James Burchette and James Butler were still young and in their prime when they stepped onto Okinawa. But like so many other young men caught up in that battle they aged rather quickly.

The fighting took a toll on them physically, mentally and emotionally. Lack of sleep, the stress of combat and physical exertion punished their bodies while the fear, anguish, and brutality of war dulled their senses.

Some of the men couldn’t handle it and simply broke down. Burchette and Butler never did but they saw plenty of men suffer from unseen wounds to the mind.

“It never happened to me but it did with other guys,” said Butler. “The guy I got my BAR from was a mess. They sent him (out of the front lines) the next day. I never got that feeling. I didn’t even think about it. I just went and did it.”

As the weeks slowly dragged by the Japanese stubbornly held their positions. It seemed every foot of ground on Okinawa was paid for with American blood.

“(The Japanese) knew the terrain, they knew how to get around and they knew how to hide from us,” said Butler.

Fortunately, Company L was led by the very brave and intelligent Lt. Mitchell and the tough and shrewd Sgt. Shempski.

“The company commander was Lt. Mitchell and they called him Hoss,” said Butler. “He was a football player at Mississippi State. He was a big ol’ blond hair boy just as southern as fried chicken. Our first sergeant was Shempski from the south side of Chicago and he was in the Army because a judge gave him the choice between the military and jail.

“That was quite a combination but they worked together great. We were never short of anything as long as Shempski was there. I don’t think anyone could have ever killed him. I don’t think he exposed himself (to enemy fire) very much.”

As much as the men admired and trusted Mitchell, Butler wasn’t very fond of his penchant to volunteer the company for dangerous duty.

“We had a great leader (in Mitchell),” said Butler. “But I found out one day what he was doing at battalion headquarters. He would say, ‘L Company can take that little ol’ hill.’ Then he would come back and say, ‘Saddle up, boys. We’re going to take that little ol’ hill.’

“I told him, ‘Hoss, I’m getting tired of you sticking my neck out. I don’t mind you sticking your head out at battalion (headquarters) but I wish you’d be more careful with mine.’“

As the battle wore on Burchette was the first of the two friends to encounter a close brush with death.

On an island were over 100,000 people died it wasn’t surprising that Burchette was almost killed. But what was unique is the cause of his near death experience – a poisonous habu snake.

“It was early one morning, probably about daylight, and the Japanese started throwing artillery every morning about that time,” said Burchette. “I was in my foxhole and I felt something crawling up my leg. I just slapped it and he gave me a bite. That was the worst pain I ever had in my life when he put that (poison) in me.”

Burchette yelled for a medic and quickly crawled out of his foxhole. By the time he pulled up his pant leg his leg was badly swollen.

It wasn’t until the medic looked at the bite that Burchette knew what happened.

“He said, ‘You’ve been snake bit,’” said Burchette. “We looked around for the snake but we didn’t see it. He put a tourniquet on my leg and we crawled to the medic station.”

At the medic station Burchette started to become delirious and the medic had to cut open his pant leg in an attempt to treat the wound.

“They were trying to get some of the poison out and I was already getting foolish,” said Burchette.

The medics began to help Burchette get up off a cot so they could put him on a jeep headed for a more advanced medical station.

What happened next most likely saved his life. It also scared the hell out of him.

“I stood up and that snake fell out of my pants,” said Burchette. “I froze. I couldn’t move. They just raked him from under my feet, killed him and put him in a box. I carried him with me to the field hospital and they gave me the snake bite serum. That was the last thing I felt for two days.”

Burchette remained in the hospital for two weeks while Butler wondered where his buddy was the whole time.

“I didn’t know where he was,” said Butler. “I didn’t know what happened to him.”

Every morning in the hospital Burchette was given a pack of cigarettes, which he saved for Butler.

Upon returning, Burchette casually walked up to his buddy and said, “Here’s some cigarettes.” Butler was stunned by the sudden appearance of his friend with an armful of Lucky Strikes.

“I said, ‘Where have you been?’ I thought he’d gone AWOL,’” said Butler.

The fight goes on

In the meantime, Butler was beginning to realize that he traded one hazardous duty – carrying a flamethrower – for a similarly dangerous job as the company scout.

And just one week after he traded jobs his company switched to a three-man rotation on the flamethrower, which was what he requested in the first place.

“I didn’t really fully understand what (scouting) was all about,” said Butler. “But it means you go way out there to see what is happening. That got pretty old after a couple of times.”

On one scouting mission Butler was joined by a radioman and a sergeant. The trio slowly crawled about 150 yards out in front of the American lines to locate the Japanese. It didn’t take long before they found them.

Although the situation was dangerous Butler can’t help but laugh at that memory.

“We were crawling along and easing along and looking everywhere and there was a hill right in front of us,” said Butler. “The Japanese on top of that hill started shooting at us.”

The sergeant grabbed the radio and told a nearby machine gunner, “There’s some Japs on top of that hill. Dust it off for me.”

Within moments heavy machine gun fire began to tear into the mid-section of the hill, nowhere near the top where the Japanese where located. Now more angry than scared, the sergeant once again grabbed the radio and began to yell into it.

“He said, ‘Damn it, I said dust it off, don’t shoot it down,’” recalled Butler. “After that they got it zeroed in and they cleaned it up.”

On another scouting mission Butler became pinned by heavy Japanese fire. For several minutes bullets whizzed just inches above his head before American firepower silenced the enemy guns.

“I was behind a little ridge and I could hear bullets popping,” said Butler. “When you hear a bullet popping over your head it’s breaking the sound barrier. You won’t ever forget that sound. That day they were popping all over me. That was scary but they finally got me out of that one.”

The absurdity of all the killing and fighting began to wear down the two friends as the weeks of combat kept piling up.

The two men recall one occasion the company was ordered to capture one of countless small hills heavily defended by Japanese machine guns and artillery. The Americans took the objective on the first day they tried but soon realized they couldn’t hold it during the night.

The companies had to stay on each other’s flanks so the Japanese couldn’t sneak up on them during the night. When Company L took the hill they were too far ahead of other American units and their flanks were unprotected.

The unit captured the hill on three different occasions and fell back each time because they were too exposed at night.

“If (your flanks) weren’t tied in (the Japanese) would come around your end,” said Butler. “If you couldn’t tie in you had to fall back. It gets kinda old running up the same hill and getting shot at two or three times.”

Frayed nerves

The fighting in the daylight was brutal but the nights were even more nerve-wracking. The Japanese continually attempted to infiltrate the American lines under the cover of darkness.

If a soldier on watch wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings it could result in the death of either himself or his comrades. Soldiers learned quickly that it was better to shoot first and ask questions later.

“I was in a foxhole with one of our new recruits,” said Butler. “He didn’t last but a couple of days. He said, ‘I feel like something is coming up that little draw over there.’ I told him, ‘Throw a grenade down there. That’ll stop it.’ So he pulled the pin on a grenade and (the noise) stopped. The next morning there was a Japanese soldier there. He was crawling up to get us.

“Another night I heard what sounded like a horse. But there were some Yankee boys in a hole to my left and they opened up and threw grenades and shot everything they had. The next morning there was an old gray horse laying out there. They didn’t know what a horse sounded like. Of course, there could have been someone riding on that horse.”

(The conclusion of this story will appear in next week’s edition.)