Imperial Valley press., 1945-04-10
0kinaWa Beach
Presents New
Invasion View
BY ERNIE PYLE
- lBY NAVY RADIO)

BY ERNIE PYLE
! OKINAWA - lBY NAVY RADIO
Never before had I seen an in
vasion beach like Okinawa.
There wasn't q dead or wounded
man in our sector of it. Medical
Corpsmen were sitting among their
sacks of bandages and plasma and
! Stretchers, with nothing to do.
There wasn't single burning ve-
hicle. Nor single beat lying
wrecked on the reef of shoreline.
The carnage that is almost inevit-
able on an invasion was wonderfully
and beautifully not there.
There was hardly anybody at all
on the beach when we landed. The
few assault waves ahead of us had
pushed on inland. And all that vast
welter of people and machines that
make beach hum with work were
still many waves behind us.
NO NOISE, NO ACTIVITY
The bulldozers ana the Jeeps had
not yet arrived. There was no ac-
tivity and hardly any sound. 1t was
almost as though we were the
original explorers.
Our little party. which was the
regimental staff, moved to the foot
of a bluff about 100 yards back of
the beach. 1t was full of caves and
our naval gunfire had made rubble
at the foot of the bluff. But several
cave mouths still capped open.
m ut
the colonel could get the picture in
his mind, through information
brought by runners, of just what was
going on.
There were about a hundred men
with US in addition to the officers.
The men were under First Ser
geant Andy Anderson. from WASH
ington state. The first thing Andy
had them do was to make sure there
were no JapS hiding in the caves to
snipe on us. For the first waves had
gone through too fast to clean
everybody out-if anybody had been
there.
So they would sneak up on a
hole. with rifles ready. Then Andy
would take out hand grenade and
throw it into the hole But the first
one hit the edge of the hole and
rolled down outside
Andy threw himself on the sand
and all the rest of us lay flat. The
grenade went off with a bang, but
nobody got hurt. From then on we
kidded Andy about the fine display
of Marine Workmanship he had
given us.
MARINES PRAISED
In addition to being great fight
ers, 1 believe the Marines are the
friendliest bunch I've ever been with.
I've never had any trouble with
people being unfriendly, but these
Marines seem to have it bred into
them to be pleasant and to make
you feel at home.
Nothing like Okinawa had ever
happened to them before. They're
accustomed TO butchery on the
beaches. They'd keep saying TO me,
IF you could just have been with
us before we'd have shown you some
excitement"
And I would reply, Brother, I've
had all the excitement I need for
a lifetime. This kind of invasion
suits me fine
I started wandering up and down
the beach. One boy was carrying a
little vase in his hand, saying.
Here's the first souvenir of Okin-
awa"i
He was James Crosby, Pharmacist
First Glass, OF Cereal Spring, III.
CAll medical corpsmen with the Ma
rines are actually in the Navy, you
know He had found the vase lying
outside one of the burial vaults. 1t
had blue japanese characters on it.
Then I noticed tall and heavily
laden Marine, carrying a big roll of
telephone wire on his shoulders and
leading a white nanny goat, tied to
a string 1 stopped him, and said,
Would you like to have you and
your goat in the newspaper"
He grinre and said, Sure, why
not?"
He was Pfc. Ben Glover of Baird,
Texas. He was a telephone line
man at home, and that's what he is
here. Iinemen are always among
the first ashore.
by evening of Love Day scores
of marines had baby goats for pets
and were leading them around.