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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

The Imperial Army, however, still had some fight left. It took until Feb. 3, 1945 for the Americans to reach the Philippine capital, Manila. Once there, they faced weeks of bitter street fighting.

Much of the city was destroyed, and many civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese, but the battle was won by March 3. Army Pfc. Jesse B. Daughtry of Smithfield showed exceptional bravery when he and another soldier established communications between the platoons of their company by unrolling some wire across a street within sight of the enemy.

Already a recipient of the Combat Infantryman Badge for his “exemplary conduct in combat” on the island of Bougainville in January 1944, Daughtry was given the Bronze Star for his gallantry at Manila.

The Second Philippine Campaign would continue until the end of the war. Talmadge “Cole” Sanders would be killed when his ship, the USS Underhill, fell prey to an enemy torpedo in Manila Bay on July 24, 1945. But the damage to Japan’s position was done.

While the Americans were overwhelming Japan’s island garrisons, the bulk of the Imperial Army was bogged down on the Asian mainland. They were opposed by Johnstonians there too.

Flight Officer Alvin V. Boykin of Kenly was stationed with a transport unit tasked with ferrying equipment to the Chinese, who had lost millions of their citizens to Japanese atrocities. He also made flights to Burma, where a British- Indian army battled to push the invaders back.

Meanwhile, American submarines prowled the sea, making it impossible for the Japanese to ship raw materials back to the home islands. As early as 1943, Ensign Ben Grimes reported while on leave to the Smithfield Kiwanis Club that “77 percent” of sinkings were due to submarines. Japan was being strangled.

Simultaneously, U.S. bombers in the Marianas were pounding Japanese cities. The death toll was sobering, 100,000 civilians died during a March 10, 1945, raid on Tokyo alone. Sadly, this did not convince the Japanese government to surrender. U.S. leaders began preparations to invade the home islands.

Marines landed on Iwo Jima on Feb. 19 expecting to clear the island in three days. It took a full month instead, despite the Feb. 23 raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi, famously photographed by Joe Rosenthal.

James Paul “Dick” Gardner of Smithfield was among 6,800 American fatalities. Nearly 18,500 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders also died. These figures paled beside the losses on Okinawa.

The fighting there (April 1 – June 22) claimed 80,000 U.S. casualties, including Marine Private Roy Godwin of Benson, killed on April 15. Some 100,000 Japanese soldiers perished along with another 100,000 Okinawan civilians, many of whom were forced to kill themselves by the Japanese military authorities.

Afraid that an invasion of Japan itself would cost the U.S. unacceptable losses, President Harry S Truman gave the controversial order to drop two brand new atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9). They are still recovering today.

In reaction to this horrifying destruction and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on his country, Emperor Hirohito called on his subjects to surrender on Aug. 15. Johnston County servicemen breathed a sigh of relief. The nightmare of world war was over.

Benjamin Sanderford, a resident of Clayton, studied social science at UNC Greensboro. He can be reached at benwsanderford@gmail.com.