19 thoughts on “Hazardous Duty/ Combat Pay”

  1. Thank you, Simon, so much!

    Ok, so here is the story that I am pretty sure Simon wants me to tell. My Dad enlisted to fight in WWII as a teenager, very much over the objections of his father. He ended up in the Army, and on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, off of the Island of Peleliu. Most people have never heard of Peleliu: this island was the site of one of the most horrific battles of WWII. Some military scholars say that the only reason Peleliu isn’t known as well as Iwo Jima is because, politics. TPTB were embarrassed by their own failures related to Peleliu and they didn’t want to call attention.

    But back to my Dad. The Marines had been on Peleliu fighting for a number of days, and it was pure hell. The Army guys on my Dad’s ship knew that the battle wasn’t going well. One day, they told the guys on the ship that 40 volunteers were needed, to join the fight on Peleliu. My Dad was not around for that announcement-he was off on some work detail. Imagine his surprise when, on his return back, some guy smiled at him, and said, “Have fun on Peleliu, Mike!” My Dad was like, What?!? What are you talking about?!? It turned out that all of his friends had volunteered to fight on Peleliu, and they signed my Dad up too. Whenever he told this story, he would beam from ear to ear, and throw his head back, and laugh and laugh and laugh. Needless to say, my Dad was a very good sport.

    I cannot imagine the sheer hell that all those who fought on Peleliu experienced. I asked my Dad about it once, and he made up a story to make it seem like his own experience really wasn’t that bad, but I know that he made that story up. Later, my Mom told me that they encountered a man once who asked him if he had been on the mountain in Peleliu, and he told the guy that he was. I know from reading about it that everyone who was on that mountain went through sheer and utter hell.

    Over 70 years later, in the days before he passed on, my Dad was having flashbacks of being in combat. We owe the men who fight a debt that can never be repaid.

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  2. OMG, I forgot one of the most important parts! The 40 guys who volunteered to go to Peleliu became known as The Forty Fools. But, my Dad was the furthest thing from a fool that there is. There was really only 39 fools, and my Dad, who was never a fool, but who was a very good sport and the best friend anybody could ever have.

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      2. Sigh. You have no plantation and there is no girl of any nationality in the mud on your plantation that does not exist.

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  6. I have written posts about my Dad and Peleliu, but I am not technologically advanced enough to know how to repost them. One of them is titled, “Irish-American Warrior.” I have tried to repost it, but I just ended up linking back to my dashboard. Anyway, most or all of what is in that post has probably been covered in my comments here.

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      3. Do you know if that hill was one of Chesty Puller’s battalion objectives?

        There is negative talk to this day about LtCol (AKA: light colonel) Puller’s leadership on that island.

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      4. I don’t know. It has been a while since I read about it, and I found the reading very difficult, but if I remember correctly, Chesty Puller was never on the mountain, and the men under his command were not on the mountain either. If I remember correctly, they were going through sheer and utter hell on the beach. I could have that wrong, I will look it up again tonight when I get home, but I am pretty sure that Chesty Puller and his men were on a different part of the island.

        Also, Chesty Puller was suffering from some kind of infection-and infected ankle, I think?- during the battle of Peleliu. The author of the book I read seemed to think that the infection affected Chesty Puller’s thinking.

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      5. Ok, I looked for the book on Peleliu when I got home, but am in the middle of trying to paint the inside of my house. Meaning, stuff is in piles everywhere in the office, and I cannot find anything. I did find this article on the web, in which a Marine who won the Medal of Honor on Peleliu is interviewed. From what he says, taking a hill was definitely one of Chesty Puller’s objectives. The interview is here, it is very short but very powerful, and I highly recommend reading it: https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/from-the-archives-medal-of-honor-recipient-everett-pope-tells-of-taking-a/2240394/

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      6. Everett Pope, the Medal of Honor recipient who is interviewed in the link, does not speak highly of Chesty Puller at all. I would like to reiterate: according to the book I read, Chesty Puller was suffering from a raging infection during his time on Peleliu. It was bad enough that he should not have been there at all, and the author of the book I read seemed to think that the infection affected Chesty’s thinking and judgement. I know almost nothing about Chesty Puller, but I get the impression that he had a pretty good record, with the exception of Peleliu. If that impression is correct-if Peleliu is the only real criticism of him- then that would seem to underline the possibility that something was going on during Peleliu which caused Lt Col Puller to behave in a way that was out of character.

        According to the book I read, the infection was so bad that Puller was on the verge of being delusional, if not totally delusional during Peleliu.

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