It was dark when they landed on the sand. They dug foxholes where the beach met the Salamaua, New Guinea jungle, 300 yards from Japanese forces. The fighting was supposed to last 21 days.
It would be 76 days of combat, with no reinforcements or relief, before Jim Marr and the other men of the 41st Infantry Division left the World War II battlefield.
“All we knew is that it was going to be a fight,” Marr said. “We didn’t know if we were coming back or not, but you went anyway.”
Marr, 88, leaned back in his recliner, his deep brown eyes lost in thought. Braces wrap around both of his calves supporting the damaged nerves in his legs and feet, evidence of the unrelenting water and mud he stood in, sat in and slept in during the battle.
Supplies were scarce. Ammunition came first, and then medical aid. Food and clothes were a luxury that rarely made the cut. Planes dropped in the materials, most caught in trees never reaching the men below.
Marr joined the National Guard in 1938. It was a way to earn extra money during the Depression.
On Sept. 14, 1940, his division was sworn into service in Roseburg. He was sitting in a movie theater in Columbus, Ga., when the lights came on, and the news broke about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was in the first American division to deploy to the South Pacific.
His service was supposed to last one year. Forty-five months later Marr returned to U.S. soil. It was the longest overseas deployment of any military unit during the war.
When Marr talks about the battle, he finds moments of humor.
He lets out a deep, gentle laugh and a soft smile crosses his face when he talks about tying the soles of his shoes back onto his boots with wire. He said they used to joke that Salamaua was the only place in the world where you could be knee deep in mud and have dust pummel your face. He said they’re lucky they had baseball players in their unit to throw the grenades back over enemy lines.
But remembering isn’t fun.
“There’s a lot of guys in it that aren’t coming back that are your friends,” Marr said. “It took me a long time after I got home to even talk about it.”
Malaria and other painful illnesses and injuries didn’t send his comrades home.
“If you could walk and pull a trigger, you stayed,” Marr said.
The rain fell every day around 11 a.m. When the waves came in, they filled the foxholes. The water would reach the men’s necks. Their clothes rotted off their bodies. They wore a mix of United States, Australian and Japanese uniforms, Marr said, whatever they could get their hands on.
The Bronze Star he earned for his service in Salamaua sits framed with a throng of other honors and plaques on the wall of his new retirement home. On the table next to him, a hat he had made proudly displays the name of the 41st Infantry Division.
In April, he stood with the remaining members of his division in Portland, where they were inducted into the Oregon Military Hall of Fame. He calls all the men his brothers.
“When you’re stuck out there putting your life on the line for each other, it’s a bond you don’t lose,” he said. “There’s just hardly a way to describe it.”
At the Roseburg Armory, he has talked with soldiers who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There’s a bond between veterans of any age,” he said. “A war is a war and none of it is pretty, regardless of who you’re fighting and where.”
Marr cringes when people leave their hats on or talk when the National Anthem plays during ball games.
“It’s America,” he said. “It’s something that I put my life on the line for, and I didn’t have to give it, thank goodness, but I would have if it was necessary.”
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Veteran recalls WW II service - New Guinea
Originally Posted by Ferhilt
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