heavyartillery | [REFERENCE] Ack-Ack & Hillbilly mentions from "Islands of the Damned"

Blatantly copying Tec, here is what R.V. Burgin has to say about Ack-Ack and Hillbilly. There are spoilers for the show.

R.V. Burgin on
Captain Andrew Allison Haldane, a.k.a. “Ack-Ack”
Company Commander of K/3/5

Captain Andrew Allison Haldane—we called him “Ack-Ack” on account of his initials—called nine or ten of us in. He had a special assignment for us. Besides myself, there was Hillbilly Jones, John Teskevich, Jim Day, George Sarrett, Paul R. Yarborough, P. A. Wilson and a few others.

Captain Haldane had been K/3/5's commander the night we fought off five banzai charges on New Britain. They'd awarded him the Silver Star for that. He was as well liked as any officer I knew. I never heard him raise his voice at any man. He was firm, but he was a gentleman, and compassionate.

We were to take the boat across to Banika, he told us, and guard a storehouse for two weeks. Wed heard of Banika, but none of us had been there. Everything good came from Banika. The Navy had a supply dump on the island. If we got fresh meat, it came over from Banika. If we got fresh eggs, they were from Banika.

One of us asked what wed be guarding. Beer and soda pop, Haldane told us. A whole warehouse. Thousands of cases. It was like sending foxes to guard the chicken coop.

I figured afterward that Captain Haldane and our first sergeant, Mo Darsey, had gone down a list and handpicked us for the assignment. I can’t speak for myself, but everyone else chosen was a top-notch Marine. I felt proud to be in their company.

In the graying light before dawn, Sledge looked over at the figure lying in the road. Somehow it didn’t look Jap. He wore Marine leggings. Sledge crawled over for a closer look.

He recognized the fallen man instantly. It was Bill Middlebrook, one of the riflemen. He had a hole in his temple.

“My God,” Sledge gasped.

A sergeant ran over. “Did he get shot by one of the Japs?”

Sledge couldn’t answer.

The man who had crawled into the road to see who was groaning turned pale. With quivering lips, he went straight to the command post to report what had happened.

A little later that morning Captain Haldane appeared and, one by one, questioned the men who had been close enough to have seen at least part of what happened the night before. How many Japs? he wanted to know.

Two, Sledge told him. Only two.

Had Sledge seen who shot Middlebrook?

Yes, he had, Sledge replied.

Captain Haldane nodded. Sledge should keep that information to himself, he said. This had been a tragic mistake, and there was nothing now that would bring Middlebrook back. The Marine who shot him would feel it for the rest of his life.

Captain Haldane, Johnny Marmet, Sergeant Jim McEnery and a couple other NCOs had made their way to the top and were flat on their bellies trying to figure out how to get a look at the other side. Second Battalion’s own machine gunners were dug in so low, they could hardly see what they were shooting at. They had to sight their guns by looking under the barrels.

This was not satisfactory to Captain Haldane, who was himself an old machine gunner. He slithered forward a few feet and cautiously raised his head.

Everybody heard a sharp thwack and knew instantly what it meant.

Those who were close enough said his head just exploded. There was no point in even calling for a corpsman.

We had just arrived at the foot of the hill, looking for our new positions, when Sergeant Marmet came stumbling down the slope, a Thompson submachine gun dangling from his hand by the strap. I knew the moment I saw his face something had happened.

“Hey, Johnny,” I said. “What’s going on?”

He shuffled his feet and gazed off for a moment. “Okay, guys, let’s get squared away here,” he said. Then silence. We looked at one another.

“What the hell’s wrong?” I asked.

“The Japs got the skipper a few minutes ago on the ridge,” he said. It was like a kick in the stomach.

Somebody threw down the base plate and the mortar tube. Somebody said, “Goddamn.” Sledge turned away. We stood there paralyzed and silent.

Finally Marmet pulled himself together. “All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s move out.” And we did.

It was more than a death in the family, losing Hillbilly Jones and Andy Haldane like that. They had been on Guadalcanal together, on New Britain and Peleliu. I found out later Haldane had been about to recommend me for the Silver Star for our action at the bunker on Ngesebus. He was killed before he could write it up. It didn’t make things any better and it didn’t make things any worse, as far as I was concerned. Hillbilly and Ack-Ack had been the core of our officers, leaders of men.

R.V. Burgin on
1st Lieutenant Edward A. Jones, a.k.a. “Hillbilly”
Leader of K/3/5’s Machine-Gun Platoon

I had no trouble with other officers. Sledge, in his book With the Old Breed, was too hard on officers, in my opinion. But even Sledge liked Hillbilly Jones. We all liked Hillbilly.

First Lieutenant Edward A. Jones had been with us on New Britain, and he would be with us on Peleliu, for a time. He was the most—I don’t know what the word is —disciplinary officer I was ever around. He wasn’t a horse’s patoot. He didn’t make up his own rules. He went by the book. His mind-set was, You’re a Marine, and you’re going to act like a Marine whether you’re in the States or out here in combat. That’s the way it's going to be.

Whenever we’d fall in for morning roll call, standing in ranks, he’d be out in front and he’d inspect the rifles. He’d spent five years as a seagoing Marine, so he was sharp. I mean he would pull that rifle— snap!—and twirl it— snap!—and it would come back to you— snap! He had it all. When you fell in, your collar was buttoned, your cuffs were buttoned. You stood erect. You didn’t slouch. You stood like a Marine. From reveille to recall in the afternoon he was as GI as they ever came, I’ll guarantee you.

But after recall turned us loose at four o’clock, Hillbilly was a different human being. He’d wander down to our tents carrying the guitar he always had with him and sit around and we’d sing and shoot the bull all night. Coming over from New Britain, we’d gather around Hillbilly on the deck of the Elmore singing one song after another. “Waltzing Matilda” was popular, from our stay in Melbourne. We sang “Danny Boy,” and “She’s Nobody’s Darling But Mine.” My own favorite was “San Antonio Rose.”

For some reason I always thought Hillbilly was from West Virginia, because he knew every country and western song. The fact of it is, he was from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, right on the Maryland border. Hillbilly was the leader of K Company’s machine-gun platoon, and the kind of officer you always wanted to have somewhere near you in a battle. He was soft-spoken, always calm and reassuring. Nothing rattled him.

When everybody else was sweating and filthy, Hillbilly always looked fresh scrubbed. None of us knew how he did it.

One Saturday night on Banika four of us were sitting around— Hillbilly Jones, Yarborough, myself, and somebody else. Maybe Sarrett. I can’t recall. We were pouring 190-proof alcohol in the bottom of a canteen cup and filling the rest with grapefruit juice. We were singing and telling jokes and drinking that stuff, and by ten thirty we started to run low on grapefruit juice, and so we poured in more alcohol.

Oh, my God. You talk about drunk. I had to put all three of them to bed, I mean every single one. Haul him to his feet. There was a jeep outside that had a 250-gallon water tank on the back, with a spigot on the side. I’d wrestle each one out there and stick his head under the spigot and run water over him until I thought he could make it to the tent more or less upright. I’d get him there and put him on his cot. Tuck him in. All three of them.

On September 4, we filed back on board LST 661 and weighed anchor. There were more than sixteen thousand of us, aboard thirty LSTs and a handful of troop transports. LSTs are slow, about seven knots. So we got a head start. The faster transport ships sailed four days later and gradually caught up with us. We headed northwest through the Solomon Islands, then along the east coast of New Guinea toward the equator. We passed through a couple rain squalls, but otherwise we were on a calm, beautiful sea. We sat on the deck cleaning and recleaning salt corrosion off our weapons. We took our ammo out of the clips, polished it and reloaded. We sharpened our KA-BARS, packed and repacked our gear. Sometimes the Navy would throw a couple barrels overboard and their gunners would practice shooting at them.

Afternoons some of us gathered around Hillbilly Jones. We sang “Red River Valley” or some other favorite.

From this valley they say you are going,
I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile ...

“Quiet that man!” Hillbilly ordered. Someone else called for our corpsman.

The dog handler was screaming louder. “Help me. Oh, dog! God! Help me! Help me!”

“Shut that man up!” Hillbilly hissed.

Several of us were wrestling him now, while the corpsman got out his syringe. He gave him a shot of morphine, but it just seemed to egg him on. He howled louder, calling on his dog, or God, to save him.

“The Japs have got me! The Japs have got me! Save me, dog!”

The corpsman gave him another shot, enough morphine by now to kill a horse. Anything to shut him up. He went on yelling, kicking and punching at anyone who came near. If the Japs couldn’t hear him, we were sure they were deaf.

Hillbilly was trying to talk him down in low, soothing tones. “It’s okay, son. You’re going to be okay.”

He kept yelling.

Someone said, “Hit him! Shut him the hell up!” And someone else grabbed an entrenching tool and swung.

We heard a sharp whang!, and then silence.

We sat there for a long time, nobody talking. To tell the truth, we were more rattled than if the Japs had come.

Hillbilly got on the phone to battalion headquarters. Major John Gustafson had taken over from Colonel Walt as commander.

“John, we need to come out of here,” Hillbilly said.

We couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation.

“No, John. I’m telling you, we need to come out of here. We’ve had a situation here and everybody’s nerves are shot. We need to get the hell out.”

By daybreak a tank found its way to us through the jungle. We’d covered the body of the dog handler with his poncho and loaded it on the tank and started back, through the dripping trees.

We had a couple Army tanks along with us this time to provide cover. We were taking rifle and mortar fire from several places along a cliff, but we couldn’t see where it was coming from. Hillbilly Jones’s rifle squad was just up the road, and as the morning dragged on a couple of his men were hit, and one of them was killed. Hillbilly decided to try to get a better view of the shooters from one of the tanks. I was about 150 feet away directing mortar fire and I didn’t see everything that happened. But after discussing the situation briefly with a staff officer from battalion headquarters, Hillbilly climbed onto the back of the tank and scrambled forward to slap the side of the turret to alert the gunner what he was up to. He was just peeking around the turret when a single shot hit him in the side and knocked him down. He rolled off the tank into the road, and the call went out for a corpsman. While we watched, Hillbilly picked himself up, bleeding from the side, and pulled himself back onto the tank. Then he stood up. The next shot caught him in the chest and knocked him flat again. This time he didn’t move.

Word spread down the line—Hillbilly’s been hit. By the time I got to the tank, stretcher bearers had carried away the body. All the memories came flooding back. Hillbilly carrying his guitar down to our tents on Pavuvu. Lazy days singing and cracking jokes on the deck of a troopship. Guard duty drinking grapefruit juice and alcohol, and afterward the hangover, on Banika.

A new cemetery appeared alongside the main runway at the airfield. Somewhere among the crosses Hillbilly Jones and Andrew Haldane were at rest. Altogether, the First Marine Division had lost more than 1,250 Marines on Peleliu. More than 5,400 had been wounded.

Somebody yelled from the boat on our right, “We’re going in unopposed.” We passed the word to the boat on our left, and the news traveled all along the line, boat to boat. “Unopposed landing!”

“I don’t believe this!” somebody else yelled.

No bodies floated in the water. No snipers’ bullets whined over our heads. Just the steady beat of the amtrac’s diesel and the churn of water against the hull.

They hadn’t held our company in reserve because the whole landing was running so smoothly. They didn’t figure they'd need us later on.

In our relief, somebody started singing “Little Brown Jug.” We all joined in.

Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don’t I love thee!

It had been one of Hillbilly’s favorites.