The Sound and the Silence

By JoEllen Conger

After dark, Bob and I joined some others on the top of the hill behind the camp. The ships back at the beach were under attack by Kamikazes. The air was full of anti-aircraft fire, tracers laying a heavy crisscross lace above the water. Ships were exploding and burning at their moorings and planes were detonating in midair. We could easily hear the rumble of the explosions from where we were. It made me think of watching a fireworks show back at home, on the Fourth of July. But this time there were no oohs and aahs. Once in a while, I could hear someone say, "Jesus!" or "Damn, look at that!" The battle went on for several hours. It occurred to me that back there were all our supplies. If the Japanese destroyed them, we would be in big trouble. Bob and I went back down to camp; we just didn't want to watch the carnage any longer; our troops were dying down there. Later, other men sauntered down and said it was all over. They said they could see at least a half dozen of our ships burning

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613092200

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Dedication

IT HAS BEEN MANY YEARS since our uncle, Fay (Frank) Nick A. Nickell passed away, but he has not been forgotten. In keeping with his wishes, this book is written in tribute to all those other teenagers who became Marines during WWII to fight for this country’s freedom.

He told us as he and his shipmates waited aboard their vessel off the shore of Okinawa, the kamikazes’ attack hit them full force; the din was terrifying. Once the shelling stopped—it was so quiet he thought the world had come to an end. It took him some time before he realized he was actually still alive. After the slaughter on the shores of Okinawa, he struggled to regain his sanity.

Thus this book has been titled: The Sound and the Silence, The Throes of War.

We salute you, Uncle Nick.

Joan C. Powell &

Joyce A. Kennedy

Aka: JoEllen Conger

Historical Remarks:

JUST A FEW DETAILS on Nick’s military career:

April 1945 Nick A. Nickell was at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in training as a Hospital Apprentice 2nd class.

On July 1945 he was assigned to Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force on a ship designated LST-1045. He boarded the vessel at HQ Transient Center, Marianas Area, FMFPac. More about this unit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Battalion_5th_Marines#World_War_II

LSTs (aka Landing Ship Tanks) are those things you see landing on the beach and opening doors – much bigger than the LSC which dropped a ramp). LST-1045 was laid down on 22nd December 1944 at Pittsburgh, Pa., by the Dravo Corp.; launched on the 3rd of February 1945; sponsored by Mrs. William G. Rudge and commissioned on the 27th of March 1945, so it would appear to have been a brand new vessel.

Foreword

The year is 1978 as I record my notes. For forty-six years I have been unable to talk, or even think of those war-time experiences...because to do so, was to reawaken the demons so long barred from my consciousness. Reviewing the bloody slaughter on Okinawa has been infinitely painful, and is a chronicle of only a few short years of my life. The battle for Okinawa took eighty-two short days but left the minds and bodies of untold thousands of young men destroyed, or scarred forever. So, they join the legions of those who have marched out to war before them...for the good of something or other.

I want to thank my nieces, Joyce A. Kennedy and Joan C. Powell, for using my scratching to someday turn my thoughts and memories into a book. Without them I would never have been brave enough to face my nightmares.

Frank A. Nickell

One

Let me introduce myself . I’m Nick A. Nickell and in my late teens I was just a simple country boy raised on a farm. It changed my life after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I wasn’t ready for what came next, and this living hell became my story.

THE OLD MARINE CORPS bus jolted me when it swayed, turning off the main road onto the graveled area at the base railhead. I had almost fallen asleep. It was four A.M. and I felt cold and disgruntled. At three A.M., the company commander had ordered us out of our warm beds and told us to pack up; we were leaving for a train ride. This was life in the Marine Corps.

I was cold because we had turned in our overcoats. Since troop movements were never discussed with enlisted men, we could only guess what that meant; they would be unnecessary where we were going. I listened to the crunch of tires on the gravel as we crossed the huge loading area. This was where equipment and personnel arrived and left Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina. At least I was happy they weren’t taking us off base to some city railroad station. I hated railroad stations; there was something lonely about them. My mind wandered back to the first time I could remember ever being in one.

The station was in Oakland, California. It had been alive with activity; wagon loads of luggage were being pulled here and there and people were standing in line to buy tickets to board trains. I watched a mother struggle to carry her luggage and still try to keep control of her flock of unruly children. Groups of servicemen moved in all directions. Girls were saying tearful goodbyes to their military sweethearts. One couple stood in a corner talking in low, serious tones. A girl stood alone, leaning against a column crying silent tears. The shoeshine man had business standing by, waiting.

The loudspeaker was blaring information about a train that was either arriving or departing; I couldn’t tell which. The words were almost lost against the background noise.

It was 1943... I was eighteen years old. The whole nation was involved with the war. Everywhere, there were posters and signs encouraging enlistment, extolling the virtues and advantages of buying war bonds, or warning against loose talk— A slip of the lip can sink a ship. Everywhere there were signs of the military presence. Army trucks moved along the highways, and uniformed men lounged around street corners in towns and cities. Flags flew from front yard poles, from porches, from the tops of buildings and from ropes tied across streets. Small flags began showing up in parents’ windows, with a star in the center, testament to the young men lost at war. It was a flag that reflected my own sense of sadness and grief for their loss.

I was used to being on my own to make my own decisions, to go where I wanted. But this was different. I had to remind myself that all I had to do was follow the instructions of the chief petty officer in charge of our group. I was standing with about a hundred other young men, who all wore arm bands reading U.S. Navy. We were inductees, and we were waiting to board a train that would carry us away from our homes and families, to a new and strange world; to the Navy Boot Camp at Farregat, Idaho. I had been living alone for some time, but for the first time, I felt disconnected, confused and a little lonely.

The men around me were mostly just kids like me. Many had never been away from their parents. I studied them as I waited for orders. There were a few older men, probably in their mid, or late, twenties. The older men stood apart from the bunch as if they wanted to leave. They didn’t seek fellowship like the teenagers. The younger men seemed to bunch up as if for mutual support in this uncertain situation. The thing we had in common was we all had been ordered to leave home...to leave our families...our known world, as small and familiar as it may have been.

One could tell a lot by how these strangers dressed or moved their bodies. I tried guessing where they were from. The small-town boys, like me, were dressed in blue jeans and moved around as if uncomfortable with their surroundings. The city boys were well dressed, gregarious and at ease there. They were accustomed to such places as busy railroad stations. There was a big, slightly stooped fellow about twenty. He had powerful-looking shoulders and hard calloused hands. There was no doubt in my mind that he had spent all his life on a farm; he even wore clod-hopper shoes and a felt hat. There was something kind and simple about him; he looked like a man whose word you could trust. He was the only one who carried a valise instead of a suitcase. I made a mental note to get to know him.

The chief petty officer in charge of us was every bit a military man. He wore his uniform with pride. It looked freshly cleaned and pressed. He was handsome and tall and he stood very straight. I could just imagine that the girls went crazy for him. He wasn’t as stern and tough as I imagined he would be. He had a quick easy smile and a friendly way about him. I wondered if they had picked him for this job because he was so easy going.

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and altered the course of millions of lives, mine included. I had been brought up in a small California town called: Capitola By The Sea. Capitola was a wonderful place for a kid to grow up. It was laid back, and sat like a mounted gem in a break in the cliff line, where a lovely little creek met the waters of the Monterey Bay. With the sea at its feet and the mountains at its back, the area was the greatest playground a kid could ask for. The weather was mild both summer and winter; it was almost never too hot or too cold. Its beaches enticed tourists to come from the nearby cities to spend their summers there. In fact, we had a huge dog that loved swimming in the surf. One day he must have gotten caught in the undertow and it was nearly dark when he finally came home. He came in limping and looking totally exhausted. His shaggy coat was full of sand; we figured he must have gotten tossed in the surf trying to get back to shore. It was many days before he recuperated enough to return to his jaunts to the beach to swim.

My family consisted of Mama and Papa, my two older brothers, Lee and Dell, my three sisters, Fern, Goldie and Chrystal Pearl, having all been older, had already married and moved away. We lived just south of town on a little farm where my father kept a few acres in beans, squash, potatoes and corn; plus we grew our own meat: chickens, rabbits, pigs and calves, bred from our own milk cows. One of my jobs on the farm was to slop the pigs and milk the cows. As I sat on the milking stool, I loved teasing the barn cats by squirting their opened mouths with milk, right from the teat, just to watch their antics.

My sister Fern didn’t live too far away and often brought my twin nieces, Joyce and Joan over when she came to visit with Mama. We kids often played hide-n-seek in the barn’s hayloft, or the water tower where I had established a place in a dingy room under the water tank to practice my artistic endeavors. Mama said she didn’t want me stinking up the house with my turpentine and oil paints. Real canvases were expensive and hard to come by, so I painted on anything that had a flat surface...cardboard boxes or shingles. My canvases sometime had paintings on both sides.

The twins loved make-believe, so when I was called upon to keep watch over them while my sister Fern helped Mama with canning, or the family washing, after Mama broke her arm, or the housework, my tower became a sea faring pirate ship. We fought many a danger-filled, full-out battle with the invading ships that dared to enter our waters.

During the early part of the war, a CCC camp was built next door like a huge tent city. We kids were really intrigued watching them train war dogs there. I’d never seen anything like it. Men wearing padded suits let the trained dogs attack them. We could hear them barking and snarling from up on the water tower. Another entertaining game we loved was whenever we heard the train toot for the crossing in Capitola, we’d run down to the railroad tracks to throw rocks at the passing train.

After Papa lost a leg during the Spanish American War, it fell to us boys to take over the running of the farm. I got right handy shooting the black birds out of the corn patch, and the raccoons that also gave us grief.

Once all we boys had been drafted, things at home had to change. With all his boys going off to fight the war, there was no one left to tend the animals, so Papa sold the farm and opened a cabinet making woodshop. He made kitchen cabinets mostly...and from the scraps he built colorful yard ornaments...little windmills and such.

When I was still seventeen, I had quit school and gone to work in a defense plant in Berkeley, California, just eighty miles from home. I had never really been anywhere farther than a hundred miles from Capitola, except for a trip Mama and Papa took when I was four. I was too young to remember it.

There had only been one other adventure. Dan and Fern invited me to go along with them when they drove their new Graham automobile up to Yellowstone National Park. The twins and I sat in the back seat. The girls were only seven at the time, so Dan had them sleeping in the car. The rest of us slept on cots in the open. One night we were awakened by the girls screaming. A big black bear was bouncing the car up and down trying to get at the food stored in the trunk. Dan jumped up, grabbed a burning branch out of the fire pit and beat the bear until it took off running. And I thought, Man, I could never be that brave.

I was drafted into the Navy just six months after moving to Berkeley and took my boot training at Farregat, Idaho. I found discipline and regimentation very hard to accept. I hadn’t thought I would feel so pressured. But I adjusted, as did most everyone else. From Farregat, much to my chagrin, I was put into the Navy Hospital Corps. It didn’t matter what we wanted to be. A lot of corpsmen were being lost in action, so they needed a steady supply of medically trained replacements. I got sick at the sight of blood; the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to tend to the sick and wounded. But as it turned out, things weren’t as bad as I’d expected.

By mid-1944, I was having the time of my life. The war was going well, and I had a cushy job in the Naval Hospital at Saint Albans, Long Island. I had received six weeks training at Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago; then I was transferred to Saint Albans.

Outside the gate of the hospital, there were ten girls for every guy. I was stationed there for fourteen months. For the first time in my life, I had girlfriends galore. I worked myself into a job where I had liberty every night. All I had to worry about was who I was going to see that night. I could have asked for nothing more in this world than to have been there fourteen months more. I felt sorry for the guys overseas. But all that was in another part of the world, far removed from me.

Then, one evening when my shift was done, I strolled into my quarters to get ready for a date. A buddy called out to me, Hey Nick, better take a look at the bulletin board. My heart sank. The impossible had happened. There it