Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 61899
LtGen Alexander A. Vandegrift was an early commander of IMAC.
The men in the rifle battalions long remembered the sight. On one occasion, a Marine Corsair was about to pull the trigger on an enemy Zeke (“Zero”) fighter set up perfectly in the pilot’s sights when a burst of fire from Marine .50-caliber machine guns on the beach, meant for the Zeke, shot the American down. One of the riflemen later recalled that the Marine pilot fell into the ocean and surfaced with a broken leg. “We waded out to get him. He was ticked off—mostly because he missed the Jap.”
In spite of all these problems, the assault battalions had, by the end of D-Day, reached their objectives on the Initial Beachhead Line, 600–1,000 yards inland. One enormous unexpected obstacle, however, had now become painfully clear. Available maps were nearly useless, and a large, almost impenetrable swamp, with water three to six feet deep, lay right behind the beaches and made movement inland and lateral contact among the Marine units impossible.
The night of D-Day was typical for the ground troops. By 1800, darkness had set in and the men all knew the iron-clad rule: be in your foxhole and stay there. Anyone moving around out there was a Japanese soldier trying to infiltrate. John A. Monks, Jr., quoted a Marine in his book, A Ribbon and a Star:
From seven o’clock in the evening till dawn, with only centipedes and lizards and scorpions and mosquitoes begging to get acquainted—wet, cold, exhausted, but unable to sleep—you lay there and shivered and thought and hated and prayed. But you stayed there. You didn’t cough, you didn’t snore, you changed your position with the least amount of noise. For it was still great to be alive.
At sea, the transports and cargo ships were withdrawn; there was intelligence that enemy naval forces were on the move.
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Major General Allen H. Turnage, USMC
