Johnston County’s Victors in the Pacific By Benjamin Sanderford
Air Liaison Capt. James Robert Barbour was already a veteran when he boarded a landing craft on July 21, 1944 off the coast of Guam, deep in the Pacific. The Benson native was awarded the Air Medal “for extraordinary achievement” during antisubmarine patrols in the Atlantic the previous year.
U.S. Marines and soldiers, however, were having a much more difficult time on land. The Japanese garrison contested every part of Saipan, killing and injuring many Americans. Marine Pfc. Edward P. Cunningham of Smithfield was among the wounded, shot below the hip, the bullet breaking his left leg.
He was then transferred to the Pacific, where he took part in the battle to evict Japanese forces from Eniwetok Atoll in February. The fight must have felt like a personal mission for him, considering that Japanese troops took his brother, Navy radioman Stewart Gordon Barbour, prisoner in China back in December 1941.
Nevertheless, the Japanese suffered heavier losses and it was clear by the first week of July that the island would fall. Consequently, Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Saitō ordered his surviving soldiers to make a final suicidal charge on July 7.
From Eniwetok, Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance moved his Fifth Fleet to the Mariana Islands, the capture of which would put Japan itself in range of American B-29 bombers. For that reason, the Japanese high command prepared for a showdown. U.S. forces made their first landing on Saipan on June 15. Four days later, hundreds of aircraft from the Japanese fleet attacked. The resulting Battle of the Philippine Sea was the largest fight between carrierborn planes in history. It was also the end of the Imperial Navy’s air arm. Worn down by attrition, most Japanese squadrons were filled with raw recruits, no match for their veteran opponents. So one-sided was the battle that American airmen dubbed it the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” 38 | JOHNSTON NOW
After sending his men to their deaths, Saitō killed himself. Thousands of Japanese civilians on Saipan, deceived by the high command’s propaganda into believing that Americans were bloodthirsty brutes, also committed suicide. This set the pattern for the remainder of the war. Guam was the U.S. Navy’s next target. So it was that Capt. Barbour and the Marines for whom he was to arrange air support found themselves speeding into the teeth of enemy beach defenses two weeks after the conquest of Saipan. Their amphibious boat landed farther down than intended at the base of an incline. It started to climb, but then the driver saw a Japanese pill box directly in front. One blast from its gun killed most of the Marines. Barbour, badly wounded in the leg, somehow managed to crawl to a rock by
the water’s edge which he hid behind for three hours before receiving medical treatment. The last Japanese stronghold on Guam fell on Aug. 8. The Marianas were secure, but it was clear that every step towards Japan would come at great cost. While the fighting in the Central Pacific raged, Johnston County men faced an equally daunting challenge on the great island of New Guinea. Here Pvt. Marvin H. Capps of Smithfield and Pvt. Leroy Bailey of Four Oaks, along with their Australian allies, had to fight the elements as well as the Japanese. Cpl. Carl V. Creech, a ground crewman in the Army Air Corps, later described the campaign as “a long, slow process” to overcome the “jungle, mountains, tremendous heat and tropical fever.” Creech’s unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for “meritorious achievement in action,” but the Smithfield High School graduate was conscious of the price paid for victory. “I experienced many things in New Guinea, yet there were no experiences that I recall as pleasant,” he said. Then, referring to the friends killed there, he added, “I can’t forget them.” By the end of summer 1944, reeling from defeats at Biak, Noemfoor and Aitape, the Japanese forces in and around New Guinea were crippled.
For his contribution in these and seven other engagements, Coast Guard Seaman Herbert Aycock of Micro won a commendation from General Douglas MacArthur. Now, MacArthur believed, he could avenge the 1942 loss of the Philippines, the worst military defeat in American history. Fortunately, there were sound strategic reasons for reclaiming the islands. In particular, they sat next to the sea lanes from Japan to resource-rich occupied Southeast Asia. U.S. forces landed at Leyte Gulf on Oct. 20, 1944. Once again, the Japanese admirals reacted with a desperate attack. The Imperial Navy’s nearly empty remaining carriers would draw the U.S. ships out of position while two battleship groups converged on Leyte Gulf. Success would depend on closing with the Americans. The U.S. Navy lost several ships in the resulting battle, including the light carrier USS Princeton, fatally damaged on Oct. 24 by a land-based Japanese divebomber, forcing Oscar Bernice Grice of Selma to abandon ship. Grice, who had also survived the destruction of the USS Hornet in 1942, was cited for “meritorious conduct.” Nevertheless, 28 Japanese ships were destroyed, most notably the super battleship Musashi. The Imperial Navy, badly hit at the Philippine Sea, was now a spent force.
