Subject: Those Eyes Date: Saturday, 8 June 2002 From: Thomas Deas To: Paul Webber Paul, "Those Eyes" was written back in about the late l980s. I still see them. Tom ----------------------------------------------------------------- Olden Times #636 Thomas M. Deas, M.D. There are visions of the past that seem to return much too often to haunt me. They poke back into the conscious mind until they control thoughts and conscience. They sometimes bring about a depression of the whole self. Hopefully writing about it will alleviate the situation. The whole deal is irrational. It shouldn't be a big problem, but it gets to be that way, sometimes. So I am going to write about it - not that the reader or anyone can do anything about it - but it has been bottled so long, maybe you can understand. I can see that face right now, just as plain as I saw it on that day in August l944. It was the face of a Japanese soldier lying alone on a makeshift litter by a trail deep in the jungle covered foothills of the Owen Stanley Mountains near Aitape, Papua, New Guinea. Evidently he had been, and was, very sick. He was lying on an elevated litter made of small limbs and grass. His body was bloated, swollen, edematous. His face was pale, almost ashen, and swollen also. But that isn't what keeps coming back. It is the expression on that face. Evidently his fellow soldiers had been unable to continue to care for, or carry him, and they left him as comfortable as possible beside the trail, most probably to die. As I looked at his face, I could see a fleeting glimmer of hope, quickly replaced by resignation, a quiet fear, a far away look seeking help with an absolute knowledge that there was none. He seemed to peer though space, maybe back to his home. Then he slowly turned his head away from me - looking toward the thick jungle, probably to keep from seeing what he knew was inevitable - not making a sound or moving any other part of his body. He just gave up... We had been fighting for about four weeks on the beach, along a river line and in the jungle, with a beach perimeter below Aitape on and near the Driniumor River. We had come into that area in the first part of July l944 to relieve Units of the 32nd Division. They were exhausted. MacArthur had landed this Division at Aitape to secure an airstrip and PT Boat base, bypassing and cutting off Wewak from the North and Western New Guinea. Wewak was the supply base for all Japanese Units to the South. It was a Naval Base and had troops numbering about 75,000, less about 20,000 that were moving up the Afua Trail toward Aitape to reenforce it and the Wadke Saarmi area. It was figured that some 12,000 Japanese were in the Driniumor and Aitape area. At the time our unit arrived it was figured that the Main Line of Defense for Aitape was only 800 yards from the airstrip. Our unit, the 124th Infantry Regimental Combat Team from the 31st Infantry Division had arrived by sea from Oro Bay, several hundred miles southeast of Aitape. After a week or more of planning and equipping, we mounted an offensive, pushing the enemy back across the Driniumor, killing or running many off into the hills, cutting off pockets, mopping up and then setting up a River Line of defense. This gave Aitape a 13 mile buffer. Meanwhile we repulsed repeated attacks over the next two weeks, killing over an estimated 6,000 of the enemy. After the River Line was stabilized and the 32nd Division had rested, it was decided that our Regimental Combat Team reinforced with a Battalion of the 43rd Division, just arrived from New Zealand, would make a "swathe" down the southeast by columns for a distance of several miles to Niumen Creek where we would regroup and turn into deeper jungle, up into the foothills of the Mountain Range, to a trail called the Afua Trail, which was the route of supply used by the Japs from Wewak. Meanwhile we would "mop up" all enemy troops cut off in this maneuver. The Mountains would be protecting our right flank. Neither the Japs nor Superman could get enough strength to launch any kind of attack from those trackless and impassable rainforests with their fast moving rivers given to rapid rises and falls, depending on the rain. The first day out we had encountered quite a bit of resistance and fighting along the established trails with evacuation of casualties outward toward my Hq. Medics along the beach. From there we used LCM's [Landing Craft Medium] to pick up our wounded. This went into the second day until we reached the point to turn into the jungle, up into the foothills and toward the Afua Trail. Meanwhile we were supplied by the boats and evacuated casualties by these LCM's. During this time we had much rain, several Self Inflicted Wounds a number too sick to continue as well as some WIA and KIA. When we turned into the foothills, it was the point of no return. At the end of that day Regt. Hq, its attached Units (AntiTank and Cannon Companies) and my Hq Medics joined with 2nd Bn. which was in a firefight near dark. It quieted down and we bedded down in bunkers with some 2nd Bn Medics. It meant no moving around during the dark, for every moving object was a target for all kind of weapons. Just at that time I received an 18 year old youngster from Alabama, shot low in the belly. This was a dangerous wound unless surgery was done shortly. It was also a very painful wound, but we had to maintain Blackout to prevent endangering the whole Battalion. So Sgt Wainwright and I held this youngster all night, giving morphine to ease him, knowing there was no way to operate or evacuate him. Holding this young man as he moaned in pain and bled all over both of us, calling for "Mother, Mother" all night, I wept and prayed in frustration all night because of his wound, his age and his pain, and because I could do NOTHING for him. He died just at daybreak. Our group in our bunker was a somber and exhausted group that morning. The dead were buried and their graves marked as we prepared to move on into the Jungle, but became involved in another fight that lasted all day. We had some KIA and WIA that we treated and used some AT [Anti-Tank] and Cannon Co. as litter bearers. Some wounded were able to walk with help. By night we had driven the Japs back and they broke off the fighting so that the next morn, with very little sleep we started off carrying our wounded. To evacuate would deplete us too much, so we carried them for "expediency." We didn't have any helicopters or roads or anyway to get them back. Cannon Co. and AT Co. helped with litters, which were makeshift with ponchos and tree limbs cut to size. We went up inclines almost 90 degrees and down in knee deep mud-up and down for a period of time. Each time we were higher in the hills and deeper in the jungle. Sometimes we crossed swift running streams and came out in open, frequently being sniped at. Sometimes it took 8 men to the litter, but mostly 4 with frequent relief. It was very strenuous going up inclines and down in gullies of mud. Those in the Battalions were carrying their own litters, and also fighting! When we got into the jungles, it was single file through a "tunnel," with tree limbs, vines and leaves blocking out the sunlight, walled by tree trunks, vines and exotic plants - and grasses! - all so thick one could not see through them. The trail was tortuous and narrow, hacked out by machetes of those ahead. Often one could not see the one ahead or behind him because of the tortuosity. The air was very hot and humid during the day and the ground was slick and wet and muddy. At night it was Cooooold. As we crossed creeks we filled our canteens and put iodine in them. Many times we saw yellow Jap telephone wire, which we cut. At the end of that day we were on fairly high ground that was clear enough to bivouac. We were completely exhausted, so tired that we didn't care if we lived or died, so tired that we wondered "if, when, where, ever." It was getting dark, with a full moon visible through the trees. We started digging in. We didn't eat. Didn't have anything to eat - no ration drop! Air currents in those mountains were bad and he couldn't find us. Later we had to fight for some of our ration drops. The Japs were hungry too. Just about the time we had a 6 inch deep foxhole, we received a 2nd Lt. shot in left upper belly, evidently getting his spleen, gut and stomach. We tried to ease him with morphine when, "spliiinnng," a sniper started his "sonata" that was to last all night. Sometimes he was close, sometimes the ricochets hit trees nearby, but he certainly was a great BOTHER, especially when he was joined by a couple more from different sites. With a full moon, a wounded soldier that didn't have any chance at all, but needed to be kept easy, we were in a pickle. Wainwright and I held that man all night, giving morphine, often to no avail. He died at about daybreak. My Sgt and I were covered with blood and completely exhausted, and frustrated!! All we could do was ease. We didn't even have any plasma, not that it would have helped. We were like Zombies from complete exhaustion. We might have slept 3-4 hours over the last 5 days here in this jungle filled with mosquitoes, night birds, noisy insects and snipers! Along with fatigue, constant fear, anxiety, frustration, cold wet nights, and smelling foul from stale sweat, dirt, rotten blood in our clothes, regular body odor and filth, we were a mess!!! The next morning we started out, after burying the dead and marking their graves. We stopped for a firefight, captured two Japs who were interrogated, taken in the jungle to "Division Headquarters" and cut down by Tommy Guns when just out of view. The situation made me nauseated, but we had no way to care for prisoners or take them back. We couldn't even take good care of wounded, much less prisoners. Killing them was a matter of "field expediency". It still made me sick! The next day or so seemed an eternity. Chronological events are blurred. I just remember that we kept on keeping on in the mud through that dark, damp jungle, sweating from the heat and from fear, too tired to really care, but always on the watch for an ambush. We were low on Medical Supplies and out of food, except for a rare cracker and some bouillon cubes which we didn't like. After several encounters with Japs, we would slog in for the night. Then, between the cold and wet jungle, that damn Jap sniper, severe fatigue, we would hurry and try to get to sleep, if we could, so that if we were picked off by that damn sniper, we wouldn't know about it. Of course we slept 3 together and one was awake at all times through the night. All of us were awake most of the night, usually. One morning we awoke, really just got up, and it was pouring down rain. Our lead Battalion was ambushed by a Jap group on higher ground and dug in, with Machine guns placed for most effectiveness. I still see that place and the rain and the severely wounded soldier that died before I could do anything for him. I remember trying to pop a needle in his vein for plasma. Where it came from I don't know because I didn't have any in Hq Section. We were trying to keep rain off with a poncho, bullets were cracking everywhere, grenades were exploding near Jap emplacements. Soon we killed them out, buried our dead and started out again. There we found two bedraggled creatures that we thought were Japs, but found they were Chinese Slave Laborers picked up by the Japs near Peking, China, two years before. They were about starved to death. They were fed from stowed crackers found here and there. They stayed with us for the rest of the war - through the NEI [Netherlands East Indies] and the Philippines - like two faithful pets! Shortly we picked up the march again and found we were astride the Afua Trail. He we bivouacked and had a ration drop. Before we stopped, we heard some explosions and found that several Jap Patients in a Jap Field Hospital had put grenades under their arms and killed themselves. THIS was the situation and state of being that I was in when I saw that face. Evidently he didn't have a grenade or weapon, as he lay on that elevated litter I described earlier. The Colonel called me over and wanted me to give him enough morphine to kill him. Kill him? Me? The thought absolutely made me sick. I couldn't do it. I had been taught to save lives, not take them. Yet in this war of survival, in anger, or fear or to save my life or one of my men, I guess I could have killed. I had taken the safety off my carbine during the beach attack several weeks before, but to walk up to someone and kill them, I couldn't do it. I looked into his face, that indescribable face. I shook my head and he turned his head and face from me. I turned away. He knew and I knew what was going to happen. At that time I heard the sound of a 45 cal pistol right close. I didn't look back. A cloud of silence hovered over us all as we walked north on the Afua Trail. Within a day or so we had accomplished our purpose. The Jap supply line was completely disrupted and they had sustained a complete defeat. I don't know how many of the enemy we killed - probably between 2000 and 4000. Here is where we had our food drop and were met by a column from the 32nd Div with a couple of hundred Native Litter Bearers. We dispatched them with all our wounded and sick. Our Colonel [Col. Edward M. (Ted) Starr] had a fever of 103 degrees. I sent some Medics back with them. They were back across the River before dark. They walked fast! The next day we started back and stopped on the south side of the River for the night. The next morn I took everything out of my pockets and walked out into that River and sat down until I thought my clothes were clean, then I pulled them off and washed me real good. Then we crossed and marched to the beach and rode to our Regt Area in trucks. We were all completely exhausted!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas M. Deas, M.D. Transcribed by Paul M. Webber on 8 June 2002, from an e-mail sent by Dr. Thomas M. Deas in Homer, Louisiana. I did minor editing. Home Page: http://home.pcisys.net/~pwebber/31_id/rtw.htm