Bill Dohl's Story
Bill Dohl was a Deadeye
in WWII and he proved his youthful adventurousness II when he
opted out of the Army Air Corps and volunteered for the
infantry. Born in Shickshinny, Pa., Dohl enlisted in 1942 at
age 18 and eventually served in Guam, Guadalcanal, Leyte
nd
Okinawa. He trained as an aircraft engine mechanic before
transferring to the Army and joining the 96th Infantry
Division. Now at 86, he is a retired general
manager for the European operation of Sperry Rand, Dohl lives
in Venice, Florida with Doris, his wife of 59 years.
Here are his
words:
"We landed at Leyte Island on Oct. 20, 1944. We fought that
battle, slept in muddy foxholes, walked through swamps and
mud, and the conditions were
unbelievable. And we didn't get a chance to get a bath or a
change of clothes until Christmas Day. That's when the island
was declared secure. In
those two months, we moved day by day. We had a lot of
casualties. We didn't have a front-line infantry, because the
land was
so flat and full of rice paddies. We didn't have any chance of
using tanks because they couldn't get through the mud and
rice. Most of our supplies were
hand-carried.
"So, two
days before Christmas, the Japanese dropped a bunch of
paratroopers near the air base, and we were called up to
protect the Fifth Air Corps. Well, we didn't
get there. We had to dig in for the night. We were dug in
along the muddy road and we had one of the loudest
thunderstorms I'd ever
heard. Thunderstorms in the jungle are something else. It
poured down rain. were sleeping five of us in this
foxhole.
"We were
not more than 50 yards from where the Japanese were running up
and down. The hole was big enough for three people to
lie down and two people to be on guard. I never missed my
sleep. We had just a tarp over us so our hole wouldn't fill up
with water. Three Japanese walked up so close to our foxhole
that, if they'd taken one more step, they would have fallen
right onto
us. But, the lightning struck and our men on guard saw the
Japanese in the light. The lightning saved us. They shot them.
I woke up, turned around, and one
of them fell in right where I was. We didn't sleep the rest of
the night. Every time the lightning would flash, I'd look out
of the
foxhole.
"Then, I
heard a noise. I was watching very carefully, and when the
lightning struck again, there was a Japanese soldier who had a
hand grenade and was ready to toss
it. All he would have had to do was toss
it three feet and it would have gone right into the
hole. I shot him with a .45 and got through the night.
"We left
in March and headed toward Okinawa. We landed in Okinawa, and
there was nobody protecting the beachhead. The idea was, the enemies
were going to let us get onshore and the kamikazes were
supposed to come in and capture us all. For the first
week on Okinawa, we were getting organized and there was
practically no combat. I remember the first day of combat; we
were going through a village and a sniper shot
one of our men.
"We lost
so many men and two of our generals. I was never injured, but
I was exposed to all kinds of shooting and artillery. I had
amoebic dysentery and malaria, but it never put
me out."
The first picture is of
him and his squad. Bill is shown holding a sword at far right
in the bottom row. The second is a picture of his medals.
