By BILL WELCH
Staff writer
For teenagers Russ Johnson and Dick Weber, the first year of World War II was a great adventure tantalizingly close and one they were missing.
Roaming
their east Erie neighborhood of Marvintown or talking in the basement of Johnson's Parade Street home, they spoke of the war — how it was going, and how they would give the enemy, especially the Japanese, a whipping if
only they were part of the fight.
In February 1943, they joined the Navy. Johnson was 17; Weber was 16 and using a forged birth certificate. One died a hero on a searing hot Pacific island. The other
came home to learn his best friend had died, and much wiser about what war really is.
Friendship and dreams
Johnson and Weber were friends for as long as Weber can remember. And he still
remembers his friend Russ.
"We were like brothers. I still think of him often – every day," he said, his voice choking.
Weber was an only child living on the 500 block of East 21st Street. His
grandmother lived a few doors away from Johnson's home near East 24th and Parade streets. "I could go to his house and just walk right in, we were that close. And he could do the same at my house.
"His mother treated me like a son. And my mother treated him like a son."
The two talked about the war all the time, Weber said. "We took that war quite seriously. It was all good ol' American apple
pie. We were going to get in there and wipe the Japs out." They would horse around, pretending to fire tommy guns at the imagined enemy.
"Then we learned it was more than that when we got
there. It was not a game. But when you're kids, you don't think of those things."
Johnson was, his sisters said, "very good looking," with blue eyes and wavy blond hair. He was "an all-round kid," his
sisters said.
He had been president of his class at Academy High School. He worked after school at local stores to help with family expenses. When he quit school and went off to the Navy in February
1943, he left behind his stamp collection and a container full of marbles. "He used to love playing marbles," his younger sister, Ruth Johnson Robinson, said.
The two friends liked playing sports in pick-up
games around the neighborhood, Weber said. And they got in their share of fights, too, he said.
Johnson was not afraid of a fight, Weber said. "He was a fighter, I can tell you that."
Once, in their
teens, the two were shadowboxing. At some point a punch landed. Then another and another. Weber knocked Johnson's tooth out. Only after Johnson had bloodied Weber's nose, did the two end the
fight. "That cemented our friendship," Weber said.
They were boys and they had boys' physiques. Both were slightly built and neither topped 5-foot-five.
The two were split up for basic training. Weber
went to Great Lakes at Chicago; Johnson to California.
"I could have given the word at any time in boot camp and gotten out," Weber said. And there were times while lying in his bunk he was tempted to
confess he was just 16.
Weber became a gunner's mate. Johnson became a hospital apprentice – a corpsman. Whether he chose that, neither Weber nor Johnson's sisters know for sure. As a corpsman,
he would be attached to a platoon of Marines to treat the wounded. Dressed like a Marine, he would carry no gun, only a small pack crammed with bandages, scissors, scalpels, sulfa antibiotic powder and throwaway
Syrettes
of morphine."It's funny the way it turned out. I wanted to go in the Marines. But my dad was in the Marines. He told me, 'No, you're not joining the Marines.' So the two of us went in the Navy
instead." And Johnson ended up serving alongside Marines and eventually dying with them.
Pure hell packed on an islandIn September 1944, United States Marines and Army soldiers found hell
on earth.
On the small, oven-hot island of Peleliu in the Pacific Ocean, Japanese defenders were making the Americans pay for each yard they took.
The 1st Marine Division landed there Sept.
15, 1944. It was the division's third campaign of the war. Some of its members were veterans of Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester; many were fresh from training in the States. Longtime veterans have said
that Peleliu was by far the worst combat they had seen, even worse than Okinawa in 1945.
The campaign counts as one of the most horrific fought by American fighting men in World War II, and it was fought for an island
that historians say the admirals and generals knew was unnecessary to the war effort before anyone landed on it.
According to the United States Marine Corps Historical Center, 1,252 Marines were killed and 5,274
wounded. Army losses were 542 killed and 2,736 wounded in the two-month-long campaign. Eight Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor, including the commander of Johnson's company, Capt. Everett P. Pope. Of the nearly
11,000 Japanese defenders, 302 were captured. The rest died.
Historian Ronald Spector described in his book, "Eagle Against the Sun," the northern part of island as a series of jagged coral ridge lines, honeycombed
with natural caves that the Japanese had improved into almost impregnable fortresses. "In heat that rose to 115 degrees, with water strictly rationed, the Marines … grimly set about clearing the cave pockets,
crags and ravines…. Artillery and air support were of little use; flamethrowers, demolition charges and hand grenades were the best weapons, along with luck." The coral ground was so hard, the Marines often could not
dig in. They piled rocks in front of them instead.
On Sept. 18, the Americans were still making slow progress. Japanese machine guns, mortars and artillery in the unseen tunnels and caves would open up as the Marines
tried to advance.
There's not much information about what happened to Johnson that day besides the Navy Cross citation and some bits of information the family got from a Marine who was there.
'He gallantly gave his life…'
Japanese tanks attacked, wounding at least four members of Johnson's platoon. It was one of the few occasions U.S. troops faced Japanese tanks during the war. The
four wounded men fell on open ground. The rest of the platoon took cover. Johnson, all 5-foot-5 of him, worked his way out to one of the wounded men and got him back to the rest of the platoon. In
searing heat, on hard, jagged coral that scratched and cut through shoes and combat dungarees, he went out again and brought back a second man. The 19-year-old went again, dragging and pulling the third Marine
back to the platoon's position. All the while, guns roared and bullets cut through the air all around him.
The Navy citation put it this way:
"With several members of his platoon killed or wounded when
the enemy suddenly attacked with machine gun and cannon fire from tanks during an advance against a high ridge, Johnson fearlessly exposed himself to the withering Japanese barrage to attempt the rescue of four wounded
Marines lying helpless in the open area.
"Fully aware of the extreme danger, he unhesitatingly pressed forward against the merciless barrage and succeeded in carrying three wounded men back to our lines.
Observing a fourth casualty far in advance of our front lines, he again risked his life to effect a rescue, but was fatally struck down by hostile fire while performing his heroic act. By his outstanding fortitude,
great personal valor and cool courage in the face of grave peril, Johnson contributed to the saving of many lives throughout this and previous fierce engagements with the Japanese. … He gallantly gave his life in the
service of his country."
Long after it happened, the family learned that Johnson was told by everyone, even the commander, not to go back out for that fourth Marine.
He had to be wringing with sweat, his uniform in
tatters, thirsty enough to down a gallon of water. And scared. But Johnson didn't listen. He took another chance. Maybe he thought he was invincible. Maybe he had seen so many men go down that he knew he
couldn't avoid whatever fate awaited him.
"It would take an awful lot of guts," to do what his best friend did, Weber said. " 'Cause when you're under fire…," his voice trailed away, his head shaking.
When
Johnson went out that fourth time, a Japanese machine gunner found the mark, riddling him and the wounded Marine, the family was told. Both men were killed. Russ Johnson's body, the family was told, was
never recovered. It might be, Weber speculated, that he was actually hit with a grenade, even a round from a cannon, and was obliterated.
When C Company came ashore on Peleliu, it numbered 242 men. The day
after Johnson was killed, 90 were left. By the time they were pulled out of combat a few days later, only 15 could walk out. The rest were dead or wounded.
"Part of the Marines' Code was to never
let your buddy down. Wounded must be rescued. In this role, the Navy Corpsmen were fantastic. I never saw a Corpsman refuse to go to a Marine's aid, no matter how exposed the position, even if the wound was assumed to
be fatal. No Marine could write about the war without praising the Navy Corpsmen. These men, who had joined the Navy expecting at least warm chow and a good bed, got stuck with dirt, mud, blood, and Marines. They
became, however, one of us, much admired for their unceasing courage in coming to our aid. Their casualty rate was just as great as ours."
From "Brothers in Battle," a Peleliu memoir by R. Bruce Watkins.
The news arrives
Johnson's sister, Helen Kowalski, now of Melbourne, Fla., was five years older than Russ. She can't forget Nov. 13, 1944, the day the Western Union telegram
messenger came to their door.
The family — including two older sisters, a younger sister and a toddler brother — was in the home at 2408 Parade, a two-story yellow house on one of the old Marvintown
neighborhood's busiest streets.
"It was such a terrible thing when the message came that he died," Kowalski said.
"We saw the man in the uniform coming to the house. We were all at home
and we kind of knew what was happening."
Helen's sister, Ruth, now of El Paso, Texas, was 12 years old. She answered the door.
"We had been told that if the envelope had two stars, you
know what that means. And this one had two stars."
She was right. The telegram said, "The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son, Russell Harry Johnson, Hospital Apprentice First
Class, was killed in action while in the service of his country." The message gave no date, no circumstances, no place. If his body is recovered, it "cannot be returned at present," the telegram said.
Their father, Richard W. Johnson, slumped into the big living room chair, stunned, silent.
Hilda Johnson and her daughters cried. Helen, newly married, was comforted by her husband. Other relatives
came to the house as the word got out.
Hilda Johnson suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair. Like so many mothers who got this news, she was devastated. Seven years later, the
disease would claim her life.
A letter written to the Johnson family by Capt. James A. Wagner a few weeks after the battle said this about their son:
"Russell H. Johnson was undoubtedly one of the finest men
in this company. … It may be of some slight condolence to know that your son died fighting bravely, as always for his comrades."
A mother's premonition
Weber didn't learn about his friend's death
until he came home on leave months later. Still dressed in his white Navy uniform, he walked over to visit Mrs. Johnson.
As Russ' mother looked out her front door to see a sailor walking up the
sidewalk, she thought the premonition of a couple days earlier had come true: That her smiling son had come home, wearing his Navy whites.
"She saw me at the door and she thought it was him," Weber said, his
voice choking at the 57-year-old memory.
Seeing that the sailor was really Weber was just another dose of bitter reality for a grieving mother. Learning from her in this way that his lifelong friend had been
killed was a terrible shock for Weber.
Weber went to Academy High School on May 25, 1944, when Lt. Commander Robert C. Greenwald presented the Navy Cross to Russ Johnson's parents at a school assembly. Someone called
for Weber to go up on the stage and stand with the family.
He recalls that Mrs. Johnson was in her wheelchair and, most of all, he said, recalls that "It was the worst moment of my life."
Photographers for
both Erie newspapers were there that day. They got the picture – stone-faced parents staring at a framed medal and citation, with little else to show for a young life lost.
Some things are best forgot
Weber doesn't talk much about his service in World War II.
He manned a 20mm antiaircraft gun aboard Navy destroyers during some of the most intense air attacks of the war. He would strap
his small frame to the rapid-fire cannon and shot away at attacking Japanese aircraft. The 20mm was virtually the last line of defense against attacking bombers and kamikaze suicide planes. When he fired the
gun, it slammed against him, nearly knocking him off the deck with each shot. Its noise was deafening, eventually causing him to lose all hearing in his right ear.
He survived those battles, along
with the many other hazards the Japanese and Pacific typhoons threw his way. "It's a miracle I even got home," he said. He did make it, eventually marrying his wife, Marian. The two of them raised eight girls and
a boy and today have 17 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Still, he won't talk of the combat he went through. Standing in front of his Lawrence Park home, he said, "It's better forgotten."
ON THE NET:
