and a seasick mess line, Harry the Hawk
sees potential: “Closing in on the chow
line, redolent with the spicy aroma of spaghetti and meatballs, The Hawk pasted a
look of grim determination on his face,
as though he was maintaining control of
his heaving stomach only through sheer
willpower.
“As he came abreast of the messman
who was doling out ladles of spaghetti,
The Hawk, with a thin trickle of saliva
dribbling from the corners of his mouth,
let loose with a long, gaseous belch and
pitched face first into the serving tray.
From the depth of the serving tray came
a bubbling, gurgling, regurgitating medley
of retching sounds that could have turned
the stomach of a bronze statue.”
There is an insight in Bevilacqua’s prose,
a primeval need that says, “If you are
going to tell me a story, spin me a yarn!”
This fits into the lore of the Corps and its
sea stories like a watertight door: There
are few forms of expression as creative
and entertaining.
It is Al Bevilacqua’s specialty. He did
more in those 32 years of service than
shine his boots and brass. He is a veteran
of the Korean and Vietnam wars. He served
as a machine-gunner, seagoing Marine,
drill instructor, forward observer, intelligence officer and instructor at the Marine
Corps’ Command and Staff College and
Amphibious Warfare School, Quantico,
Va. From Morocco and Algeria, to China
and Vietnam, his decades of active duty
took him all over the world. Consequently, he not only remembers, but also causes
crack-ups when telling “The Way It Was.”
He cautions readers: “If you are part of
today’s Marine Corps, and if it is in fact
fun, keep it to yourself. If the Commandant finds out how much fun you’re having, he just might make you give back
some of the money. The Marine Corps is
still a thrifty outfit.”
We hope he’s right in that there’s still
room for such antics in the Corps.
To capture the meaning and irony of
such yarns, it would have taken most writers, especially Herman Melville, 300 pages
to say the same thing. Thanks, Al, for telling us with humor and brevity “The Way
It Was.”
THE ULTIMATE BATTLE: Okinawa 1945—The Last
Epic Struggle of World War II. By Bill Sloan. Published by Simon & Schuster. 416 pages. Stock
#0743292464. $24.30 MCA Members. $27 Regular Price.
The bloody campaign on the island of
Okinawa, known by the military planners
as Operation Iceberg, was truly the “
ultimate battle” ever fought by the American
military. The number of forces involved,
the length of the operation and the staggering casualties provide testament to this.
Consider: The combined U.S. Tenth
Army pitted 541,000 air, sea and land
forces against the 110,000 troops of the
Japanese Thirty-second Army. At the end
of the three-month struggle, 107,539
“Soldiers of the Sun” had been killed in
action. America mourned 12,274 of her
sons killed, 36,707 wounded, and an additional 26,000 servicemen were listed as
non-battle casualties. To this astonishing
casualty count, it is estimated that 140,000
Okinawan civilians perished in the conflagration; and, many by their own hand.
On April Fools’ Day 1945, the largest
seaborne armada ever assembled landed
Army troops and First and Sixth Marine
divisions on the southwest coast of the island. Initially, the landings were a surprising success. Seemingly unopposed, the
commander of the naval forces reported
to Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz: “I
must be crazy, but it looks like the Japanese have quit the war. …” The admiral’s
reply was brief, ironic and to the point:
“Delete all after crazy.”
Dissimilar to prior Japanese tactics,
they fortified three inland ridgelines with
a honeycomb of well-concealed interlocking cave systems. The Japanese intended
to force the Americans to trade their precious blood for gains that could be measured only in feet and yards.
As May turned into June, the force of
nature became a limiting factor on the
campaign. The heavens unleashed torrents
of rain, which turned the island’s battlefield into rivers of mud, mire and sludge.
The psychological strain upon the combatants created conditions that broke the
mind and spirit of a record number of
combat veterans. As each fortified ridge-line was secured by costly “corkscrew
and blowtorch” techniques, the Japanese
skillfully withdrew their forces to the
next maze of fighting positions.
At sea, the Navy was assaulted by wave
after wave of Japanese pilots who were
determined to trade their lives for ships.
Flights of American fighters coupled with
torrents of the antiaircraft fire knocked
most attackers out of the sky, but an alarming number managed to slam into their
floating targets. Bill Sloan, the author of
[continued on page 58]
T359
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R. R. Keene
Editor’s note: Leatherneck readers will
recognize a couple of the yarns in Bevilacqua’s “The Way It Was.” While waiting for publication of the book, we printed
two of the stories as articles: “Next Time
I Send Damn Fool I Go Myself” in the
October 2006 issue and “Get Away From
Me, You Damn Lunatic” in the October
2007 issue. We appreciate the publisher’s
earlier permission to print them.
