“It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase.” – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1
Month: September 2026
“Full oft we see cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.” – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence, but never tax’d for speech.” – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1
“Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.” – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1
“Where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity—they are virtues and traitors too.” – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well 1.1
“The closer that one offensive steps on another’s heels, the greater will be the enemy’s loss and confusion, and the less one’s own.” – Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, New Guinea and the Marianas
“If a man was hit, he knew that a Navy corpsman or an Army aidman would be at his side as soon as possible . . . The risks taken by the corpsmen, aidmen, and doctors in their concern for the wounded were great . . . In the course of the Guam campaign, the 3d Division had 3 medical officers and 27 corpsmen killed in action and 12 officers and 118 corpsmen wounded; the 1st Brigade had 1 officer and 9 corpsmen killed and 1 officer and 35 corpsmen wounded. The 77th Division lost 10 medical aidmen killed and had 35 wounded in action.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”
“By any rational standard, the most devastating cost of war is the lives of the men it kills and maims. In these terms, the price of Guam came high. In 21 days of battle Marine units of the Southern Troops and Landing Force lost 1,190 men killed and 377 died of wounds and suffered 5,308 wounded in action; the 77th Infantry Division casualties were 177 men killed and 662 wounded. In the same period, 10,971 Japanese bodies were counted. Sealed in caves and bunkers by shellfire and demolitions lay hundreds more of the enemy dead. Perhaps as many as 10,000 Japanese were still alive in the jungles of Guam on 10 August [1944]. Except for the doomed group defending the enemy headquarters at Mt. Mataguac, there was little cohesion among the men that survived. In the months to come, when American troops in training for combat sharpened their skills in a perpetual mopping-up action, all Japanese efforts at counterattacks and guerrilla warfare floundered in a bitter struggle for survival. Starvation was a constant spectre to the men hidden in the vast stretches of jungle, and many of those that were later captured or killed were too weak to fight or hide any longer. For these survivors of the Thirty-first Army, Guam became a nightmare.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”
“In late afternoon [of 6 August 1944], while he was reconnoitering the site of a new CP near Ipapao [on Guam], the 77th Division chief of staff, Colonel Douglas C. McNair, was killed by a sniper. Colonel McNair’s father, Lieutenant General Leslie J. McNair, had been killed 12 days before by a misdirected American bomb, while he was observing an infantry battalion attack in France.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”
“The distance across the island is not far, as the crow flies, but unluckily we can’t fly. The nearest I came to flying was while descending the slippery side of a mountain in a sitting position. . . . After advancing a few yards you find that the handle of the machine gun on your shoulder, your pack and shovel, canteens, knife, and machete all stick out at right angles and are as tenacious in their grip on the surrounding underbrush as a dozen grappling hooks. Straining, sweating, and swearing avails you nothing so you decide on a full-bodied lunge—success crowns your efforts as all the entangling encumbrances decided to give up the struggle simultaneously. Just before you hit the ground a low swinging vine breaks your fall by looping itself under your chin, almost decapitating you and snapping your helmet fifteen yards to the rear. . . . You untangle your equipment, retrieve your helmet, and move on. The flies and mosquitos have discovered your route of march and have called up the reinforcements including the underfed and undernourished who regard us as walking blood banks. We continue to push on. . . . ” – Unidentified soldier, quoted in Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”
“The assembly area for the Japanese attack force, principally men of 2/38, was the mangrove swamp in front of the 22d Marines. In apparent preparation for the assault, sake was passed about freely, and the Marines manning forward foxholes could plainly hear the resulting riotous clamor as the Japanese worked themselves up to fever pitch. Finally, just before midnight, a tumultuous banzai charge erupted out of the swamp as a disorganized crowd of yelling, screaming men attacked . . . The resulting carnage was almost unbelievable, as artillery forward observers called down the fire of brigade, 77th Division, and III Corps artillery on the surging enemy troops. . . By 0200, the action died down . . . Daylight revealed a gruesome scene, for the mangled remains of over 400 enemy dead lay sprawled in front of the Marine lines in the impact area where over 26,000 artillery shells had fallen during the counterattack. Marine casualties in Company L were light, despite the close-quarter combat, and the flanking platoon of the 4th Marines did not lose a man, although it counted 256 Japanese bodies in the vicinity of its position.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”
“Bundschu Ridge was one of those inherently worthless pieces of land which were emotionally remembered by the men who fought there in World War II . . . It was so situated that even a handful of well-hidden men, using mortars and machine guns, could repel a much larger force moving up from below. Captain [Geary R.] Bundschu’s company [Company A, 3rd Marines] had already suffered from enemy fire while on the water and on the beach. Now, with but a few minutes for reorganization, he started the attack, moving across the rice paddies toward the ridge, with two platoons in assault and one in support. By 0920 [on 21 July 1944] the lead platoons were pinned down in a gully to the west of the ridge by Japanese mortar and machine gun fire . . . About 1400 he asked Major Aplington [CO, 1/3 Marines] for permission to disengage, a request which had to be denied because the company was so involved. Captain Bundschu reorganized what was left of Company A and prepared to undertake again the last 100 yards of the ridge. At nearly the end of a day oppressive with tropical heat, the Marines tried again, knowing the odds. They once more encountered the machine gun fire that had stopped the initial assault; now, however, . . . ‘a thin line of Company A men reached the crest.’ Other Marines, shot en route up the steep slope, fell backwards to the ground far below. At the top of the ridge, enemy fire of savage intensity prevented a reorganization for defense of the ground gained; the foothold became untenable. The second attack on the ridge had cost the life of Captain Bundschu and further depleted Company A. At nightfall, the enemy still held Bundschu Ridge, and the Marines were reminded of this fact by the Japanese fire which kept up through the unhappy night.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. III, “The Return to Guam”