line of Japs all across our front trotting as they came into our positions...I fired FREE GUN and they just melted away...this happened several times each time a new group coming up behind the ones that already had been cut down...More grenades and something larger, probably 81mm mortars, started dropping around us, I remember that very few fell behind our lines...The Marine on the gun with me said, "Damn it, let me have some," and he took the gun Just prior to the next wave of oncoming enemy...I remember thinking...He ought to swing the gun more.....I heard a scream on my left, rolled over and found a Jap almost on top of me with his rifle and fixed bayonet. He pinned me to the ground as his bayonet went in the left side and out my lower chest. As he stepped over me, I grabbed his canteen strap and he jerked me all the way to my feet...Someone else ran into me just as he tore loose...He bayoneted me again in the gut! Somehow I got the .38 out and emptied it...I saw him fall back on our machine gunner....Another Jap ran over me and the two of us went down together...He was screaming something over and over. I had lost my revolver but pulled my KA-BAR knife and cut him good as we were rolling around...I remember thinking... "How young he Iooks." We were face to face in the star shell light. He showed no emotion when I cut him.

I almost got back up on my feet when something or somebody hit my head...it was like a flare going off in my face...When next I came to my senses, I was lying alongside a palm tree. After awhile I got up and leaned against the tree...I couldn't see any of the bodies around me moving and I wondered which were Japs and which were Marines. My middle was soaked with blood...There was still firing from across the rice paddy and from further up our line to my left...I still didn't feel much pain, just a burning sensation. I still gripped the handle of my KA-BAR and it felt like it had been dipped in glue.

I pulled my fatigue cap out of my pocket and stuffed it under my belt to stop some of the bleeding. I managed to get to my feet and started walking to the rear back through the trees where we came up before dark. As I cleared the tree line, I entered some low brush...flares were still bursting behind me...I was challenged by some Marine and I remember thinking I can't remember the DAMN PASSWORD…

I told them I was wounded and needed help and after several minutes I weakened and fell down on my knees. I was sure they would shoot me for moving so suddenly but then I remembered the PASSWORD and they let me crawl into their shell hole. A group of Marines were there and they had set up a pack radio....They put sulfa and battle dressings on my wounds and gave me a shot of morphine. My machine gun had been attached to the K Co platoon of Lt. GLEN M. LEWIS, 2G3MK, and I told the radio operator to contact Lt. Glen Lewis. When they raised him by radio I reported that we had been overrun and that I was back with the radio. He must have asked how I was, because I heard the operator tell him "HE'S IN PRETTY BAD SHAPE" I thought, "DAMN IT HE DIDN'T HAVE T0 LET ME HEAR HIM SAY THAT!"

I lay there listening to the radio talk when we heard Jap voices .... a squad or more of Japs were coming down the same trail that I had used… We could hear them talking and hear their gear working as they approached. When they cleared the tree line the Japs stopped. The Marines were waiting all lined up at the edge of the foxhole now every one opened fire....There was a short period of total quiet and then we heard the "Pop" of grenades and 2 or 3 landed in our shell hole. Everyone there bailed out and I could only stuff the radio between my legs as I watched the damn grenades go off... then I belatedly rolled out of the shell hole...It was the morphine that had slowed me down.

In a few moments the Marines jumped back in the shell hole and someone reached out and dragged my ass back into the hole...The radio was completely wrecked and I had grenade fragments in both legs and one in the center of my chest and one through the palm of my right hand... If it hadn't of been for that radio between my legs, I would have lost the FAMILY JEWELS...

The Marines laid down a perimeter pattern of grenades and we discussed whether our whole line had caved in. I decided to try and get to the beach and return to our landing area...I crawled out of the shell hole on my hands and knees into the short brush but I hadn't gone 30 feet when I came face to face with a wounded Jap, also on his hands and knees...He jabbed at me with what looked like a short spear...He stuck me between the fingers of my injured right hand ... turned tail and hauled ass...I did the same back to the shell hole...Another Marine rolled into the hole and said he had cut down two Japs who were walking away from us. The morphine was knocking me out as they told me to stay put and they would get me out...When I came to...I was alone and the flares overhead were coming in longer intervals…I passed out again and when I woke up the sun was high overhead in the noon position....I was sun-burned on my face, chest and arms.

I raised up and called for a Corpsman..then thought "Oh Hell the Japs will hear me," so I laid back down and passed out. When I came to and my blurred vision focused, I thought I saw Japs looking down at me, but then my wits returned and I noted they were our Navajo Indian Code Talkers who were working stretcher detail...When I asked one of them to find my KA-BAR he just looked at me and shook his head...No answer...They put me on a litter and carried me to a truck... I could see dead Japs all around but only one dead Marine.

I next woke up in a tent near the beach between some piles of sand and logs. The tent opening faced the ocean and wounded on litters were stacked all around....While lying there, two rounds: came through the tent overhead...Sounded like the BUTTS at a Marine rifle range, The Doctor worked on me here but I don't know the Doctor or his unit... (Patch Editor Note: Probably 3^RD BN Surgeon,: LtCmdr. JOHN J. SACC0. (Died 13 Mar. 75, Wayland, MA) as I have heard FATHER REDMOND relate that. DR JOHN SACCO was coolly working over RAIDER wounded in a tent on the beach while bullets were popping through the tent top during that morning on GUAM). They then sent me out to the USS Harry Lee thence to Base 8 Hospital in Honolulu, HI; Then to Naval Hospital in San Francisco;: then Astoria, OR Naval Hospital; then Lakeside Hospital, New Orleans, LA. After limited duty at NAD Gretna, LA. I was returned to Lakeside and given a MEDICAL SURVEY from the Corps. EPILOGUE:... by Rudy Rosenquist: Some years after Guam, Lt. Glen M. Lewis told me that the morning after that JAP BANZAI charge...A Jap Heavy Machine Gun (HMG)crew came in front of our line, as if on parade, set up their gun and were cut down..Shortly afterward another HMG crew trotted out and met the same fate...One large group of enemy Japs came right up to our lines facing the beach, set down below a small rise where our men were dug in. They sat down, lit up cigarettes, and were chatting away among themselves as if there were no Marines within miles.. LT LEWIS said, "We watched them for awhile then everyone opened up and we killed them where they were sitting!"

CERTIFIED A TRUE COPY:Patch Editor: LOWELL V.BULGER