I asked him how he was wounded one time.
He said they always did harassment fire. They would hang an old blanket in front of the machine gun and fire at an enemy position. sometimes the enemy fired back.
Some stories I'll share with the Community from my grandfather who was USMC from 43-46. He was involved on the 1st wave on Guam, 2nd wave on Okinawa and later was involved in China.
When my grandfather was on Okinawa, his bivy ended up doing some laundry and washed their blankets. Overnight they hung them out on some rope they had saved along the way, since their was finally a gentle breeze. He said: "We woke and there just a slight breeze and all of sudden they heard a machine gun firing from the opposite side of the blankets. We ducked down, grabbed our rifles and to our amazement the bullets were falling on the ground after hitting the blankets." They rallied with their Platoon and took care of the machine gun nest. He continued: "We came back to find about 100+ rounds on the ground directly below the blankets and only a single bullet hole. If it didn't happen to us, we wouldn't have believed it."
Another good one from his days on Okinawa:
"I had been assigned to blowing trees up. The Japanese were either digging up our lines or climbing the trees to cut the lines. So the brass decided to eliminate the trees altogether. This Colonel showed up and handed my buddy and I a bunch of dynamite. He said to use one stick per tree. After a few hours we came to this tree and when we dug up the taproot to place a stick under, we both stepped back. I said: 'I'm looking at the size of this taproot and there is no way one stick will do it.' My buddy Shimries looked at me and said: 'I think you're right. How much do you think it will need?' We looked at the root a few times and figured that four sticks of dynamite would do the trick. We set the sticks in, buried them and lit the fuse. No sooner than about minus 10 seconds, this same Colonel arrived in his Jeep to the waving arms of many Marines to stop. Just as he did, the tree shot up out of sight and landed 30 feet from his Jeep. The Colonel called us over, cussed us out and asked what happened. We told him and he asked why did you use so much. I asked if he knew how much we should be using for roughly a two foot diameter taproot and the Colonel answered 'No, but dang it watch it'.
My grandfather always said the Colonel was just upset that he only did it because he dove under his Jeep.
R.I.P. PFC Charles A. Freuchtel (1918-1998) USMC 43-46. I think of him everyday and can share more if you'd like.
