Letters from the greatest generation

It was 1989. Angie Sills, now a teacher at the Science Department of the Northern Marianas College, was a mite upset. At that time, she was on Tinian and was distressed at the local prices of Tyson chicken. She was so disconcerted at how much the chicken cost at the local grocery story that this prompted her to write to Tyson Foods Inc. in Arkansan to at least help out in bringing the prices down.

The response she got was a surprise, not only because the company’s executive vice president, Bob Justice, actually took time out to respond to her concerns but also because Justice turned out to be a veteran of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian. Apparently, Sills’ letter, which came all the way from Tinian, brought back a rush of memories for Justice, who related to Sills some of his experiences.

At the same time, Sills found out that a family friend, Ed Bollard, was also a veteran of that bloody conflict in the Pacific. When he found out that she is now living in the Northern Mariana Islands, he wrote her some of his experiences in the war and his memories of the CNMI, particularly Tinian, which he described in one of the letters as one of the prettiest islands he’s ever seen in the Pacific. At that time, Bollard was a Tank Commander for the 2nd Tank Battalion, Fourth Marine Division.

Below are the texts of those letters, which Sills’ kindly furnished the Saipan Tribune for publication.

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January 4, 1991

Good morning Angie:

This year, like you, Jean and I spent New Year’s Eve many miles from home. However, we were privileged to spend it with old friends…people by the name of Frank and Marge [Angie’s parents]. Just like the many New Year’s Eves that we spent in Stroudsburg, we had a quiet, nice time. Your dad and I played golf in the afternoon while Jean and Marge went shopping.

Your dad is in great shape and your mother seems to be fine physically. However the eyes continue to be a problem and I think might be gradually worsening. They are very much aware of this and are making overtures to the rest home facilities in St. Petes that your mother’s aunt is in. As much as they like their place in Avon Park, I think that their move to the gulf coast might be imminent and probably for the better.

Now let’s take a look at some of the points that you made in your recent welcome letter.

The pictures are great and will be seen by many. At every gathering of Marines who were in the Saipan-Tinian battles, the subject always turns to the various suicide fiascos. Only this past week one of friends was describing one such slaughter and he described it in minute details. I guess we all have memories of these gruesome incidents. When you get back we will get together and compare notes.

When you talk about going over to Saipan, it always seems to me that you are talking in reverse. During the battle we went from Saipan to Tinian. We fought for approx 6 weeks to conquer Saipan and approx 3 weeks to take Tinian. My tank crew (4 other guys) and I were the first persons to land on Tinian. We were sent in as an experimental tank to see if the beach was mined. If it was, the weight of the tank would set off a mine and thus warn of danger. We ran over one mine, which fortunately was an anti-personnel mine and did nothing ran more than blow one of our tracks off. We then cleaned up the rest of the mines. The beach that we landed on at Tinian was the smallest in the history of modern warfare.

Saipan was the industrial and military island. Garapan was the capitol and Chalan Kanoa was the sugar refining town. We landed at Chalan Kanoa and were pre-warned not to unnecessarily ruin the town or refinery buildings, since the natives would need these to restart their economy after we left. We followed these orders for the first day, but on the second, when we were being decimated by heavy sniper fire, we blew down the smoke stack on the refinery and found many, many bodies of females who were sniping at us from gun slits in the walls.

Tinian was the breadbasket for the 2 islands with many well cared for gardens and some great fruit and vegetables. I always hated to ruin these as the food was needed to feed the natives and it would have been great to have some fresh fruit and vegetables ourselves. However, that destruction was the byproducts of war. There were also several Shinto shrines, which leads me to believe that Tinian was the religious center for the area. Here again, we were told not destroy these shrines, and again we complied until we began to receive gunfire. The shots you sent of North Field…again we were used as guinea pigs to make the first drive across this half completed airfield. We went across without any trouble, but on the other side we ran into trouble. This was not unusual except for the fact that one of our tank commanders was killed by a fanatic who crawled up on the tank and placed a mine on the hatch. The bad part was that the man killed had just received a letter saying that he was a new father for the first time. Again the fortunes of war.

There were many civilians of both sexes on Saipan, but I can’t recall any women or children on Tinian. I did run across a Japanese Dr. who received his degree from the U. of San Francisco. He was an arrogant cuss and would not cooperate before we sent him back to the prisoners’ pen, so I relieved him of his medical kit which I now have back in Stroudsburg.

I cannot ever remember seeing any Filipinos on either of the islands. They must have come after the war to escape from Marcos.

There were quite a few Catholic nuns on the islands, especially Saipan. Are they still there? Between the destruction that we wrought and the rough handling they got from the Japanese soldiers, these gals had a rough time.

I have talked with many men who were sent to Australia either to a hospital or as a rest camp, and every one says that Sydney is the cleanest town they were ever in.

Our rest camp was the island of Maui and there was none better. I was always intrigued by driving around and seeing the black sand beaches (lava) and the paths that the lava made as it raced to the sea. Our camp was 2/3 of the way up Mt. Haleakala, which I believe is the largest extinct volcano in the world.

Well, its time for me to put away the typewriter and get on with the day. I hope that the remainder of your time in the islands is pleasurable and that we will get to see you when you get back. It has been a tradition in our set in Stroudsburg, to have the annual golfers picnic on the Memorial Day weekend. Your folks are talking about coming up for it this year. If they do, and if you are home, please be our guest. We will have room for all of your for however long you wish to stay.

An old friend
Ed

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Hello from Arkansas

May 23, 1989

Thank you for your letter of April 30, from that tiny island of Tinian way out in the blue Pacific Ocean. Back home, as you know, we would say it’s a “fer piece” from Arkansas. But for Tyson’s chicken products, its just another stopping place in the world market. We often hear from Arkansas who travel on tour overseas on how surprised they were to find our products even in the remote places. They tell us that it makes them feel home-like.

I’m sorry to report that there isn’t much we can do about the price of chicken in the marketplace, especially on Tinian. We just hope that it isn’t too out of reason for you.

Saipan! What a difference it must be like today compared to how I saw it in the year 1945. As a young sailor serving aboard a Minesweeper Destroyer, we went through five days of battle in preparations for invading the island. The Japanese held both islands. As we swept the waters for mines underneath and above water, we were attacked by Jap fighter planes and heavy artillery fire from the beach. Our battleships, cruisers and destroyers setting some five miles out at sea were blasting Saipan with their big guns as we moved closer to the beach. Their shells zoomed over us causing shock waves to those on deck. This went on day and night during the five years.

We watched our fighter planes as they bombed the island and dog-fight the Jap planes above us. On the fifth day our Navy moved in within a half of a mile from the beach. The 3rd Marine Division aboard troop ships prepared to leave for the island at daybreak on the sixth day. While positioned this close to the beach, several ships were hit with heavy mortar from the beach. The Battleship California setting near us was heavily damaged that night by torpedoes from a Jap submarine that had slipped through our corridor.

We watched as the Marines left their ship in small landing craft and head for Saipan. At least two we saw never made it to the beach. Once they landed all ships fired their shells high into the hills of the island. Airplanes fell into the ocean around us, ours as well as the Japs. It was a sight to behold. On the ninth day the Marines captured Saipan and raised the American flag.

The day we left Saipan dark clouds of smoke were hovering over both islands. Of the nine different invasions that my ship participated in the South Pacific war, Saipan remains foremost in my mind.

I hope I’m not taking an advantage of your letter by writing a personal experience, but as a teacher I thought my wartime sea story might be of interest to you.

During your stay on Tinian if we can be of any help to you, please let us hear from you.

Best of luck.

Sincerely,
Bob Justice
Executive Vice-President,
Tyson Foods Inc.
Governmental Affairs & Community Relations

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July 13, 1989

Good morning Angie:

Your folks have been gone for almost 6 weeks and I am only now getting around to writing to you. My main reason for writing is to send the enclosed papers which were the subject of our conversation while they were here.

This story of our invasion of Tinian comes from a book entitled, “The Fourth Marine Division in Action”, and it is a compilation of the four battles in which we made D-Day landings, namely The Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima.

We assaulted Tinian on July 24, which was my birthday. Ten days earlier we had ended our conquest of Saipan, and now after 10 days of continual bombardment we were to go ashore on Tinian. Once we were ashore I was sort of sorry that we had to beat the place up so, as it was probably the prettiest of all the islands that we invaded. Saipan had a couple of rather industrialized small towns called Garapan and Chalan Kanoa. The main industry was sugar refining. This island was heavily fortified and viciously defended. We left it in ruins. On the other hand, Tinian seemed to be bread basket for both islands as it was covered with truck gardens. With our meager, daily diet of rations, we were delighted to get these fresh vegetables. It also seemed to be the religious center as we came across many Shinto shrines. We always tried to refrain from ruining these unless the Japs holed up in them and then we had to blast them out.

The heat on Tinian did not seem so oppressive as it was on Saipan and there were not the swarms of flies that we had on Saipan. The flies there were the worst we faced anywhere in the Pacific. We had to pull our dungaree jackets up over our head as we ate our rations, as the flies would go right into our mouths.

I won’t bore you with the details on our landing or the fighting that ensued, you can read all that in the enclosure. One thing that is worth mentioning was something that we had never faced before…mass suicides. The first time that we saw this, we were dumbfounded and there was nothing that we could do except sit and watch. We constantly brought up Niseis that we had brought with us from Hawaii to talk to them in their native tongue, but to no avail. Most of the time they threw their children off the cliffs and then jumped over after them. Other times [they] sat in a big circle, rolled live hand grenades into the center of the circle and blew themselves up. Such were the rigors of war.

We had a great time when your folks were here. We had our annual golfers picnic out on our deck, the weatherman cooperated and they got to see all of their old friends. Then we had a card game with the 4 couples in our bridge club and this covered a span of 20 odd years. We are going to their place in Florida, perhaps to be with them for New Year’s Eve. Then they will come over to our place in Venice in February.

I hope that all of you are enjoying your new experience. You are certainly getting an education that few families are ever privileged to have. Hopefully we can get together when you get back for I am certain we will have many stories to swap.

My best to all of you,

Ed