Subject: Morotai Landing Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 This is one version of Morotai Landing. More on Morotai to follow. TOM Olden Times #568 Thomas M. Deas, MD I was transferring some of my poetry that I have saved over the years and found a number of them were written on Morotai Island. Morotai was a small Island, about 25 by 35 miles in area, in the Netherlands East Indies - at least it was when I was there. I don't know what they call that area now. It was about 15 miles across the straits, east of Halmahera, an Island north of the head of the island of New Guinea. I'll never forget it. It was the only Island that we made a landing on to establish a beachhead. We had practically no resistance, so it didn't make much news. But when we landed there, ours was the unit farthest west in the Pacific. Our division was loaded on to convoy ships from landing ships tank (LST's*) and LCI's, and even on to an Australian luxury liner that had been converted to an auxillary cruiser and later to a troop carrier. There were a couple of hundred ships in the convoy, including 3 aircraft carriers, a couple of cruisers, and several destroyers, and I don't know what else. I was on the Australian troop carrier with most of our regiment. Since my Colonel was the ranking line officer then, I was the Ship Surgeon for Troops. My regiment boarded off the coast of Aitape. The rest of our division was up in the Wadke-Sarmi area. If I remember, there were troops from the 33rd Division and the 43rd Division in the convoy. However, we didn't pay much attention to the other ships. I had enough problems on my ship. I found maggots in some of the food and had reports of poor living conditions for our troops down in the hold. I just reported to the Colonel and he straightened everything out. Boy, he loved telling those Aussie ship officers how the "Cow ate the Cabbage!" As far as I was concerned, I assigned medical care to the various medical officers and medics on the ship. Of note, MacArthur was present in the convoy on the cruiser Nashville. While on the ship we had meetings to learn about Morotai Island. There was a scale model of the island in one of the cabins. We were told where and when we would land, as well as how far we would go on D-Day, what to expect and something about the people on the island. We knew they were a mixture of Polynesian, Melanesian and Malay. Most of them were Mohammedans. They grew coconuts on the coastal plain, but I don't know what they really did for subsistence. To me they didn't have any lucrative businesses. Anyway, I was caught down in the bottom of that ship one time when they had a submarine alert, or an aircraft alert. I want to tell you, it isn't a pleasant feeling. They shut all the doors to every way out from one section and deck to another. In other words, during that alert, my First Sergeant and I were locked in and couldn't go up, down or forward or aft in that ship. It is not only hot, no air moving, but I was scared to death. Of course, I couldn't let my Sergeant know that, so I just sat down on a stair to the deck above and waited. If I had had long fingernails, I would have put holes in the palms of my hands. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the Captain announce over the intercom system, "All is clear!". He said it two or three times, but I'll guarantee that I heard it the first time. Then all the doors to up, down, forward and aft were automatically opened. I assure you that I made it to the deck immediately! We made our landing on 15 September, l944. We had been told that we would arise at 4 AM and have steak for breakfast. That was a lie. We were awakened at 3 AM and fed macaroni and spam with coffee or tea, and we were brought up on deck at about 4:30 AM, where we went to our assigned stations. There were 30 of us at each station. Meanwhile the ship had stopped dead in the water, the cruisers and destroyers were bombarding the coast (all the settlers had been warned to go into the mountains, and they had). Meanwhile many of our soldiers had boarded their LCM landing boats and were circling in groups of 30 with 30 soldiers in each landing craft. Then, on signal, they lined up abreast and all of a sudden there was a roar and each of them "took off" for the beach. Immediately the second wave was debarked and went through the same procedure. I was in the second wave. I came down into that LCM with a bunch of youngsters. It is peculiar - No one got seasick in our LCM and there was plenty reason to because the flat bottomed landing craft rode every wave. I didn't see anyone sick, all were looking ahead toward the front, some had little nervous laughs, all held on to their rifles tight, and then we took off, after having circled until the 2nd wave was manned. We took off abreast and the motors wide open! I really didn't know what to expect on that beach. In about 15 minutes, more or less, the bottom of our craft ground against coral reefs and stopped dead. The front of the boat was dropped and we were "wide open". I expected to get shot, but I wasn't. I got out of that craft, following the fellow ahead of me, who stepped into water up to his nose! However, I was lucky and stepped on a coral reef. We were over 100 yards from shore and we waded in, most of the time in neck deep water! Thankfully, there was no shooting on the beach. I think the Japanese soldiers had gone inland, but there were some Jap aircraft that attacked us and some of the landing craft until they were dispensed with. When I got to shore, I had a casualty. A Major had been knocked down by a falling coconut tree and had broken his upper leg. I didn't have any splints, so I used the frond from the tree that fell on him along with roller bandage. It worked wonders. The frond at the tree had a spread out area that fit in the groin. That with the pull of the roller bandage and the springiness of the frond made a perfect traction splint. He was sent back to a hospital ship that was in our convoy. After a period of time we proceeded inland. I always stayed with regimental headquarters which always stayed behind the lead battalion of the regiment. We passed a destroyed native village, found a cache of Alaskan salmon in cans (and took it), a lime tree, and then some natives coming back out of the hills. I saw one person who was shot. It was a 10 year old native girl shot by a Jap officer. Her wounds were on each side of the neck, but were not life threatening. I sent her back to the hospital ship also. We moved on up the beach for about 2 miles and bivouacked for the day. We all dug foxholes, more or less, but the ground below 10 inches was solid coral. Our beachhead was probably the least dangerous of any in the Pacific, and I don't regret it. The only thing about it was the fact that WE DIDN'T KNOW it was going to be that easy. It was 15 miles across the bay, or straits, to Halmahera where there were 50,000-60,000 Japanese troops and a batch of planes. Oh, there were Japs on the Island with us. We dispensed with some almost every day for a while. Within 2 days the Sea Bees were on the island building a first class air strip that held as many as 500 planes, and sent planes to Borneo, Maylasia and the Philippines, bombing oil fields, air strips and whatever. Of course it took several odd days to get the strip leveled off, packed down with crushed coral and whatever. I'll tell you more about Morotai later on. It was a beautiful island, and across the straits on Halmahera was a volcano that smoked all the time and caused some of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thomas M. Deas, M.D. Transcribed by Paul M. Webber on 16 February 2002 Home Page: http://home.pcisys.net/~pwebber/31_id/rtw.htm