Word: beaching
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Morning came and the Commando-men splashed ashore, each carrying his 60-lb. pack and wearing a green beret (they scorn the steel helmet as a needlessly heavy encumbrance). They skirted beach mines, passed pillboxes, dodged gunfire, and started the long, tough fight inland...
...happened to our northern landing forces. The first three waves got in all right with light artillery opposition. But the Japs-for some reason known only to them-waited for the fourth and fifth waves. On them they laid a murderous barrage, both on the reef and on the beaches. A young battalion operations officer who had come by my room and waved, "See you on the beach," had his head blown off just before he reached that beach. "He got it quick," said his best friend...
...first three waves got in almost untouched. A battalion executive officer said: "As we hit the beach a scrawny little Jap jumped out of his trench. He was the only Jap we saw for some time after hitting the beach. There was a big rifleman right in front of him. The rifleman was so surprised he forgot to use his weapons. This 6-ft. guy of ours grabbed the Jap and started wrestling with him. He got him by the neck and shook him, swinging him all the way around. He had almost killed the Jap with his bare hands...
...Beach. It was shortly after noon when the brigadier general's four amphtracks started ashore from the control boat. The Japs did not start shooting at us until we hit a reef, about 1,000 yards offshore. To our portside a boat had just been hit; its occupants were swimming frantically in every direction, some trying to reach other boats farther out, others heading for shore. Artillery opened up on our four boats-probably 77-mm. guns. It was poor shooting-we made it to the beach...
Wreckage. I walked south along the beach with an artillery captain from Iowa whose guns had not yet arrived. We counted nearly 100 dead Americans on the beach or within a few yards of it. There were also many wounded who had been treated by Corpsmen but had not yet been evacuated to an aid station. Mostly the dead were gathered in groups of two or three, probably hit by the same artillery bursts. Perhaps two-thirds of them had been treated, then had died of their great, jagged wounds or had been hit a second time as they...