This Oroville Mercury Article was among many given to me by Helen
Caswell.
Don Casagrande Writes Vivid Account of Marines at Palau
Grounded on a coral reef in the Pacific during the early moments
of the Palau Islands invasion, Marine Cpl. Don R. Casagrande of
Oroville lived through a nightmare of suspense and dread as Japanese
mortar shells dropped closer and closer to his stranded boat. Casagrande,
who was attached to the first division going in, tells a graphic
story of moments preceding the invasion and the battle itself. The
account is contained in a letter sent to his parents, Mr. and Mrs.
L. A. Casagrande of Robinson street. “All the guys feel pretty damn
good before the boats come up to take them into the beach.” He writes.
“But when they get into the boats they all look at each other and
say ‘goodbye.’ They don’t know whether they are going to get killed
or not. “We all joked while we were going in but when we got close
to the island everybody just sat still and looked at the beach.
There were Japanese mortars all over the beach. First they would
start at the end of the island and then they would start coming
right down the island beach. They did that all day. The boat we
came in on got stuck on a coral reef and the Japanese were getting
their range on us. There were five mortars that hit within 10 and
five feet of our boat and we were just about ready to start swimming
in. Every time a boat came by we’d holler at them to stop and get
us out of there. Back would come the answer that they were taking
wounded men back or that they were going after more ammunition.
They couldn’t stop. Finally a boat stopped and we got into it. They
took us back out and then we got into another boat and started in
again. In our rush to get off the reef, we had left our radios in
the boat. Well, the officer sent us back to get them and boy did
we really get them quick. One guy would get in the other boat and
just toss the radios over and where they lit nobody gave a damn.
About three of them and a roll of wire I was to carry went into
the ocean."
"Soon as we got ashore we had to run about 30 or 40 yards up so
the mortar shells wouldn’t hit us. Then we dug in and I really mean
dug in. I think my fox hole was nearly six feet deep. There were
a lot of guys that didn’t even get to the beach. I guess when your
number is up its up and there isn’t anything you can do about it.,
There were about 75 or 85 landing barges that made the first wave
and 40 of them were blown out of the water. It took all day just
to get the assault troops on the beach. The Japanese were really
laying the mortars in and were hitting their targets pretty well."
"All day on the beach the snipers were firing and they were really
taking a lot of our men. There was one of our guys that wanted to
go out and get one of the snipers so he did. He hadn’t been out
ten minutes when he had a bullet in his head. I saw a lot of dead
marines. I saw one of our own men and he looked awful. He was lying
right by his radio and had a hole in him as big as a wash tub, no
legs and one arm. I think a mortar must have hit right in his lap.”
In the action that continued Casagrande was wounded. He was hit
in the back by shrapnel as he was attempting to make a run across
the air field. With him was a companion of whom Casagrande wrote.
“He was my buddy. We had stayed in the same fox hole and had eaten
chow together at least what chow there was to eat. We got half way
across the air field and heard some mortars dropping. They were
pretty close but we didn’t think they would hit us. After we got
nearly across we saw that one of our planes had been forced down
and a little way away from the plane, four of our tanks had been
knocked out. Then a mortar dropped right behind us. My buddy fell
and just as I turned around something hit me and I fell. I tried
to get up but couldn’t so I started crawling. I got about five feet
and another mortar dropped but it missed us. I turned around and
started after my buddy. When I got to him I saw that one of his
legs was blown nearly off. There was a SeaBee with us and he hadn’t
been hit. He ran after a corpsman and in about five minutes we were
in a first aid station getting the best of care. They had wrapped
my buddy’s leg with a rifle for a splint. I saw him on the way over
to the hospital ship and he told me they had cut his let off. There
wasn’t anything I could say.”
Casagrande concludes his letter with a little ribbing of his brother
Sgt. Gene Casagrande of the 61st marine air group in
the Emirau area. “I hear Gene is up there now,” he writes “You don’t
have to worry about him. We killed all the Japanese so that it would
be safe for the pilots to come in.”
Stu Notes: The above story was quite graphic but that is what
war is. Don and Gene, Oroville Heroes of long ago. I think they
have both passed on. Committee member and Chaplin, Ted Grainger
is very ill. We wish him well.