Published: June 10, 2008 04:50 pm            

Memories of a soldier

'My country raising saved me'

Part two of a series



“My country raising saved me,” said Jack Huddleston. He looked down as his mind filled with long-past visions of jungles and gunfights.

Huddleston, 82, grew up in the hills south of Locust Grove. He developed a good sense of direction and became woods wise at a young age. His knowledge of the outdoors came in handy when he served as a World War II army scout on the Philippine Islands.

Shipped overseas because he wouldn’t follow orders, Huddleston landed at Sydney, Australia, with the rest of the troops on ship. Huddleston grew bored and caught a bus to go see the country. The bus traveled into the mountains, where he had to stay overnight.

“I lost an army,” he said. When he returned to the beach, the 30,000 soldiers had left for New Guinea.

Passing a hospital, Huddleston noticed an American soldier sitting on a bench.

Army scout Dave Holland had been recovering from an injury received in New Guinea and was waiting to return to his unit. He invited Huddleston to come with him. They caught a plane and arrived in New Guinea that night. Holland’s commander assigned Huddleston as a replacement to the 24th infantry.

A captain ran up to Huddleston’s sergeant during a heated fight with the Japanese. The company had lost four scouts.

“The officer asked me if I was raised in the country,” Huddleston said.

The captain told the sergeant, “I’ll take this kid, he’s as good as any we’ve got left.”

“And I became a scout,” said Huddleston.

Japanese and American soldiers were exchanging fire as Huddleston and Holland returned from a scouting mission. A stray bullet hit Huddleston’s pack and struck his ammunition clip. A piece of the metal skidded under his skin.

“Hope that don’t get infected,” Huddleston remarked after finding a doctor to dig it out.

“Hell, kid, we ain’t gonna live long enough to get infected,” retorted Holland.

Days later, the 24th was pulled off the line and shipped to the Philippine Island of Leyte.

“It was 4 a.m., the Navy changed watch and I came through the hatch with the guard change, even though it was against regulations, to sit quietly on the bow of the troop ship. The hold was crowded and smelled of human bodies and as I sat down I could hear the rush of water surge as the huge ship slipped quietly through the gentle swells. Stars gave little light and I could feel the ocean more than see it. My mind wandered back to the events that had put me on the bow of this ship and the vision of home was vivid....”

Huddleston’s company disembarked on Leyte amidst a raging battle. The soldiers loaded into two small boats and headed for the island at full throttle. The water churned as shells hulls dropped “all over the place.” Planes screamed overhead.

“The Lieutenant passed the word, we were going in on the first wave. The sailor that was driving the boat from behind steel shields was ashen...we were hitting all kinds of cross current. The sergeant kept yelling, ‘Stay down, don’t look back!’”

When the boat ground to a stop offshore, Huddleston staggered to the Leyte beach in hip-high water. The thrust of men behind propelled him forward. On solid ground he scrambled for the cover of some palm trees. Mortars popped, sending up puffs of smoke. Huddleston dove for a shell hole but three men beat him to it.

“It started to rain hard to add to the confusion. Sergeant Palmer ran up, his left hand was missing and I don’t believe he knew it. Medics were trying to give treatment and the patients would get up and run off. Lots of men had made it into the edge of the timber and some were digging in. I reached for my shovel only to find my whole pack had been torn off.... The lieutenant ran up, wearing no helmet, and hollered, ‘Come with me,’ and then dropped to the ground, hit.”

The next day an officer sent Huddleston to scout a hill and report on the area ahead. On his way out Huddleston noticed an officer setting a Thompson machine gun on a barrel. He circled around and swiped it when the major wasn’t looking.

His new automatic weapon in hand, Huddleston walked deep into the jungle. Monkeys chattered at him from the treetops.

On his way back to the battle, Huddleston came to a clearing near a small village. He nearly panicked. A Japanese army was moving big guns in his direction. Mortar fire forced him to the front of the Japanese soldiers.

Huddleston slid into a sewer trench. He crept forward in “knee deep” slime, trying to ignore the smell of sewer.

“Crouched below the vines I waited for a chance to cross the trail. None came and my muscles cramped. It was raining and the vines poured water all over me. ...no opportunity came to gain the bank. ...the water running into the ditch carried the smell of death and decay until nothing would stay in my stomach.”

Huddleston waited until light faded and climbed out of the sewer ditch. He rested against a building, not caring that enemy soldiers walked the streets. A board along the base of the building moved. With a gentle tug Huddleston removed the board and crawled into the space under the floor. He pulled the board back into place and slept.

The village appeared deserted the following morning.

“I wasn’t going to chance crossing the street,” Huddleston said.

He slid into the ditch and headed away from the village. Big guns began pounding and he heard explosions back in the village. He had left just in time.

Huddleston’s scouting missions provided the army with valuable information on enemy activity. Officers sent him to observe Japanese troops and outline their movements on a map. He drew roads and marked geographical features on the maps.

“The sun came up in the north for me,” chuckled Huddleston. “I had to turn the island around every morning.”

“I learned the back country, the hills, found the old trenches and reported gun installations and troop movement. I worked alone and planned escape routes.”

Scouting became more dangerous. The Japanese began setting traps and assigning troops to catch American scouts. The new officers ordered scouts to walk down the jungle trails. Their job was to locate the Japanese or draw fire. Huddleston said most of the city kids didn’t come back. Japanese snipers hid in jungle growth along the trail and picked off American scouts as they walked by.

Huddleston refused to follow orders to go down the jungle trail. When sent on a mission, he walked the trail for a short distance and cut through the brush.

“I jumped sideways and in circles,” Huddleston said. “I told them I didn’t come over here to commit suicide.”

Huddleston scouted the northern coast of Leyte on a mission to find the Japanese supply route. He bedded down on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. Awakened in the night by grinding metal, Huddleston caught the shimmer of a green blinking light on the water. The next day he discovered tire tracks where the Japanese had brought in trucks to unload supplies. The supply boats were sliding up under the trees where marine planes could not find them.

Huddleston’s major assigned him to scout for a line company. Huddleston referred to this duty as “suicide in its simplest form.” He recounted a time he led the company down a jungle trail and walked into an ambush:

“The broad leaves of the plants made it harder to see to any depth in the jungle and walking up this trail, which was the only place to walk because of the undergrowth, was like walking a tight rope. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when my eye picked up two cuts in broad leaves off the trail. The cuts were half moon and upside down. The dark slots jumped out at me and my heart tried to stop as one of them was pushed down, I knew the enemy soldiers were using these slots for peek holes through the large leaves. I also knew I was in the middle of an ambush and If I tried any signal at all it would be sudden death as they were on both sides of the trail. How many? I couldn’t breathe. My hands were cold as I gripped the Thompson and mentally wondered if I had taken the safety off ... A tear slipped down my face, hell, I was going to cry. I was still walking, but my legs would hardly answer the command. If I wiped the tears off my eyes I was dead. Any unnatural move that could be taken as a signal would mean sudden death to me ... A larger tree was on my left and the underbrush was thin beneath it ... I held my breath, pulled the trigger on the Thompson and started turning around and around as I ran for the large tree.”

Huddleston’s action warned the rest of the company. The other soldiers pulled back to regroup and engage the Japanese. Huddleston, shaking and sick from his brush with death, circled and rejoined the company.

While stopping by the chow truck for coffee one day, Huddleston was hailed by a new lieutenant. The lieutenant questioned him about his experiences on the island and asked Huddleston to stay with him for a few days. The lieutenant followed Huddleston as heavy fighting broke out on the front. “Shrapnel whined through the air like bees.” His blood ran cold to see Japanese pillboxes explode into flames, frying the men inside.

“It rained early the next morning, the smell of death was back in the ground. Gunpowder was strong in the air as the dampness drove the smell into the lower valley. It made your eyes water.”

Fierce mortar fire continued the next day. Huddleston and the new lieutenant dove for a foxhole, grenades in hand. Huddleston cut into the jungle, dragging the lieutenant with him. They circled through thick vines and launched grenades at Japanese machine gunners. Back at camp a sergeant informed the lieutenant of another machine gun 150 yards away. Huddleston led the lieutenant into a small jungle wash where they crawled under vines and ran at a crouch. Within a short time they took out the second machine gun nest.

“A wave of silence passed along the front.... All was quiet, the lieutenant came to the hole and slid in sitting on the bank. He looked stout to me and was in control....

“The sky cleared and the sun was dipping about two hours high. The smoke rose and the air cleared. He looked at me a long time and said, ‘Junior, where in hell are you from?’ I told him I was from the hills of Oklahoma and it was almost as rough there as it was here. He said, ‘I’m glad I met you, junior.’ I said, ‘The same here.’ He looked up, breathed deep, slapped me on the shoulder and went back as a truck drove up with ammo.”

        

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