Pacific Time on Target: Memoirs of a Marine Artillery Officer, 1943–1945

Images

Captain Christopher S. Donner, First Marine Division, in photograph taken at war’s end. (Christopher S. Donner) French barracks at Noumea, New Caledonia. (Christopher S. Donner) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 1 3/28/12 10:48 AM Lt. Col. William J. Scheyer (shown here as a colonel in April 1945), the CO of the Ninth Defense Battalion in 1943. (U.S. Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia) The Japanese airfield at Munda Point, in a photo taken in July 1943, the intended target of the Ninth Defense’s “Long Toms.” The horseshoe-like features below the airstrip are revetments for the protection of planes from U.S. strafing. (NARA) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 2 3/28/12 10:48 AM A Ninth Defense 155 mm “Long Tom” rolls ashore from an LST on Rendova Island in preparation for the bombardment of Munda. (NARA) “Murderers’ Row”: Battery A’s 155 mm guns in action on Rendova. (NARA) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 3 3/28/12 10:48 AM Black Friday, July 2, 1943: A 2½-ton truck smolders after the Japanese air raid. Note Battery A (“A-6”) marking on the truck’s bumper. (USMC) A near miss: Smoke from a Japanese bomb that landed nearby drifts over a Battery A “Long Tom” near Suicide Point, July 2, 1943. (USMC) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 4 3/28/12 10:48 AM A Battery E gun crew stencils enemy flags on the barrel of their 90 mm gun after the July 4, 1943, raid, in which Battery E set a record by downing twelve of sixteen Japanese bombers with eighty-eight rounds. Platoon Sgt. Robert Wattles does the painting, while Lieutenant Colonel Scheyer holds the stencil; at far right is Battery E’s CO, Capt. William Tracy. (NARA) A damaged photo of the Ninth’s tormentor, “Pistol Pete,” after its capture on Baanga Island. (NARA) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 5 3/28/12 10:48 AM Loading and firing one of the 155 mm Group’s Long Toms. (NARA) Munda Point airfield after its seizure on August 5, 1943, and reopening of the airstrip by Seabees and Marine aviation units. Compare this photo with the aerial photo taken in early July to gauge the full extent of the area’s bombardment by the shattered palm trees. This view is taken from Bibilo Hill. (USMC) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 6 3/28/12 10:48 AM Maj. Robert C. Hiatt. This photo was taken of Hiatt as a lieutenant colonel on Okinawa in 1945, as he tested a pair of captured Japanese Nambu heavy and light machine guns. (USMC) Chris’s tentmate and A Battery’s executive officer, Charles E. Townsend, in front of an English -made washbasin on Nusalavata , fall 1943. (Christopher S. Donner) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 7 3/28/12 10:48 AM Taken in early 1944 in the Ninth’s “R&R” camp on Banika in the Russells, this depicts half of A Battery, 155 mm Group. In the inset, Donner is at the far topmost right corner; half-standing in front of him is his CO and fellow Philadelphian, Capt. Henry H. Reichner Jr. (Christopher S. Donner) Lieutenant Donner in field uniform, autumn 1944. (Christopher S. Donner) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 8 3/28/12 10:48 AM CO of the Third Battalion, Eleventh Marines, Lt. Col. Thomas G. Roe, in 1945. (USMC) The invasion fleet at anchor on the evening of “L-Day” on Okinawa. LST-70, in the right foreground, was reputed to have fought in every seaborne landing operation in the Pacific. (NARA) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 9 3/28/12 10:48 AM Marine LVT(A)-4 armored amphtracks, such as the one on which Donner served, lead the first invasion wave on Okinawa, Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945. (USMC) The initial landings on L-Day were virtually unopposed. Here, Marine infantrymen , accompanied by an LVT and a M4 Sherman, advance inland. (NARA) 00 Donner photo sig.indd 10 3/28/12 10:49 AM This oblique aerial photograph shows the initial landing beaches, the zones of demarcation between the two Marine divisions (First and Sixth), and Yontan airfield, where G Company of the Seventh Marines would meet up with elements of the...