WILBUR OTTO (SONNY) SALGE

by Todd Blomerth

            Wilbur Otto “Sonny” Salge was born on September 30, 1923. He went by “Sonny” and was your typical small town kid. While at Lockhart High School he played football and was co-captain with Alvin Riedel of the Lions football team his senior year.  He graduated in 1942, and told his sister Dorothy (Norman) that he just wanted to get out of high school. He knew he was going into the service and didn’t make too big of a deal about his grades. His sister said he didn’t want to wait around to be drafted, so he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Sonny was the son of Otto and Ella (Hartung) Salge. Otto was a World War I veteran. The Salge family lived at 606 Wichita Street in Lockhart. After high school, Sonny married Mary Holman. Like so many wartime marriages, this one was interrupted almost immediately by the realities of life. He was mustered into the Marine Corps on April 16, 1943, and shipped to Camp Elliott, California for training. While there, Sonny excelled, and was the honor graduate of his platoon. Initially in the infantry, he was later made part of a mortar section.

            Sonny was assigned to Company L, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment. The Seventh was part of the First Marine Division. Shipped overseas in October of 1943, he was one of many freshly minted Marines filling the depleted ranks of “The Old Breed.” The First Marine Division had fought heroically on Guadalcanal, and then was returned to Australia to refit. It had lost thousands to death, wounds, combat exhaustion (the term used at the time for psychological issues arising from the stress of combat) and tropical diseases.  After refilling its ranks, the Division was made part of Operation Cartwheel, an Allied plan to isolate the huge Japanese garrison at Rabaul. The 3/7, as the Third Battalion of the Seventh Marines was commonly designated, was part of the First Division which landed on Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain on December 26, 1943. In a slogging jungle campaign, the division destroyed the Japanese 51^st Division. American maps identified the areas just inland from the landing areas as “damp flat.” That was optimistic at best. The place was a misery of jungle and leeches. In the words of Bernard Nalty, “…a Marine might be slogging through knee-deep mud, step into a hole, and end up, as one of them said, ‘damp up to your neck.’”

Aogiri Ridge, Suicide Creek, and Hell’s Point became well known as places of misery and ambush – of a patrol taking ten steps and disappearing into the “Green Inferno” of seemingly impenetrable jungle. So hellish was the terrain that after four months, there was real concern that the 1^st Division would no longer be a viable amphibious force, unless relieved.

            It was and then sent to the small island of Pavuvu, for rest and refitting.

            The First Marine Division was next tasked with the invasion of island of Peleliu, in the Palau island group. The Palau campaign had originally been planned as a side show to General Douglas MacArthur’s re-taking of the Philippine Islands. The Palaus, to the east of the Philippines were to be taken in order to protect MacArthur’s right flank. Because of the speed of the Allied advances in the Southwest Pacific, serious doubts were raised as to the necessity of attacking the Palau island group at all. Arguments were made that the islands could be isolated, neutralized and by-passed. In one of the imponderables of war, the attacks were not cancelled. The First Marine Division with its three infantry and one artillery regiment was assigned to what was assumed to be a three to five day conquest of the island of Peleliu. Despite intense and protracted naval bombardment and aerial attacks, the thousands of defenders hunkered down in caves and tunnels. What was thought to be a relatively casualty-free campaign ended up as a bloody and protracted fight that decimated the Division’s First Regiment, cost the division and the US Army’s 81^st Infantry Division nearly 2000 dead and total casualties of almost 10,000. The Seventh Marines spend two bloody weeks in the Umurbrogol Pocket, a mountainous lace of sinkholes, caves and tunnels.  In scenes worthy of the worst of Dante’s “Inferno,” flamethrowers, artillery, and grenades made small progress in 110 degree heat against a hidden enemy. The battle for Peleliu raged from September 15^th until late November of 1944. The 81^st Infantry Division finished the fight, as the exhausted and depleted First Marine Division was pulled out on October 20^th and sent back to the Russell Island of Pavuvu for re-fitting.

The Marine Corps photo department sent home a picture of Sonny and two other Marines holding a captured Japanese flag. It ran in the Lockhart Post Register. Sonny no longer had the look of an innocent young man. In just a few months, he had seen enough misery for several lifetimes.  And the worst was yet to come.

The invasion of Okinawa in April of 1945 resulted in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater. It lasted 82 days. Six divisions; four Army, and two Marine, were in the fight. Huge numbers of aircraft and naval vessels were involved. It cost the lives of 12,513 soldiers, sailors and marines, including several Caldwell County men, and the US commanding officer, General Simon Bolivar Buckner. There were over 72,000 wounded and non-combat losses for the Americans. The Japanese defenders lost over 100,000 men killed. Caught in the middle of the maelstrom, the number of Okinawan civilians killed has been estimated at well over 100,000. The ferocity of the Japanese defense of an island 350 miles from its home islands lay to rest any thought of the United States not using atomic weapons instead of attempting an invasion of the three main Japanese islands.

The initial landings on Okinawa were unopposed. Then came the kamikazes – suicide airplanes that sunk or damaged dozens of ships. On the ground, Americans split the island in two with relative ease. Some began to think things wouldn’t be so bad. They were soon disabused of that notion. The Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, was a defensive genius, and he had the terrain to prove it. Retreating to mountains in the north and south of the island, the Japanese defenders made the Americans pay for every inch of land taken.  If possible to do so, torrential rains made things even worse. Bodies lay rotting in the mud. Tanks could not move. GIs’ and marines’ clothing rotted on them, as they moved from cover to cover. In the south, the 1^st Marine Division attacked a line of defenses held by deadly ridgelines. Marine Colonel Joseph Alexander noted in his history of the Okinawa campaign that after a fierce fight to seize one of the ridges, “the next 1,200 yards of [the First Division’s] advance would eat up 18 days of fighting. In this case, seizing Wana Ridge would be tough, but the most formidable obstacle would be steep, twisted Wana Draw that rambled just to the south, a deadly killing ground, surrounded by towering cliffs pocked with caves, with every possible approach strewn with mines and covered by interlocking fire.” It was in this action that on May 16, 1945, PFC Sonny Salge was killed. He was twenty years old.

Sonny’s body was eventually returned to the United States, but not to Texas. He is buried in Section M, Site 371, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, located in the Punchbowl in Hawaii.

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Sonny’s sister, Dorothy Norman—an energetic 92-years-of-age in 2013—visited with me and provided Sonny’s photo, as well as stories of her brother and his childhood in Lockhart. Tommy Holland (d. 2016) also provided some background on Sonny. Muster rolls were used to track his location after assignment to the 7th Marines. “Cape Gloucester: The Green Inferno,” by Bernard C. Nalty (www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-C-Gloucester/) gave insight into that hellhole.  The picture of Sonny’s headstone was provided by Fred Weber.

SAMUEL G. SERRATO

by Todd Blomerth

Soledad Garcia, at the age of fourteen, crossed into the United States on February 14, 1914 at Eagle Pass, Texas. Undoubtedly, she and her family were one of many fleeing the uncertainty and barbarity of the Mexican Revolution.  She eventually married David R. Serrato who was born in Mendoza, Texas in 1900. David and Soledad lived in Maxwell, Texas for a part of their lives, where David worked for local farmers. At some point the Serratos moved with their family to 716 E. Live Oak, in Lockhart.  Samuel was born on February 16, 1924, the third of seven children. His siblings included Abraham, Beatrice (Soto), Estella (Alfanador), Lucy, Rudy, and David (“Big Dave”).

Soledad and David Sr. also raised Genaro Ybarra, who they treated as a son. The Serrato family were members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

Samuel had some elementary school education, possibly at Navarro School. He was working as a Western Union messenger prior to entering the Army on March 11, 1943.

 Samuel was one of hundreds of thousands of Americans of Hispanic descent who served in the armed forces during World War II. We know that approximately 53,000 Puerto Ricans served. Because Hispanics were not segregated like African Americans, and with the exception of Puerto Ricans, no good figures exist as to their true numbers, although estimates range from 250,000 to 500,000. Many National Guard units from the Southwest (including many companies with the 36^th “Texas” Infantry Division) consisted largely of Mexican Americans.

Samuel was married to Natividad Romero Garcia. Their only child, Raul Jose Serrato was born on April 2, 1944, but died on January 22, 1945 in the San Marcos Hospital with what was diagnosed as entero-colitis. Samuel would outlive his only child by less than three weeks. In all probability, Samuel never saw his son, as he was overseas in the Pacific when the Raul Jose was born.

After basic and advanced infantry training, Samuel was assigned to Company I, 129^th Infantry Regiment, 37^th Infantry Division. The division, originally a National Guard entity, saw combat in the Pacific Theater. Although his regiment was part of the 37^th Infantry Division, in at least two different actions it was detached and assigned to the 33^rd Infantry Division and the 40^th Infantry Division. Samuel received his baptism of fire in the Bougainville Campaign. The 37^th Infantry Division landed on Bougainville Island on November 13, 1943 along with the 3^rd Marine Division. Bougainville is a huge island, and there was no intention of trying to drive the estimated 25,000 Japanese troops off it. Instead, the Americans established a large beachhead at Princess Augusta Bay, building airfields and supply points inside it. With its anchorage and air facilities, protection could be provided for forces used in the retaking of the Philippines. Once the Japanese defenders realized that the Americans would not try to seek them out in the island’s trackless jungles, they were forced to attack the American perimeter. After a series of small clashes, the Japanese hit the American perimeter in a series of battles in and around what became known as Hill 700 and Koromokina River between March 8 and March 23, 1944. Although the Japanese were repulsed with horrific losses, the 37^th Infantry Division suffered greatly as well. The November 9, 1944 edition of the Lockhart Post Register proudly announced that Samuel received his Combat Infantryman’s Badge for combat on the island of Bougainville.

            After the repulse of the Japanese, the 37^th Division was pulled out of the line and began training for a landing on the Philippine island of Luzon. The American re-conquest of Luzon began with largely un-opposed landings at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945.  The U.S. Sixth Army swept down toward the capital of Manila with 175,000 men. A second landing of troops, both airborne and amphibious, moved toward the capital city from the southwest. The overall Japanese Army commander, General Yamashita, did not want to contest the city, and ordered the military there to leave the city open. Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi and his naval forces ignored the order. A bloodbath ensured. Literally thousands of innocent Filipinos were slaughtered by the enraged Japanese. Some Japanese accounts refer to it as gyakusatsu, or massacre. The atrocities beggar the imagination. Rape, murder, torture, and destruction of an entire city occurred because of the refusal to acknowledge the inevitable defeat, and the hatred for another race. Noted historian William Manchester, in his seminal book on General Douglas MacArthur writes that “[h]ospitals were set on fire after their patients were strapped to their beds. The corpses of males were mutilated, females of all ages were raped before they were slain, and babies’ eyeballs were gouged out and smeared on walls like jelly.” It is a fact to this day not acknowledged in Japan.

Those not outright murdered were often killed by American artillery and air strikes. There were an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths.

In securing Manila, the only urban fighting in the Pacific, 80% of the city was destroyed by artillery and naval gunfire. By all accounts, the battle was horrific, rivaling some of the fighting seen between Germans and Russians on the Eastern Front. It was also a cautionary tale of what could be expected fighting in built up areas. The Japanese naval forces were largely untrained in this type of fighting, had no artillery or armor, and no reinforcements. Yet they were disciplined and intent on making the Americans pay for every inch taken. Every block was fortified, and hand to hand, room to room fighting went on for weeks. Despite being vastly outnumbered, defenders held the advantage.

The 129^th Infantry Regiment freed 1,330 U.S. and Allied prisoner of war and civilian internees from the Old Bilibid Prison on February 4, then crossed the Pasig River despite its destroyed bridges on February 8, and attacked Provisor Island, where the city’s electrical generation plant was located. In the words of Thomas Huber, “The 129^th Infantry Regiment approached the island in engineer assault boats, then conducted a cat and mouse struggle with Japanese for control of the buildings, fighting with machine guns and rifles among the structures and heavy equipment.” After securing Provisor, the 129^th attacked Manila’s New Police Station, another strongpoint. In the words of Robert Ross Smith, in his sequential history, “Triumph in the Philippines,” describes the area:

The New Police Station, two stories of reinforced concrete and a large basement, featured inside and outside bunkers, in both of which machine gunners and riflemen holed up. The 129th Infantry, which had previously seen action at Bougainville and against the Kembu Group, and which subsequently had a rough time against the Shobu Group in northern Luzon, later characterized the combined collection of obstacles in the New Police Station area as the most formidable the regiment encountered during the war.

The March 15, 1945 Lockhart Post Register reported that Pfc. Samuel Serrato had been reported killed in Manila, Philippines on February 14, 1945. He was killed in the taking the New Post Office and the complex of buildings around it. He was one of over 1000 GIs killed in the fight for Manila.

In 1949 Samuel’s body was returned home. Last rites were given at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on March 6. With American Legion Post 41 performing full military honors, burial was in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery.  At the request of the family, a military headstone marks Samuel’s grave.

 

REFERENCE NOTES:  Ross Smith’s Triumph in the Philippines (US Army Center of Military History, 1963) and Battle of Manila Online’s website, www.battleofmanila.org were used extensively to capture the brutality of the Japanese defenders, and the difficulty of rooting out entrenched urban defenders. Thomas Huber’s “The Battle of Manila” (an essay within the website) was also used. Samuel’s Combat Infantryman’s Badge was reported as having been earned during the fight for HIll 129 on Bougainville Island. This probably is an error; I believe the fight was for Hill 700. See www.historynet.com/battle-of-bougainville-37th-infantry-battle-for-hill-700.htm. Sadly, I was never able to find a photograph of Samuel.