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John |
Army |
JOHN 0LIVER MAYO: WORLD WAR II
John Oliver Mayo proudly served his country during World War II.
After graduating from Greenwood High School in 1932 he spent the next few years in a variety of jobs. He clerked at J.T. Ellis Grocery Store and was an independent distributor of fresh produce, hauling it from South Texas to several northern cities including Detroit, St. Louis and Kansas City. He worked in creamery companies in Waldron and Bloomer. He was working at Community Creamery Co. in Greenwood in early1941 when Hitler was on a rampage in Europe and rumblings of war were heard everywhere. The United States had begun a military draft of eligible young men from the ages of 18 through 30. John did not wait to be drafted. In September 1941 he volunteered for service and was inducted into the army at Camp Joe T. Robinson, Arkansas.
In October 1941 he was transferred to Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyoming where he underwent basic training.
John’s next assignment was Camp Presidio of Monterey, California in January 1942. He enjoyed working in the commissary at the Post Exchange. On March 1,1942 he was promoted from Private 2nd Class to Technician 5th Grade. He stayed at Presidio until August 1942 when he was sent to Camp Roberts, California.
That same month he was transferred to the 7th Infantry Division at Camp San Luis Obispo, California. The division was nicknamed the Hourglass Division because of the shape of the insignia. He was put into Quartermaster Company to haul and distribute supplies. For the next three years his duty was to deliver rations and ammunition to frontline soldiers. I have a permit showing that he was trained and authorized to drive passenger cars, cargo trucks --- two ton and larger and combat vehicles.
In October 1942 John went on maneuvers in the Mojave Desert in California for highly specialized combat training. The next month, November 1942, he was back at San Luis Obispo. There on November 25, 1942 he was promoted to Corporal.
January 1943 saw John sent to Fort Ord, California.
While in California John and his many buddies and friends were privileged to attend USO shows and frequent well-known restaurants such as The Brown Derby, Hollywood Plaza Hotel Cafe at Hollywood and Vine and Mike Lyman’s. They visited the beaches and attractions in Pacific Grove, Los Angles, Hollywood, Carmel, Monterey and other cities.
All the good times abruptly came to a halt. While at Fort Ord the 7th Division was put on alert. The men had received their smallpox and other required overseas vaccinations. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They did not capture Hawaii but did enormous damage to the United States Navy which had several ships in port there. The Japanese had also been invading numerous other islands in the Pacific Ocean (some of them United States territory), capturing them and establishing bases from which they planned to attack the United States. But our government had other plans in mind. In John’s war memorabilia there is a directive from the U.S. Government stating that the 7th Division was to participate in recapturing these islands. The orders for each island were: 1. Take it. 2. Destroy Japs. 3. Defend it. 4. Develop island as a base for future operations against the enemy.
For many days and sometimes weeks before the 7th Division soldiers landed on an island from LST boats, the navy and marine servicemen bombarded the land from their battleships and airplanes. Then the foot soldiers would move in and in hand-to-hand combat rout the Japanese from their strongholds and hiding places. The Japanese snipers who had escaped the bombardment hid in trees, pillboxes and caves and when they shot at a U.S. soldier they were usually the one annihilated. John said that the nearest he came to being killed in a campaign was when his helmet was hit and dented by a sniper sitting in a tree as he delivered supplies.
The 7th Division left San Francisco April 15, 1943 for their first mission. On May 11 they invaded Attu at the end of the 46-mile long 16-mile wide Aleutian Island chain off the coast of Alaska. Through some terrible mistake by the army the division had been issued gear and equipment for a hot tropical island. But here they were on a northern island in mountainous terrain with fog, snow and freezing weather. They suffered badly from the cold and inadequate clothing and tents. The feet of some unlucky men were so badly frostbitten they had to be amputated. It was a struggle for the men of the 7th Division, as their wheeled vehicles could not negotiate the mountainsides and bottomless tundra of the valleys. Rations and ammunition sometimes had to be hand carried. Human supply lines often extended as far as a mile and a half. It took 21 days of fierce fighting for our forces to take the island. They spent three more weary months cleaning up battle debris, building bases, burying the dead and killing Japanese stragglers.
Starting in September 1943 the men of the 7th Division were in beautiful Hawaii for Rest and Relaxation (R&R) for awhile. But it was not all R&R. The troops underwent a strenuous four months training grind. In January they had a three-day rest period at Schofield Barracks before sailing from Pearl Harbor on the twenty-second. They were headed for Kwajelien in the Marshall Islands. On January 31, from the ships in convoy just off the coast, great fires could be seen burning after the intense air strikes of the past two days. This island, a little more than two miles long and a fourth as wide had some 5,500 Japanese squeezed on it. They were fortified with pillboxes, deep dugouts and air raid shelters crowded on every usable foot. The troops landed there on February 1, 1944. After terrific fighting for six days in the boiling hot sun the men had killed every living enemy on the island except a punch-drunk few who surrendered. Some of the days were miserable with rain and fog. After the main island of Kwajelien was secured several more little islands in the atoll remained to be investigated and occupied. Although the islands were small the Japanese had embedded garrisons that had to be fought for and won hand-to-hand. Mop-up action also had to be done. There were no natives inhabiting these islands.
By March 1944 the weary soldiers were back in Hawaii for a bit more R&R. On July 27 at Stanley Field, Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, 14,000 officers and members of the 7th Infantry Division paraded in review before President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Douglas McArthur, Major General Archibald Arnold, Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and William Leahy. The servicemen were privileged to enjoy the majestic beauty of the islands and also attended touring USO shows.
On September 11, 1944 the troops sailed from Hawaii headed for the invasion of Leyte in the Philippine Islands. Leyte, 40 miles wide and 115 miles long, was a territory of the United States that the Japanese had invaded and occupied. Landing there on October 20, after air and naval bombardment, this was another hard fought campaign. Many sizeable villages were destroyed. After 110 days of ferocious fighting and mopping-up in the tropic swamps and jungle mountains, on December 25 the battle of Leyte was declared officially over. They were relieved of tactical missions on February 12, 1945 when planning for the next assault began.
No rest was to be had for the brave soldiers of the 7th Division. Leaving Leyte, they headed straight for Okinawa, the main island in the Ryuku group. This was their fourth island invasion in two years. This mountainous island is 60 miles long, varying in width from three to 18 miles and lies about 350 miles southwest of Japan. It was strategically necessary for the U.S. to gain control of it. Having several airstrips and room for many more, U.S. possession would place the Japanese mainland within in range of our fighter planes and would extend air coverage to the China coast. It’s harbor offered advantages for an advanced fleet and supply base. Okinawa would provide an excellent base for operations against Japan itself. This was one of the most important and biggest battles of the Pacific war zone.
After days of naval and air force bombing of the Island, the 7th Division assault troops invaded Okinawa on April 1, 1945, an Easter Sunday. As usual, navy transport ships and LST’s aided them for access to the beaches. This island’s terrain was made up of rugged sharp coral ridges that were hard to walk on and maneuver vehicles and tanks over, and densely brush-covered hills with steamy jungle valleys in between. It was hot and muddy with heavy rainfall every day. The soldiers went for days with wet clothing and shoes. Mosquitoes, flies and other insects, which carry malaria, jungle fever and dysentery, were prevalent. As they had encountered on previous islands the enemy was fortified in caves, pillboxes and individual rifle pits to provide an all around defense. Many heroic battles were fought with each one named for the hill or ridge the U.S. soldiers took from the enemy. John was promoted to Sergeant while on Okinawa.
Because of the courageous fighting of our troops and morale decline of the Japanese soldiers and officers, by the end of June Okinawa was conquered. They thought their next assignment would be the invasion of mainland Japan. In August 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan ending the war in the Pacific.
The 7th Infantry Division killed between 25,000 and 28,000 Japanese soldiers on Okinawa. The division’s cost was also high. 5,779 men and officers were wounded. Three were listed as missing in action and 1,116 officers and men were killed. There were inhabited cities on the island that were destroyed and unfortunately many, many natives also died.
John was still on Okinawa when on August 15, 1945 President Harry Truman announced that the Japanese government had accepted unconditional surrender terms. The war had come to an end and the men of the 7th Division who had earned the renowned name of “iron men of the Pacific” could come home. Some statistics I have read state that in two and one-half years the 7th Division killed 55,000 Japanese in the course of taking those islands in the Pacific Ocean. Before John was transferred back to the U.S. the troops weathered an immense typhoon on Okinawa.
After leaving the United States from San Francisco, California April 15, 1943, the 7th Division celebrated their homecoming in October 1945 when their troopships landed at Tacoma, Washington. They had served their country for almost three years from the miserable cold of Attu to the rain, mud and steamy jungles of Kwajelien, Leyte and Okinawa. Those islands were thousands of miles apart. In John’s war memorabilia there is a little black book where he listed the eight troopships he sailed on and the number of days on each ship for a total of 164 days. He had been transported 14,000 miles by ship on missions and was happy to be back in the U.S. I quote from a notation he made on the back of a picture of the troopship on which he was transported home: “This is the troopship that I came from Okinawa to Tacoma, Washington in 1945. After thirty months of overseas sure was a grand feeling to get off ship and on to U.S. land again.”
John rode a troop train from Tacoma to Camp Chaffee where he was honorably discharged from the army October 19, 1945.
John was fiercely proud of his four years service in the army. He was very respectful of the flag of the United States. I quote from a letter he wrote home about a close buddy who was killed on the fifth night on Leyte: “Earl (Lumpkin) did not suffer any at all as he died instantly. I was about a hundred yards from him when he was killed. Like thousands of other American boys, he was killed in the line of duty serving his country, for the freedom we are all fighting for.” There is no way I can begin to fathom the horrors and fears that soldiers on the battlefield have to endure. The lives of those on the battlefront are changed forever. Those years took a toll on the men, emotionally and physically. John did not often speak about his experiences, he just wanted to get on with his life and raise his family. He had nightmares all the rest of his life about the battles he was in and would not attend a war movie or watch one on television.
John received the following awards for his military service in the United States Army: Good Conduct Medal, American Defense Medal, American Campaign Medal, WWII Victory Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, Honorable Service Lapel Button WWII, Sharpshooters Badge w/Carbine Bar, Asia-Pacific Service Ribbon With Four Bronze Stars and Philippine Liberation Service Ribbon With Two Bronze Stars.
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