Latest / Across the Reef- The Marine Assault of Tarawa / 009 - Sidebar Colonel David M Shoup USMC

Transcript

009 - Sidebar Colonel David M Shoup USMC · Across the Reef- The Marine Assault of Tarawa

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter five side bar of Across the Reef the Marina
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Cel of Tarwa by Joseph H. Alexander. This LibriVox recording
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Colonel David M. Shup USMC,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: an excerpt from the field notebook David Shup carried during
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the Battle of Tarwa, reveals a few aspects of the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: personality of its enigmatic author. If you are qualified, fate
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: has a way of getting you to the right place
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: at the right time, though sometimes it appears to be
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a long, long wait. For Shoop, the former farm boy
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: from Battleground, Indiana, the combination of time and place worked
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to his benefit on two momentous occasions, at Tarawa in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty three and as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's deep
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: selection to become twenty second Commandant of the Marine Corps
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine. Colonel Shupe was thirty eight at
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the time of Tarwa, and he had been a Marina
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: officer since nineteen twenty six. Unlike such colorful contemporaries as
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Merritt Edson and Evans Carlson, Shupe had limited prior experience
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: as a commander and only brief exposure to combat. Then
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: came Tarwa, where Shupe, the junior colonel in the second
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Marine Division, commanded eight battalion landing teams in some of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the most savage fighting of the war. Time correspondent Robert
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Sharad recorded his first impression of Shope en route to Batio.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: He was an interesting character, this Colonel Shupe, a squat,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: red faced man with a bull neck, A hard boiled,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: profane shodder of orders. He would carry the biggest burden
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: on Tarawa. Another contemporary described Shup as a marine's marine,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a leader of the troops could go to the well
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with First Sergeant Edward G. Doeman, who served with Shupe
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in China and in the division Operations section, described him
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: as the brainiest, nerviest, best soldiering Marine I ever met.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It is no coincidence that Shupe also was considered the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: most formidable poker player in the division. A man with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: eyes like two burn holes in a blanket, part of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Colonel Shop's Medal of Honor citation reflects his strength of character.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Upon arrival at the shore, he assumed command of all
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: landed troops, and, working without rest under constant withering enemy fire,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: during the next two days, conducted smashing attacks against unbelievably
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: strong and fanatically defended Japanese positions. Despite innumerable obstacles and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: heavy casualties, Shupe was modest about his achievements. Another entry
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: in his nineteen forty three notebook contains this introspection, I
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: realize that I am but a bit of chaff from
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the threshings of life, blown into the pages of history
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: by the unknown wins of chance. David shop died on
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: thirteen January nineteen eighty three at age seventy eight, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In his private life,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: noted the Washington Post obituary, General Shope was a poet.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter five sidebar read by Aaron Bennett