Ecuperating - Chapter 32

I observed the patrols for a week and found they followed the same paths on every patrol. They also paused to take a potty break under the same trees every day. It was a cake walk to them. I climbed one of the trees the next morning and waited for them to take their break.

As soon as they were sitting down I dropped two grenades among them and ducked behind the trunk of the tree. The grenades took care of all of them. Then I had another idea. I stripped their bodies and took their grenades and ammunition for my arsenal. Then I gutted one of them like a deer in the woods and cut off his legs.

I discarded the lower limbs and stripped most of the flesh off the thighs. Then I started a fire and put the bones on a spit. I stomped around in my bare feet to leave a lot of tracks, and then headed for my cave with my booty.

I repeated the ambush twice more before they finally caught on and sent twice as many on patrol, one patrol following another. I let them be for a month until I could see they were getting complacent. Then one day I let the first patrol go by. The second started under my tree 15 minutes later. I dropped three of their own grenades and took all six out again.

I waited a few minutes and the first squad burst through the trees, gathering around their dead comrades. I dropped three more grenades and took them out too.

Now they were getting wary. They only sent out patrols of 20 or more men. I couldn’t handle that many.

I needed a new strategy. I had found their dump weeks before, and raided it for all the garbage I thought I could use. The best was several ruined rubber inner tubes for their vehicles. I took the tubes back to my cave and made several slingshots with the rubber.

I had been good at it when I was a kid, and I honed those skills to a greater degree in the weeks that followed. The damn grenades were too noisy anyway. The slingshot can be deadly in the proper hands. I got so I could take down a gull in full flight most of the time. By sewing weeds and other camouflage on extra clothing from the Japs I’d killed, I made a suit of camouflage.

I could get within a few yards of the Japs without them knowing I was there. It took time, but I learned to move slowly, and to my knowledge, the Japs never did see me in all the time I was on the island. They sure knew I was there, however. It got so I would take out the last man in the patrol and most of the time they didn’t even know he was gone for minutes.

Sometimes I would take out the last two men in the line. I had hidey-holes all over the island. In a pinch I would drop down in one and pull the top over me, staying there until whatever danger was gone.

I did my cooking at night in the safety of my cave. No light would escape. It did get smoky at times, but there was sufficient ventilation for some degree of comfort. Nights were also my time to scout the enemy. I had made a weak bow and arrow set early on and did some practice with it.

It wasn’t much because the wood on the damn island was all softwood and didn’t lend itself well to the making of a good bow and arrow. Some nights I would sneak to the Jap compound and send a couple of fire arrows into their buildings. Sometimes I would cause a fire, but most of the time it was just for harassment.

This went on for about a year. It wasn’t long before they stopped sending patrols out altogether. I had free reign on the island as long as I didn’t go near their compound. One night I sent a fiery arrow into a pile I hadn’t seen before near the gate. It’s a good thing I was a long ways away. I must have hit an ammunition stockpile because the explosion was tremendous, setting fire to three barracks close by.

Men were on fire running out of the buildings. I must have killed a bunch that night. A few months later I heard shelling from the sea. The Americans had returned. They bombarded the island for two days and then landed.

I heard later they landed 7000 men to take the island. It took them three days to wipe out the Jap contingency of about 1000 men. I walked out on November 27, 1943 and made myself known.

I told my story to the commander of the force. He didn’t believe me and passed me on to the admiral. The Admiral didn’t believe me either, and since I was alone on the island I had no way of proving it. I told them to kiss my ass and I stopped telling my story. They sent me to camp Pendleton in California where I was mustered out in June, 1945. I joined Eric Tanner in Lodge 16 that same month.

He gave me the job as caretaker for the lodge.

Footnote:

In September of 1956 the Japanese released records of their occupation of Makin Island. They credited who they called the “Ghost of Makin Island” with the killing of 423 Japanese in a 16 month period from August of 1942 to November of 1943. The fear instilled in their troops was so real the men refused to go on patrol even under threat of death. The “ghost” was said to kill and eat his kills. They were terrified.

The U.S. Government awarded Ted Sobieski the Congressional Medal of Honor in December of 1956. They did so quietly, for they were not at all sure the Japanese were not correct in their assessment of the situation on Makin Island.