Grandpa Sharp's WW2 Memoir
Stories from my Grandfather's time in the Pacific theatre, commanding a medical company
My paternal grandparents have a pretty remarkable WW2 story, so I’m going to share some of it for Memorial Day.
My paternal grandfather, Mahlon Sharp, was stationed at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. My grandmother was living with him on base at the time. He was a young lieutenant, in command of a medical company (120 men).
He played a big role in the medical response that day. Here is his first-hand account of December 7, 1941. From his memoir:
Soon a soldier came by with his rifle on its shoulder strap and announced, the Commanding General says that WE ARE AT WAR! --THE JAPANESE HAVE ATTACKED. All wives and children are to go to the hospital. Everyone is to report for duty immediately. I had already decided that I must get back to my assigned post. Bea Taylor, dear lady, was in the process of serving us coffee. I noticed that for some reason or other the cup clattered in its fi china saucer.
I took off in our little black 37 FORD. My assignment in case of attack was to establish three aid stations around the Harbor of Honolulu. As I left Schofield by the gate nearest Wheeler Field I discovered the reason for all of the noise and vibrations It was a burning mess. The concrete barracks were rubble and the planes parked very close together with the fuel trucks were a flaming mass. On the immediate outside of the unattended gate there was a command car wrecked and burning at the side of the road. There was no driver and the officer passenger was mostly spilled out of the back seat. His head had been demolished and the picture that stays with me is that of his cranium lying separate with boiling liquid tissue in it.
I decided unthinkingly to drive through Pearl Harbor as it seemed to be the center of a lot of commotion. As I neared it I found civilians that had apparently come out from town and lined the road nearby two or three deep watching the a most unbelievable sight that is burned into my memory for life. Ships were burning in clouds of FIRE and smoke as were shore installations.
A large ship was bow up, going down. Further details are now much blurred. After passing through Pearl I came to the big , major Hickham Airfield. From afar it seemed to be very much as I had seen Wheeler and I could easily believe, as I heard later, no plane survived or was able to take off. In the after-talk it was claimed that recently arrived planes had been parked on the beach somewhere and one or two had taken off, but they were the only ones. Also there was a story told of an old time army sergeant that held a machine gun in his arms until it burned him badly and was mad that he only knocked down one Jap plane. I do know that one little Japanese aviator was among the dead that I identified.
A few weeks later I was asked to give a first aid lecture at Hickam. I had an opportunity to see close up the injuries that most of the dead had received and knew that many could have been saved by simple measures. Considerably more attention was paid to my words than back at the Camp in Michigan where the quite new "draftees" exhibited their high level resistance to learning anything
My grandmother also gave a fascinating account of that day, which was published in the Lansing Standard newspaper at the time. You can read that here on pages 3-4 of the full document.
Grandpa saved many lives that day, and throughout the rest of the war. His medical company operated on or near the frontlines in the Pacific, so he saw a fair amount of combat conditions for a surgeon.
Here Grandpa describes the time when his group of 300ft landing crafts (LSTs) was attacked by kamikazes (Japanese zero fighter planes). This was during the Battle of Mindanao in the Philippines.
The LSTS were beaching in three columns of ten. We were on the tenth in the middle column. Suddenly out of the rising sun came three Zeros, just slightly above the horizon. We stood open-mouthed as every gun of our forces opened up on them.
They were, I think, a little tardy and the best targets left were the last ships in each column. The plane which was headed for us was hit and disintegrated and we were showered with its fragments. The two Zeros headed for the LSTs on each side of us got through and the LSTs themselves just seemed to disappear and their remains added to the debris coming down on us.
I had decided when we first boarded that there would be four thickness of bulkhead if I were just at the foot of the ladder to the bridge. It was fortunate that I was there as almost at once there was a call to the bridge so I climbed up to find the small housing awash with blood and the Helmsman lying in it.
He was gushing from his femoral artery but still conscious. I immediately but a finger on the pumping vessel and quickly withdrew it as I contacted a piece of very hot steel. I put it back above the fragment and held it until some one brought me my aid pack. I clamped it. He was soon going over the side in a basket and one of the LSTs had been designated a Hospital. There were other casualties among the vehicles and their personnel on the top deck, but none below.
I still remember this man with my clamp on his femoral artery raising his head already with a cigarette in his mouth and a plasma unit running into his veins. He almost had a smile on his face.
Near the end of his story, Grandpa talks about how the war effected him, and others.
For a long time the war bugged me. I had nightmares recurrently for years. It seemed to happen when my shoulders became uncovered and cold. I woke up screaming and I was again sleeping on the wet ground of the jungle with my helmet on and a cloth screen over my face to prevent some of the many insects from biting and bothering. The trees were full of well armed enemy.
The war damaged a great many people permanently. I was more fortunate than most in that the war experience that I had, seemed to make me grow in the knowledge of the human reaction under stress and group psychology. I am still amazed that 120 to 140 nearly full grown men can become a family of sorts. They can feel that the company area is home. There is a responsibility for command for the leader to do and be able to do anything they ask their men to do.
The Army was a growth experience for me but of course destroyed many people. I was driven to write this account because the war was so formative for me. I think I was able to do many things after the war because of these experiences. The experiences were not, of course, always applicable. My children were often to remind me that I was not the family Captain.
Young Mahlon proved himself a capable leader. He ended the war as a decorated Captain. You can read the entire memoir here, which he wrote in 1998, shortly before he passed. It has a lot of family background in the first section, which some people might find interesting. WW2 starts at page 15 in the PDF.
For the record, I’m also going to include this part where Grandpa writes sweetly about Grandma (who deserves a newsletter of her own soon). She was also a remarkable and lovely person.
The charm and definitely the luck came into my life when I had the great good fortune to marry this beautiful, forthright, and assured young woman.
Happy Memorial Day everyone! And to all veterans and active duty, thank you for the your service.