GLAMOUR GAL

e [Music] the training was over a regiment of Marine Corps artillery stands its last inspection in the Pacific before shoving off for combat combat troops have always christened the weapons they fight with so when an iron lady named 105 mm Howitzer model m2a1 Ed roll call as glamour gal she wasn't just part of another section in G battery anymore 10 men in a gun had become a team of 11 there was the section chief Sergeant pipes from the Louisiana Bayou Country and the Gunner an ex- fomer named Bill Smith Jr big stoop simovich a Wall Street clerk fired glamour gal and the loader was Chief Jefferson a chalk Indian there was Perman Alonso Martinez out of old Spain by way of Montana and from Co Valley Pennsylvania a one-time welder named Tom hany there was Tommy bratcher Amo passer who dreamt of raising herfords back in Tennessee and tex Q who came strangely enough from Texas Chris beny the Dutchman from DC with post-war plans in South America and the old man of the outfit po friend these were the lady's escorts they had bullied her and babed her from Camp Pendleton to Pearl hover and while they often wished she looked like the portrait painted on her Shield they were proud of her when the own finally came to shev off everybody knew where they were going Trump Formosa melea French Indochina every place from Tokyo yacht Basin to bton drydock they all at the Straight Dope except glamour gal from here on out the vision would be in its combat phase many of the men were already veterans and many had never smelled powder burning except on the rage the guns were Arsenal tested and tried in the field but the ultimate Proving Ground of men and guns together would be the battlefield a secret destination sealed in the fighting orders of the task force down in the stuffy hole of a transport the artillery men were just passengers bored breathing last week's air and reading the print of last year's mag magazines swapping lies about their Hometown girlfriends and comparing the artistic merits of Oceanside tattooing with that of Honolulu but mostly they wondered where they were going one morning they found out the captain gave them the scoop showed them their objective it was the island of iojima in the volcano group a godforsaken rock somewhere between the devil and the Dutch East Indies he showed them Green Beach where George battery would go in he showed them where glamour gal would fire her first shot in Ang he showed them where some of them would die D-Day EO had already gotten the roughest Preparatory rough down of any spot in the Pacific but it still crawled with Japs and it looked like the first wave was going to have to fight with its feet wet with their guns still below decks the caners of G battery waited for the word from Shore the message that would tell them that the Infantry was beached had wanted artillery support following the debar plan Sergeant pipes and half the crew went in with glamour gal in an amphibious truck while the rest of the section clamor down the scramble Nets into landing craft it was just like Maneuvers except for that funny feeling around their breakfast crossing the line of departure the men of the assault Force realized that the Japanese artillery had good seaward observation as the rain shortened to include Small Arms fire they knew the beach was still hot and that glamour gal would be plenty welcome [Music] running a Hellfire of sniper shots and mortar bursts G battery hit Green Beach it was Shin deep with soft volcanic ash that rendered most towage Vehicles inoperable there was no time to deploy Inland the order was to set him up on the beach which has already cuted with traffic and supplies it was exposed at Enad but the Infantry was in trouble and as quick as they came ashore the guns were met by their Crews moved a few feet and register Ed on their first combat Target menacing Mount sorachi the main observation post of the Japanese defense system lamoral fired her first shots like a veteran there wasn't much to it no mathematical searching for an invisible Target she rifled them right over the heads of the Infantry almost Point Blank R the whole battery was in there pitching and up on the Rock the jaaps could practically look down our barrels and read the few settings [Applause] by evening the casualties that started coming back glamour gal hadn't lost any of her cre but some sections were going to start short-handed the next day the morning of d+1 found glamour gal and G battery still sighted in on the Sullen planks of sorachi the beach was still cluttered the guns were crammed Ed to a 20 ydd Front the range had dropped to 800 yd matching trajectory with the m1s of the Infantry and somewhere inside that 800 y the Infantry was starting the assault that would put the flag on saachi but it took teamwork to put it there [Applause] [Music] [Applause] as fast as the firing data reached her pit glamour gal slammed her 33lb projectiles into the caves and Ledges of the big rock but the ammunition Supply had to be constant incessant it came in a rotating flotilla of ducks and am tracks and was dispersed in safe SE and convenient P Out Of Reach from sorachi there was more fire pouring into that extinct volcano than ever came out of it when it was active the mountain fought back but gradually the PLS and ships and guns filled out the battle pattern that would end with Mount Tachi once again an extinct volcano close by glamour gal's gun pit was the surfwashed wreckage of hundreds of our landing craft many of them gunned to Pieces bringing shells to the artillery when they were hit the debris wounded our Gunners the litter of derel made subsequent Landings dangerous but we own the beach an unshakable foothold on iojima with the southern spit of IO and our hands we still had to blast the Japs from the remaining three quarters of the island the action was moving northward toward the [ __ ] held airfields and there was no rest for G [Applause] battery no place on the island was safe from the searching [ __ ] fire so glammer gal had to be dug well in in her new position the men moved cautiously because the sniper fire was heavy and besides the Infantry was waiting a change of positions meant an uneasy lapse in artillery support the firing lag had to be kept to the absolute minimum the enemy was expert at infiltration and local security was important while glamour was digging in her little sisters carried the ball traditional to the Marine Corps the highly mobile 75mm pack hoarders delivered continuous fire to the north in the face of heavy losses from [ __ ] counter battery [Applause] fire any level ground that the Japs weren't using served as an air scrip for our grasshoppers aerial observation aided the ground batteries by identifying targets spotting bursts and radioing Corrections back to the [Applause] guns at the southern approach to the first air scrip another Battalion of 105 was set up on glamour gal's flank since the afternoon of D-Day these two outfits had shared range and Target when glamour gal was properly imp placed in a well protected pit her alignment was checked all guns in the battery had to as parallel as an Aiming circle and a Lieutenant's mathematics could make them forward observers landed with and deployed ahead of the Infantry spotted a large concentration of Japanese they pH the target data back to the regimental fire Direction Center who would pass it down to Battalion and Battery positions from the front to the gun pits the Japanese Troop groups and installations traveled down the chain of artillery command acquired a jumble of grids and decimal points and emerged at G battery as a fire mission a synchronized barrage with the entire regiment backing up glamour gal as she blistered the paint off her tube to get her quota of effective rounds into the target area [Applause] the forward observers kept each section supplied with fire data on this Mission the gun Crews couldn't observe the effect of their own fire but they knew that within 25 yards of every one of their bursts no jet could live [Applause] up ahead the Infantry watched the smoke and burst of the barrage when it lifted they were going [Applause] in the area neutralized our Riflemen moved in but the Japs had managed to pull a few of their Cliffside guns back out of our barage enemy mortars and artillery were still zeroed in on the path of our Advance rockets and tank team delivered direct artillery and Flame against the Fortified ridges and into the firing Forts and embur of the Japanese caves [Applause] from the air observers directed the execution of the order that came down through division to burn out the entire area aull in the fire requests meant no rest for the gun sections Lamor gal had to be cleaned and ready for the next mission the Infantry might call for and the ammunition had to be unpacked during spare moments for there would be no time when the firing started whenever possible it was prepared in advance as well the shell casings were loaded with powder bags the number depending on the probable charges to be used on the projecs fuses had to be set set for everything from super quick to come next Sunday everything was prepared swiftly and with mathematical Precision anything else might mean the loss of seconds in serving the guns and seconds counted on iojima where the Japanese in the desperation of their last ditch were pouring everything they had into our lives they tried to stop us the air was full of hot iron and purple hearts our Advance continued [Applause] [Music] on a few days after glamour gal had hit the beach the core artillery had landed its 155 mm harders not as fast or as mobile as the 105s they had greater range and destructive power and they were just the answer to the long range jamp Coastal [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] guns the nights were often very warm for February when a high trajectory artillery duel was on it was give and take until the Japs set a lucky shot into the division ammo [Applause] dump after that things got strictly High trajectory and Division and core artillery thre everything but the galley stove and the General's Jeep into the [ __ ] battery in the morning the Japanese guns were scrap iron all over the island the enemy defenses were [Music] crumbling for the first time in almost a month the artillery could stop to pick up its brass the campaign was over after 28 bloody days of fighting the name of iojima went into the B battle honors of three Marine divisions and into the Glorious traditions of the United States Marine [Music] Corps glamour gal was now a veteran it had taken a paintbrush to name her and 28 Days of Blood and fire to baptize her now she and the boys were getting ready to shove off again getting ready for the next operation this time too everybody knew where they were going Korea HOSA French Indo China but they didn't know that their next Landing would be on Japan itself they didn't know that inside of seven months the war would be over and that glamour gal's next mission would be as a policeman's Club to help keep order in Greater East Asia [Music] [Applause] some of them would never know pop Reynold the old man was still back there back on evil and so was the captain they will be there forever just a small part of History the story of 10 men and a gun [Music] [Applause]