Oral history interview of Roy Alton Cadenhead, Sr.

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Roy Alton Cadenhead, Sr.
Creator:: Johnson, Mary Lynn
Cadenhead, Roy Alton, Sr., 1924-
Date of Original:: 2004-06-30
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Equipment and supplies
Browning Automatic Rifle
B-29 (Bomber)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Callaway, Fuller E., 1907-1992
Parris Island (S.C. : Recruit depot)
United States. Marine Corps. Marine Division, 3rd
Callaway Mills
Boeing B-29 Superfortress
Location:: Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834
Marshall Islands, Enewetak Atoll, 11.5141037, 162.064393241945
Papua New Guinea, Bougainville Island, -5.9631994, 154.9998011
United States, California, San Diego County, San Diego, 32.71571, -117.16472
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Harris County, Pine Mountain, 32.86485, -84.8541
United States, North Carolina, Onslow County, Jacksonville, Camp LeJeune, 34.6835109, -77.3414639212903
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: MovingImage
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Roy Cadenhead remembers his life as a Marine in the Pacific during World War II. He describes his childhood as the son of a sharecropper and what influenced him to enlist in the Marine Corps. He was sworn in at the Navy building in Atlanta and describes his basic training. He reminisces about a drill instructor that was fair and respected the men as humans. He describes in detail the shipboard journey into Iwo Jima. The commander had them write letters home in case they didn't make it back; the chaplain would mail them. They had a model of the island to study, performed physical training and read from the ship's library. He describes the death of two of his friends and the effect they had on him as well as the killing of a Japanese soldier. He recalls how his family and his faith helped him return to society, and how he gained an education for a career after the war.
Roy Alton Cadenhead was a U.S. Marine in the Pacific during World War II.
INTERVIEWER: It is Wednesday, June the 30th. We are here in Atlanta Georgia at the Atlanta History Century with Mr. Alton Cadenhead. ALTON CADENHEAD: I'm Roy Alton Cadenhead Senior. I live in Calhoun Georgia. My date of birth is June 22nd, 1924, which makes me ancient really. INTERVIEWER: Could you tell us where you were born and raised? ALTON CADENHEAD: Yes, I was born in a little part of Troop County, Georgia, what is now Pine Mountain, Georgia, at that time was Chipley, Georgia. I grew up there. We grew up on a farm. My father was a sharecropper. And that was the beginning for us, and from there we moved on to where we are in the world today. INTERVIEWER: And what was your education before you went into the service? ALTON CADENHEAD: Just high school. INTERVIEWER: And did you, were you drafted or did you enlist? ALTON CADENHEAD: No, I volunteered for the Marine Corps and I was nineteen years old, and I entered the Marine Corps. INTERVIEWER: And what kind of thoughts did you have leading up to your decision to volunteer? What made you decide to volunteer? ALTON CADENHEAD: Well it was the thing to do. Everybody that was physically able I think felt like they must join in this because it's hard for people today, youngsters to understand that conditions are desperate. You know, Pearl Harbor took out an awful lot that we had and we were not equipped. And the Germans submarines ran up and down our coast sinking ships along the coast. So, we knew sooner or later we were going to have to make a stand, and so I would have been drafted in the Army had I not volunteered for the Marine Corps. Now why did I join the Marines? It just looked like an elite outfit. I had talked with a couple Marines and was so amazed at their confidence that was somehow ingrained in them, and not only that but how they felt about the Marine Corps, and what the Marine Corps was scheduled to do in World War II. And so from that the only other branch that I considered was the Coast Guard, but after talking to the Marines and seeing maybe the movie “Wake Island” or something like that, I determined the Marine Corps was where I was going to be. INTERVIEWER: And what year was this? ALTON CADENHEAD: This was 1943. And I admit, yes there were times when I wondered how foolish I was and at times when I said, I wish I had three legs, two to stand on and one to kick myself, because I had never been in such a difficult organization in my life. But it all proved out to be worthwhile because they knew physically and mentally what we were going to be faced with. And so they prepared us for it. INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about your first days in service? ALTON CADENHEAD: Well, the first days were frightening and if you, anyone who's been to Parris Island, South Carolina, would certainly say the same thing. They literally break down all resistance that you might have. And that's done so that when you receive a command you don't question that command. You don't think I've got a better idea. You immediately carry out that command. So that begins the first day. I'll never forget we were sworn in at the Navy Building in Atlanta, Georgia, on a Sunday morning, and we were put aboard a bus and we went to Parris Island, South Carolina. Just had a lot of fun on the bus, this is going to be great. The fellowship was wonderful and met an awful lot of young new people. We were all teenagers. And when we got to Parris Island, we pulled into the gate. Some big sergeant got on the bus, didn't say a word to anyone, walked to the back of the bus and screamed, you could have heard him four miles. “Get out of this bus!” And from that day on we were running. It was raining and when we came out of the bus, somebody threw something at us almost like a pouch. We had no earthly idea what we had, but it was a poncho. Instead of telling us what to do with that poncho, they just allowed us to get soaking wet. And so I spent twelve weeks there, and I don't think I walked a minute from the time I was there. But the two things the Marine Corps tries to instill, well, three things really, one is organization. You become part of an organizational unit, and that has its drawbacks also. The second thing is the physical ability that they create within you. Just for example when I went into the Marine Corps I weighed one hundred and seventy-eight pounds and I had exercised myself. I was in good physical condition, but after twelve weeks at Parris Island I weighed one hundred and forty-eight pounds. The clothes they issued me, the sleeves came down below my fingers and I mean I was really ashamed of how I looked when I, on my ten day furlough when I went on after boot camp. That's the second thing they do, but the third thing, they create within you the mental ability to control yourself, and not ever let fear become dominant in your life. Because when you're fearful you make foolish moves and so they equip you with that. They do an excellent job. You didn't realize it when you're going through it, but they did an excellent job in preparing you for what might be out there. INTERVIEWER: So, when you finished boot camp, what rank were you? ALTON CADENHEAD: I was a private. INTERVIEWER: And at the war's end what was your rank? ALTON CADENHEAD: I was a corporal. In fact I had passed my sergeant's exam and been issued sergeant's stripes, and I still have them. But in the Marine Corps it's, and naturally you expect me to say that it's different from other organizations. In the Marine Corps you are only allowed so many lieutenants, so many colonels, so many majors, and you can be in the Marine Corps thirty years and never get a promotion if something didn't open up. They just did not promote you because you were promotable. And for instance when you go into combat and you have officers and those ahead of you that are knocked out, then you move up. For instance I was a corporal but I was running a squad, but as soon as the campaign was over, I went back to where I was. There was no, I was a platoon sergeant acting, but when the campaign was over I went back to corporal because you have to earn those stripes. They just don't issue them just for the convenience. I went to Camp Lejeune. When I finished my training at Camp Lejeune, I became a PFC. And I went overseas and my first campaign at Guam, I was a PFC. And then during that time at Guam before Iwo Jima I made corporal. INTERVIEWER: Okay, well going back to boot camp; do you remember any of your instructors specifically? ALTON CADENHEAD: Yes, I started to bring you a letter. And let me say this up front, my wife and I married right out of high school. We were eighteen years old. Now you say that is foolish, yes, yes, but it's worked out beautifully. We celebrated our sixty-second wedding anniversary the twenty-fifth of September. But contrary to a lot of drill instructors and people that look at you when you are in boot camp, I had this corporal Mitchell that was just a very decent human being. And yes, he was very strict, very rough, but he was also very fair. He also recognized the fact that you were a human being. And see you're not considered in the Marine Corps when you are in boot camp. You're not an issue though, you are recruit. You're not issued an emblem; you're not issued anything that indicates that you are a Marine. When you graduate from boot camp you become a Marine, you're issued that globe and anchor emblem, and you're given everything. And when you go in Camp Lejeune it's advanced training, it's a total different world. You are a Marine. But this fellow, Mitchell, was just such a humanitarian you might say. He was a school teacher prior to the war, before he came into the service. And he came to Guam. When we took Guam, Guam became the home base of the Third Marine Division. And he came to Guam after Iwo and he came looking for some of us that were in boot camp with him. And it was just a joy to meet him. Well, he was only there about three months and they sent him back to the states to officers training school. That's how intelligent he was. And he wrote my wife a beautiful letter when he got back to the states. And she has it now in her scrapbook, and if I would have just thought about it I would brought it along. It would tell you a little about, they are human beings in the Marine Corps. Not just John Wayne type people, but he was a good leader. And he gave a good impression, and he told her how well I looked and she knew how much weight I had lost in boot camp, and he told her that I had gained weight back and that I looked great and the attitude was great and was going through advance training there on Guam. INTERVIEWER: Did he do this for every soldier? ALTON CADENHEAD: I don't know but I kind of doubt it, because the way he and I became really attached is that we were both Baptists. And when I would go to services he was always there and he saw me there, and I think that attachment was the reason why we became kind of attached. I didn't ask for any favors, and he didn't offer any. But he came to visit with me when he got his word that he was going back to officers training school. And I said, well, that's just great; please keep us posted on how you are making out. And he said, “What's your family's address?” So, I gave him my wife's address, and he wrote a letter, a beautiful letter. And I've always been, I just thought that's just wonderful, he didn't have to do it. But he really expressed and told her that I had made it through Iwo Jima fairly well, and he hoped that we would never have to experience a battle like that again. But whatever was out there we would be equipped for it, and you don't have to worry about him not being equipped for whatever is out there. So, it was a beautiful letter. I didn't mean to get that involved. INTERVIEWER: That's fine, I'm glad you shared that. That is very important. Can you give me sort of the outline or just whatever you want to tell us about your days following boot camp, and, you know, leading up to your first engagement. ALTON CADENHEAD: Well, when you leave Parris Island you get a ten day furlough. And they caution you, of course we were at war, things were not going great for us. And they caution you not to make any permanent arrangements, in other words don't get married on your ten day leave, because you are bound for combat and things could go against you. So, we took that ten day leave and I was already married, and was trying to spend all my time with my wife and with my parents and with my brothers, like Paul. We grew up as a unit and there was an awful lot of love for one another because we were very poor. As my second brother says, he says we grew up below the water level, which means we were in poverty. But we were very close, and so I spent time with them. And then when it came time to leave, now I'm not trying to be emotional. I remembered what we were told. And I said, good-bye, that may be the last time I ever see them. So you leave that, and while Paul was in Atlanta with me, and we walked away that day that night, I realized I may never see them again. INTERVIEWER: Now was he already in the service at this point? ALTON CADENHEAD: No. So I went back to Camp Lejeune and those were the most miserable days I ever spent in my life, because I realized this, and please excuse this, I realized how much love there was within my family and my wife, though we were just teenagers, how much I loved her. And how much she loved me, and I thought, I'm sacrificing all of this. That doesn't make sense, does it? I'm sacrificing all of this and I may never see them again. And so it was miserable for a few days, but the Marines in charge at Camp Lejeune realized what you were going through and they worked you day and night. You didn't have time, I mean we had to learn things that I never heard of, _______ for traveling, and how you conduct yourself when you are in combat, and go through all the experiences of gas chambers, anything to keep your mind off what you were doing and advanced your training. And so they tried to make a break. And after the second week at Camp Lejeune, it all began to come together and you made new friends. Not the friends you had in Parris Island, but you made new friends. And my bunkmate was a young fellow named Rollin Byron from Athon, Massachusetts, who turned out to be the best friend I had in the Marine Corps. And we would catch a bus; go into Wilmington, get a hamburger and a catch a bus back. We had to back by 11:00 and so, but at Camp Lejeune you became a Marine, because you were given an emblem. You could proudly wear it on your cap and all of that. So, it was a little different world. INTERVIEWER: And where did you go after Camp Lejeune? ALTON CADENHEAD: After Camp Lejeune we, quick story. INTERVIEWER: Okay, please. ALTON CADENHEAD: My wife came up to spend the weekend with me at Camp Lejeune, and she had gone and gotten a room through the USO that provided a room for us. And we had gone to a little restaurant on Saturday night, Saturday afternoon late, and the jeeps were running up and down the street. Loud speakers, such and such unit return to your base immediately. Well, it was mine. I said I didn't hear them. So about 3:00 in the morning, I decide you know, I better work my way back to camp, something is going on. So I caught the Marine Corps bus that runs every hour back to Camp Lejeune, and when I got back to my, we were in Quonset huts, which is just a small oval hut that held only a squad, everybody was gone. My sea bag was gone. Where on earth is everybody? So I ran into a fellow on guard duty, and I said, where is such and such a unit, which is me? He said you are in the parade field. What am I doing on a parade field at 4:00 in the morning? So I took off to the parade field, and saw Rollin Byron. He said, where in the world have you been? I said, I've been in Wilmington. “Well, didn't you get the word to report in?” “No, I didn't get it,” fibbing, and he said, “I've got your sea bag here.” So we loaded on board the train, went to San Diego, California. And we were only there a week and we went aboard ship headed overseas. So, that was my short stay in the United States. INTERVIEWER: And after you left San Diego where did you go? ALTON CADENHEAD: We went to Eniwetok. Eniwetok had already been taken. And there we joined the Third Division and we knew, we were not told until aboard ship that we were headed for the island of Guam. You know we lost Guam early on in the war because the Japanese wanted to take total control of the Pacific Ocean, and to do that they had to totally take all the land mass on the rim of the ocean, all the islands and so. We lost the Philippines, we lost Guam. And that was in 1942, and of course the movement back northward did not start until 1942, late '42. The next move after the Solomon Islands, of course, was Australia and New Zealand. And had that happened, we wouldn't have had a base of operation anywhere in the Pacific. And the whole goal of the Japanese was for us then to seek peace based on their terms, which would have been miserable. And so the decision was made that the line had to be drawn in the sand. At that time General MacArthur and his army was totally in preparation to some day go back to the Philippines, because that's the promise he had made. So, literally to stopping the Japanese was handed to Admiral Nimitz. And he made the decision and created the role for the Marine Corps in World War II, he said, “The Marine Corps is an amphibious unit, the units are small but they are very efficient. They must become a factor in stopping the Japanese and changing the course of history.” And so in late 1942 the First Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, which was a very difficult task. They had to be abandoned by the Navy because of the overwhelming naval force that the Japanese had. But they prevailed, and from Guadalcanal then we would start northward. And every island, every land mass had to be taken. And every one of them would become stepping stones towards the Japanese empire. INTERVIEWER: So you were Third Marines? ALTON CADENHEAD: Third Marines, we landed. Our first entanglement was at Bougainville. INTERVIEWER: And what year was that? ALTON CADENHEAD: That was in 1943, early '43 when it was already over by the time we got there. But Bougainville became your home base until we landed at Guam, and then Guam became our home base for the Third Marine Division. And from Guam we went to Iwo Jima. INTERVIEWER: So, what kind of combat did you see? ALTON CADENHEAD: I was in Guam, on the island of Guam and then on the island of Iwo Jima. INTERVIEWER: Okay, can you describe what you experienced at Guam? ALTON CADENHEAD: Well, Guam was a very beautiful island. As I say, it belonged to us prior to 1942, when it fell to the Japanese. It was a beautiful island; the island was covered with coconut groves, pineapple orchards, banana farms, just a very gorgeous island. And I didn't see it except in rubble, but they say that the cities on Guam were, Agana, for instance, was the most beautiful city in the Central Pacific. But we destroyed it. The only thing left standing was the front of a Catholic Church. A bunch of streets with little narrow streets, brick paved, and it was a beautiful thing. And then we got into the island, and it was a campaign that could go according to the book. In other words you were organized to do certain things. I was a BAR man, which is Browning Automatic Rifle. And if you come in contact with the enemy and you couldn't move them, then you could circumvent the enemy, or you could make another landing and come in behind the enemy. And that's what the book trained you, the way the book trained you. And that could take place on Guam. The causalities were there, yes, but you only had some twenty three hundred dead on the big island of Guam, which was a huge island. We drove the Japanese into what you call the “boon dock area”, about a five square mile area of nothing but just, we would call them swamps in this country. And we backed the Japanese into that and we decided let's just circle it and not try to move them out, starve them out. That worked to a degree, but it didn't work totally. And one little bit, we were moving into that area early one morning, and my company was on the right flank of the movement, and I heard the most beautiful whistling I ever heard in my life. And immediately my company commander said, “That's a trap, it's a trap, be careful, we're going to move slow.” And so they finally continued on and he finally said for my squad to see if you can encircle this and see what might be happening there. And so when we found it, it was a little boy that didn't look a day over seven years of age, up in the top of one of those coconut trees chopping out the cabbage that was up there. And that was food for them. And he was up there with a machete chopping away up there, whistling, “I want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a flame in your heart” that was popular back in those days. And I'm sure he had picked it up because the Marine base was at Guam prior to the war. And he had picked it up and it was just such a beautiful tune. And he didn't care whether the war was one thousand miles or one mile away. He was just up there preparing food, getting food for his family. And we got back and told our company commander our story and he just grinned and said, “Let's move”, and so we moved out. But Guam became our base and as I say it was a very beautiful island. Today every motel chain of any size has a hotel there. And it is now the vacation land for the Japanese, Chinese, and awful lot of Americans. And I hope some day to take my wife there to see that island because it was such a beautiful island. And it was big for the Air Force, the B-29's were there. The Navy had tremendous resources there, and the whole Third Marine Division was there. And the Marines were in the back part of the island because you were constantly in training. And you were training for some detail that was to come in days ahead. INTERVIEWER: Did they give you any ideas of what your next engagement would be, or where you would be going? ALTON CADENHEAD: No, when we looked back, excuse me, when we look back on it now, you might, am I talking too long? INTERVIEWER: No, I was just checking the time. ALTON CADENHEAD: You look back on it now you can see that they had an idea of what was happening, but we did not know until we were two days at sea. We went aboard ship at Guam, and we were at sea the second day when they told us what our objective was. And the Marine Corps, you'd expect me to say this, but they do everything right as well as they can. And up on the top of the island, up on top deck of the ship rather, there was a replica of the island that we were going to take, and every morning we had to go up and go to school. And that was all the intelligence they had. It was to be a three day operation. And so we would go to school and physical condition had to take, and then we were given in the afternoon aboard ship, we were given two or three hours to read. They had a library on the ship. We could go check out a book to read. But that is the only time that we knew, and rightly so, that's the way it should be. INTERVIEWER: And what island were they talking about? ALTON CADENHEAD: It was Iwo Jima. And it was to be a three day operation, let me show you. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ALTON CADENHEAD: This was to the end of the first day. They even told us where we were supposed to be and the end of the first hour. I mean they were so organized. We were to be such and such a place at the end of the first hour. The end of the first day, these maps they gave us. Everybody had a map. This was where you were supposed to be at the end of the first day. This is where you were to be at the end of the second day. And you mop up the end of the third day, but it took thirty-three days. INTERVIEWER: And you said your job, you were a BAR man. Tell me a little about what that meant? ALTON CADENHEAD: Right, well, it's an automatic weapon that has a magazine that holds twenty-one rounds. And you, the squads are divided into five teams. There are three or four men, fight teams. They call them fight teams in each of the squads. And in that squad, you have two M1 rifles and you have one Browning Automatic, and one carbine. That's the fire power that you have. And then you see, it's three of those in each of those squads. INTERVIEWER: And a squad is about twelve? ALTON CADENHEAD: A squad is literally thirteen men because you have a squad leader here. And in your organization, when you land you want to do this. Your unit goes here, this unit goes there. And you're totally organized as to what you are to do and where you are to go. But the problem disintegrated, I mean the organization disintegrated earlier because there were such limited beaches. I've got a map here, let me show you. I don't want to drag this out, you tell me. INTERVIEWER: We will keep an eye on the time. ALTON CADENHEAD: You just tell me when to shut up. INTERVIEWER: Okay, we've got about fifteen or twenty minutes. ALTON CADENHEAD: Huh. INTERVIEWER: About fifteen minutes. ALTON CADENHEAD: Okay, very quickly we'll go over this. This is a map that one of the things that were to our disadvantage was the fact that you were so limited, the only place you could land on the island was right here, from here to here. And because of that, the enemy knew that, and so what they would do, they would say okay we'll focus all of our fire power into this area, which totally broke down our organization. Because the first man in our platoon to get hit when we landed was my platoon commander, the second lieutenant. And so then immediately a sergeant moved up to take his place, and he didn't last a day and a half. And so that's why the organization began to break down. And the Marine Corps recognized this. And when we went back to Guam and started training again for, or had something totally new which was village warfare. They put in contingency plans, in other words we've got a twelve man squad. If a squad leader gets off, you take his place. And then you are the number two man to take the place. But we did not have that organization contingency plans here, and so as a result the organization was, you almost became a separate entity, which is not good in a campaign. This is the beach; we didn't know what that was. This is the beach sand. It's very difficult, you can't walk in it, you can't dig a fox hole in it, mechanical equipment cannot maneuver on it, and so that was against us. Intelligence was very slim but even in our schooling aboard ship that was not given to us, because they didn't know. The other thing they didn't know that this thing, everyone of these red marks represents a gun emplacement, a fortification. And they did not know all of this, intelligence didn't, but these fortifications were connected by tunnels, miles of tunnels underground. And so it was just terrible for a few days. And the rain was such that you had a very difficult time trying to hide, trying to conceal yourself when you were approaching the enemy. INTERVIEWER: Well, tell me what was it like for you, I mean what did you feel when you were in these situations and how did you cope? I know you did your job, obviously. ALTON CADENHEAD: The two things you had to be aware of. Number one is fatigue, it's a major factor. Number two is fear. You've got to control these two. For instance, you say, how do you control fatigue? If you get a minute, and you've got three minutes, sleep three minutes, because if you allow fear to take over, you make foolish moves. I only saw one man that I felt like on Iwo that lost it. He came down the beach screaming and hollering. And I just thought, “Boy, he didn't control fear”, it got him. And if you can do that and you can exercise judgment, and it doesn't work all the time because the enemy is doing the same thing, and who outsmarts who. But you know there are times when you're not going to make it. There's no way I can make it through this. As I was telling a group in school not long ago, you pray every night. You thank the Lord that you made it through another day, but if tomorrow is my day then I pray for my people back home. And you knew the men that you had lost that day, and you prayed for their people, because they would soon be getting a telegram. And then life would never be the same for them again. You're constantly mindful of the fact that you may not make it, you may not make it. One of the things that we do that the Marine Corps did was before we landed, the night before we landed on Iwo; it was not that way on Guam. But the night before we landed on Iwo, our platoon commander asked every one of us to write a letter to someone back home, as if we were not going to make it. And if you don't make it, the Chaplain will mail your letter to your family, and they will get your letter before they get the telegram from the Marine Corps. And this would prepare them better. And you say, what do you say in a letter? What does a nineteen year old boy say in a letter like that? You simply say, “I know where I'm headed, I don't know the outcome, and I may not make it.” And I had to say to my wife, “You're still young. We had a happy short time together, but life must go on. And you go on and just remember that I loved you, but I can't be there any more. And you move on and make a good life for yourself.” You give that letter to the Chaplain. If you make it he gives it back to you, if you didn't then he mails it to the people back home. And you say, is that necessary? I thought it was, after I became an adult I thought it was very wise. They were thinking ahead that your letter would prepare them for what they were to get. And they did not know that you did not make it until they got the telegram, but in your letter, they go back and read your letter. They would just, I could foresee that I'm not going to make it. And so it was difficult. It was difficult. I've never endured anything like that. And six thousand eight hundred Marines died on that island, another twenty-six thousand wounded. If you put the math to that, you'll see that one thousand Marines fell from ranks every day. Now what if that happened today in Iraq or somewhere else? But a thousand Marines fell, and then literally thousands of them, including me who was injured, we continued to fight. I was hit the first time, we had just finished taking the second air strip or were in the midst of taking the second air strip, which was in the middle of the island here as you can see. This is the second air strip right here, and we were taking the second air strip and I felt a terrible pain in this arm and hand. I looked and blood was running off my hand. The corpsman cut away my sleeve and my arm—and scars are still there now— was peppered with shrapnel. INTERVIEWER: Can we show that again. ALTON CADENHEAD: I'm sorry? INTERVIEWER: Of your arm? ALTON CADENHEAD: Okay, see this scar runs all the way up this arm and into this finger. He cut away the sleeve and he saw that it had been peppered with shrapnel, and he did all he could. He bandaged it tightly and asked me if I could continue on. And I said it's my left hand, yes, I can. We had just finished the second air strip and we thought everything behind us was clean. Bear in mind that our ranks at that point had been cut in half. And so we were moving out from the second air strip and all of a sudden a machine gun opened up from behind us. And yes, casualties were there. And my platoon commander at that time was a buck sergeant. And he said, “Cadenhead, you and Byron work your way back to that machine gun. Silence it.” Rollin Byron was my friend, we had been friends. He was a Catholic, I had been to his services. He had been to my services. And so we worked our way back and we saw that the machine gun was coming from a cave, and he says “Al, you find that cave as fast as you can. I'll get as close as I can, and I'll toss in a satchel charge.” A satchel charge was like the old book satchel we used to have that had the composition C2 stacked in it almost like margarine, butter. He worked his way up and he threw it in. Well, it hit a rubber band and came right back out. And we could not escape the path. And when I came to I was covered with dirt, and I was bleeding at my nose and ears. The corpsman was working with me, and I asked about Byron. And he said, “Byron is dead.” We had been partners, we knew what to do, we knew each one us knew what the other one was going to do. And you see the importance of that, but then when you get a new one it's quite different. But he said, I'm going to clean your wounds. I'm going to pack your head in oil. And I'll change it daily; do you think you can continue? And I said, let's give it a chance. And of course when we got back to Guam I had to go through debriefing and go to the hospital for checking wounds. And the doctor, Navy doctor was examining me and said, “Corporal, you need to be grateful to that corpsman because he saved your hearing.” And I still wear the amplifier in this ear, but he said, you would have lost your hearing in both ears had he not done what he did. Because all the insulation, everything was busted away. INTERVIEWER: How did you cope with loosing your best friend? ALTON CADENHEAD: You cry a little bit. He had a wife, I knew her. I had met her. And I knew it wasn't going to be easy for her, but the very next day we were to take a ridge, which would be the left flank of the Fourth Division. The Third Division went up the center of the aisle and the Fifth was on the left, Fourth was on the right. We were to take a ridge which came out from the Fourth Division and was holding them up. And so we fought our way up to the top of that ridge all day with bayonets and flame throwers, and so on. When we got to the top of the ridge we knew we couldn't hold it. We didn't have the manpower. And so it soon became very well known that we were going to have to retreat. So we had to make a hasty retreat because they were after us with machine guns, even leaving our dead. That night, late that afternoon, replacements came up. Now where do replacements come from? It comes from a pool back here. They could have been cooks; they could have been stretcher carriers, or whatever they might be. And a seventeen year old Marine was assigned to my unit that night. I found, learned only his first name and he had been in the Marine Corps for eight months. The next morning we were to move out at daybreak and take that same ridge again, only to be caught by a machine gun cross fire. I told my young friend, “Stay down, stay down until we can find the source of the fire.” And he said, “I can't see if I stay down.” And I said, “That doesn't matter, just stay down. We'll look for you.” I was an old nineteen year old, I knew all about it. In just a few moments he said “I've been hit in my right side.” I called the corpsman, and just as the corpsman reached us he was killed. In just a few moments, my young friend started calling his mother. And he did until he died. And by the time we got the machinist gun silenced, my young friend was dead at the age of seventeen, his life was cut short. And I had thought about it since then. You remember when you used to skin your fingers, bump your knees, you go to mama. I'm going to try to get through this okay. You would go to mother and she would kiss it and what happened was all well. And my young friend died thinking, if my mama could just get here, everything would be okay. We took the ridge. Yes, again we lost people. And then we moved on to the upper part of this island. You can't, it's hard to explain the terrain. There were cliffs, canyons, and caves. And what we had done, we had compressed the enemy into this area and we knew that he was going to be more diligent, more determined. And so every inch of these cliffs, every inch of these caverns and canyons had to be taken, because they were filled with emplacements. They were filled with canyons. And we worked our way. One night [there was] a screaming banshee attack; I saw this image coming towards my foxhole. And by the time I brought him down his hand fell over the rim over my foxhole still grasping his knife. The next morning at daylight hours, his helmet was off and in that helmet was a picture of a soldier, a lady, and a child. And I know that was his family, but he was determined he was going to give his life to destroy a Marine. Banshees were destructive, yes, they would kill Marines, but the rest of us would get no rest and the next day fatigue became a real factor. We fought our way through these canyons and we reached the peak one afternoon at the end of the island. And when we looked over that peak we saw the ocean. And up in this area because of the terrain, the only tools you had were grenades, bayonets, and flame throwers. And the BAR almost had to replace the machine guns, because the machine guns couldn't maneuver in this area. But we looked over the ridge and there was the ocean. And you can't imagine how elated you were, this thing is about over. And it is a legend and a tradition in the Marine Corps, when you reach the ocean, the end of the island, you get a canteen of ocean water and you send it back to headquarters. Don't ask me how it got started, but that's the tradition. Twenty of us went down that cliff into the ocean to get a canteen of water. I didn't go as far as some because my arm was still in a big bandage. Just as we were getting a canteen of water the machine gun opened up on us at the base of the cliff, and six men fell immediately. And by the time we silenced that machine gun [Tape ended]. INTERVIEWER: You said you were at the ocean at Iwo Jima. ALTON CADENHEAD: And so, we could not retrieve those men. The other four could be retrieved but six of them fell, and we had to wipe out that machine gun nest. The last thing that is done on an island before the Marine Corps leaves it, we never control an island, we were an amphibious force, and we would take them and turn them over to somebody else. The last thing that you do is dedicate a cemetery. That's the most emotional experience you can ever have. You go to the cemetery and you find the crosses of men you trained with, you lived with, you argued with, yes, you shared your life's dreams with them, what your life's plans were. They shared theirs with you, and now you're about to leave them and you'll never see them on this earth again. And you say can that be emotional? It's very emotional even to an old ugly Marine. And you think about, when we got back to Guam I wrote letters to [the families of] my friends who had died. And the ones who, they would write you back and they would all have the same questions, “Did he suffer?” And you always had to say “No, it was instant death,” even though you knew in some cases it was not. That is a very emotional thing. We lost all of those Marines, some twenty-six thousand wounded, life for them would never be the same again because arms were lost, and legs were lost. And you ask the question, “Was it really worth it?” And the reason it was taken was because here at Guam, the Mariana Islands, the B-29's were bombing the Japanese mainland because of the distance. It could be fighter protection for the fighter planes. So many of them were being so damaged that they couldn't make it back the fourteen hundred miles to Guam and Saipan, Anatahan and they were being lost at sea, plane and crew. And that's where the island of Iwo Jima came in. It was halfway between the Mariana Islands and the Japanese mainland. We would take it and it would become a hospital island, a hospital island for crippled 29's. The first crippled 29 that landed on Iwo Jima landed in marsh with fighting just a short distance away, and the name of that plane was “Dynamite.” And this Marine corpsman sent me a picture of it. And from that day, I don't think I brought that publication with me, from that day until the end of the war the twenty-four hundred crippled 29s, B'29's would land on Iwo Jima with a crew. Twenty-seven thousand airmen were involved in these twenty-four hundred B-29's. And you say we lost the six thousand eight hundred Marines dead and another twenty-six thousand wounded, and so you have to say in so doing we saved twenty-seven thousand airmen from a water grave. And I was watching the History Channel not long ago, it's been just recently. And this little gray headed man was on the History Channel. And he said, “I never see a Marine that I don't tip my hat, because I had to land on Iwo Jima. I couldn't make it back to the Mariana Islands and I would have been lost.” That was the sole purpose of this campaign. We landed, if we went aboard ship we went back to Guam and we started training again for our next assignment. And I have a picture here and I'll let you read it, the letter the commandant sent me for the Marine Corps. INTERVIEWER: “Dear Corporal Cadenhead, I wanted to take a moment to personally thank you for your dedicated service to our precious Corps. Few have seen more of war's reality than you. In Guam and in the epic battle for Iwo Jima, you distinguished yourself time and again on the battlefields of the Pacific and later as a citizen after the war. Our nation is better for your selfless service. I want you to know that I and our entire Corps of Marines are proud of all you have become. You have lived your life by our Corps values of honor, courage, and commitment, always a shining example for others to emulate. As they say, once a Marine always a Marine, you are living proof. Semper Fidelis.” Signed, how do you say his last name, Krulak? ALTON CADENHEAD: No, it's K-R-U-L-A-K, and he sent me an autographed picture along with it. INTERVIEWER: And when is that letter dated? ALTON CADENHEAD: It's dated; it was on my seventy-fifth birthday. INTERVIEWER: That's terrific. ALTON CADENHEAD: June 26, '99. And then this is a picture of the nineteen year old Marine. INTERVIEWER: Is that after you finished boot camp? ALTON CADENHEAD: That's after boot camp. INTERVIEWER: Because you're wearing? ALTON CADENHEAD: Yeah, wearing the emblem. I was at Camp Lejeune when this took place. INTERVIEWER: Well, when you left Iwo Jima you went back to Guam. And you continued training there? ALTON CADENHEAD: Well, what had happened. The Sea Bees, you're familiar with that? INTERVIEWER: Yes, sir. ALTON CADENHEAD: The Construction Battalion of the Navy had gone back in to what we call the boondocks and had built streets, storefronts, housing fronts, and so on, which was total new training for us. And so we started training about how we would get into a building. We had never had this training to protect one while he went into another building, you go in another building, and he protects you and all of this. How to throw grenades into windows and how to throw ropes up to climb up a building. We went back through training, and the Sea Bees had built that for us. And then we saw the contingency program that we hadn't had before, is that here's twelve men, thirteen men, when this one gets knocked off you become the commander. When he gets knocked, you become, so we had that sequence worked out so we wouldn't have the same breakdown in organization again that we had in Iwo Jima. And I got another letter from the Commandant at that time, and I tried to find it. And he showed me where my unit was to land on the Japanese mainland, and what day it was. It was November the 26th or something like that in 1945 that we were to land on the mainland in Japan. But we came in from training one afternoon exhausted, and immediately I went, there were six men in my tent. I went to my bunk and I just fell asleep. And one of my tent mates came running down, “Cadenhead, Cadenhead get up, get up! We've got a bomb that's stronger than a trainload of TNT.” And I said “Ed, you've been in the raisin jack this early?” He said, “C'mon, c'mon, come to the radio tent.” So, I went up, wrapped a towel around me and went up to the radio tent and there was squawking and screaming, I couldn't make sense out of it. Now the company commander came to the edge of the tent and said, “Boys it may be over.” INTERVIEWER: So this was August 6th, 1945? ALTON CADENHEAD: And I sat down on a coconut log and cried. And my friend said, “Cadenhead, why in the world are you crying?” I said, “I'm going home.” And that's how, and I never picked up another rifle after that date. The Third Division was disbanded immediately, and I still had two months to serve over there. And so we all had to take a series of examinations, and as a result of that, I guess of that examination, I was placed in engineering. And what I spent the last two months doing was designing sewage treatment plants, and water treatment plants, and streets because they were going to establish Marine Corps Headquarters there again. And then the time came for me to come home. Again, let me say, and you'd expect me to say this, but the Marine Corps tries to cover all bases. I did not know this for ten years after I had been home, but the Marine Corps wrote my wife a letter, and she still has it. And told her I had been trained for violence, that I had participated in violence, and that I was going to need help repatriating myself to American society. And we have to depend upon the home, the church, and the community, and do your best to make his transition as easy as possible. And I know when I came out it wasn't easy. If someone did something I didn't like, I thought I was supposed to take charge. I was supposed to handle it. But my wife was so patient, so patient. And I will be ever in debt to the church because immediately she put me right in the middle of church, kept me busy. And then I had to go to school and try to get some preparations made for life. But the Marine Corps, I will always be grateful for the fact that they look after you, afterwards they just don't dump you off. But she showed me the letter after I had been home for ten years. And my parents knew about it, everybody knew about it but me. INTERVIEWER: Well, when you got home you said you went to school. What did you grow up to be? ALTON CADENHEAD: I had to change my desires. I wanted to all my life be a civil engineer. There was a creek back around our place where we grew up. There was an old Confederate dam partly eroded, partly, most of it was gone. But I was going to become a civil engineer. I was going to dam up the creek and I was going to put in a generator. I was going to sell electricity to all those people down there, but they didn't have it then. But of course REA came through in 1936 and wiped out all that dream. So, I came back in, I'll be indebted to an organization called Callaway Mills, which was in LaGrange, Georgia. They came to see me and wanted me to go to textile school. Mr. Callaway went to Texas A&M, he went to Clemson, he went to Auburn, and he went to Tech, and tried to get them to create a textile school. There was no textile school. The only one there was Philadelphia textiles. And they knew that the student body would be small, why fool with it? So he built his own textile school and hired one of the assistants at Philadelphia Textile School to come and run his school. So, they said we'll give you a job and you go to school. And we will go as far with you as you want to go. And so I did. Then when I finished that, you're not familiar with ITT at Charlottesville, North Carolina, but that's the Institute of Textile Technology. And they sent me to ITT. And so I had majored in mechanical and structural. Instead of becoming a civil engineer, I became something else. And I wrote Senator Joy, who was our Senator at that time, told him what an offer I had been made. I didn't have any children, but would it be possible that I could transfer my benefits to a child of mine. He wrote—I still have the letter. He wrote me back and said, “Alton, if it's possible we'll do our best to get that bill passed,” but it never did. And so, but anyway, textiles has been my life, and I'm still a consultant, still working today as a consultant for textiles. In fact, I'm on my way to Fitzgerald, Georgia, right now. INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. ALTON CADENHEAD: Well, I didn't know what you wanted. INTERVIEWER: This is exactly what we wanted, and if you have any parting thoughts or closing comments that you want to say to sort of sum it all up, please do. ALTON CADENHEAD: The only thing, and I see quite often at schools, history classes. I was just telling Mrs. Westbrook, I just finished writing an article for Kennesaw College on their building a monument for this particular island of Marines that served on that island. And they wanted me to come, they called the Marine Corps in Washington and Marine Corps in Washington referred them to Marine Corps in Rome, Georgia. Rome, Georgia gave them my name and phone number. And so I met with them and listened to what they wanted to do. And I said, I'll be happy to write you a detail, as detailed as I can, what it was all about. But I speak to student classes, and the thing that bothers me now is the new generation does not want to hear about it. They do not know how serious it was. I met with, spoke to the Historical Society in Cartersville last November. And I started out with, “How many of you had sauerkraut for breakfast this morning? How many of you had rice for breakfast this morning?” And, of course, they thought it was [?] problem. And I said, what if the English language was not the language of the land? What if this idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness no longer prevailed? And I said, you can't imagine that is how serious it was. That's what had to take place, that's why we had to do what we did. I reminded them of January 1st, 1942, the Rose Bowl game was transferred from Pasadena to Duke University because they were fearful of the Japanese flying missiles into the crowd. “Is that true?” they said. I said, “Yes, it's true.” And the thing that bothers me is that you don't appreciate, you don't want everybody to express appreciation but you want them to realize that it could have happened. I just finished reading a book that a friend gave me to read. It's entitled “Five days in London, May 1940”. And there are a lot of historical events, a lot of historical conversations that took place, a lot of people involved that were before we entered into the conflict. But we were on the periphery of it. But they ended the book by saying, “What if Hitler had conquered Russia?” “What if Hitler had landed on the shores of England?” “What if D-Day had failed?” “And what if Hitler had been successful in his pursuit for atomic energy?” And people don't want to hear that today, but subs could have fired, German subs could have fired atomic missiles into New York, to Washington, and so on. It's that serious, history does not teach that. Classroom work does not handle that. And I guess it's old folks who have to come in and try to tell the bad news, the story. And hopefully some day, history, but I'm eighty years of age and we'll soon be gone. We don't have that many years left and there won't be anybody to tell the story. And I'll just somewhere along the line, this is a great country, is worth saving. It's the shining light on the hill as President Reagan said. And the rest of the world would like to be here, and I would just wish that we would realize that and could appreciate it. I didn't mean to get into all that. INTERVIEWER: Thank you. [END INTERVIEW] [CJ]
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Extent:: 1:06:56
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
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