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15th Jul 2021

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Burgin, RV

Posted on 14 September, 2021 by in ,

 

This bio of R V Burgin USMC Serial Number 496798 is being written by Larry Martin in 2020 from notes taken in R V Burgins home in Dallas Texas in November 2015 as well as memories from later phone calls that Mr. Burgin and I had over a four year period.

Romus Valton  (RV) was born in 1922 in Jewitt Texas.  He enlisted in the Marine’s in November 1942.  Assigned to the 60 mm mortar section of K Co 3rd Battalion 5th Regiment of the 1st Marine Division  K-3-5.  By March 1943 he was in Australia preparing for the first of three combat campaigns which were Cape Gloucester on New Britain, Peleliu and Okinawa.  I met RV by phone after my grandson Trenton Grimes and I had interviewed his Gunnery Sergeant Thurman Miller in 2014 at his home in West Virginia.  Thurman was a rifleman at Guadalcanal and Cape Glouster New Britain in the Solomon Islands.  Thurman gave me RV s phone number and I had talked to RV many times when he told me that he was personal friends with the man who had been handcuffed to President Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby and would I like to talk to him  (Jim Leavelle 1920-2019).   A mortar crew was made up of 7 men plus 1 sergeant and a Lt.  There were three mortar tubes plus the two men in charge making a total of 23 men in a mortar section.  If my notes are correct RV had no night mares for 15 yrs but then he did for 55 yrs.  There is some confusion in my hand written notes. I was filming, questioning, listening and making notes at the same time which is far above my pay grade as a interviewer.   RV was friends with Eugene Sledge who wrote a great book about the island fighting in the Pacific titled “With the Old Breed”.  RV said that Eugene still carried emotional wounds from the war the rest of his entire life.  RV said that Sledge was a “milk toast” type of man but did as ordered and was a good Marine.  By Sledge’s own admission “he was scared to death all of the time.”  Nearly all of the veterans that I spoke to said they were also very scared and if you said you were not scared you were lying or a fool.

I have asked many of my WW II veterans if they saw any signs of PTSD in the general population of the US after the war with so many veterans returning from the fighting.  He said that he did not see any evidence of PTSD.  I have asked many veterans this question and do not remember any of them saying that they did remember any sign of PTSD.

When RV went into the Marine Corp he was 6′ 1” and 185 lbs.  He said that much of the time in battle he was on the front lines with the riflemen as a spotter of targets for the mortar crews firing in front of the riflemen.  Per RV the riflemen had it by far the worst.  The statistics would verify that  since I think that RV said that the mortar crew lost no men in his battles and many riflemen were KIA in his battles.  The mortarmen were about 60 yards behind the front lines.

On Cape Gloucester New Brittain he was involved in five Banzai charges in five hours between 1 am and 6 am which killed about 200 Japanese which he said you could walk 50 yards and be walking on dead Japanese soldiers.   Also I have read that as many as 25 Marine’s were killed by falling trees.  RV said that it rained literally sideways day after day.  He also told me that the jungle was so thick you knew that you buddy was within about one arm length and you could not see him.

RV said he was involved in Hand  to Hand combat at Cape Gloucester.  In later phone conversations with RV he said that he really looked up to Gunny Thurman Miller on Cape Gloucester and that he was a great man and a very fine Marine.  RV grew up on a 60 acre farm during the depression.  In a phone conversation in March of 2015 he said that the Marine Raider’s were the best and that they had more training.  He also said that Marine Paratrooper’s never walked anywhere that they always ran everywhere they went which is the same thing that my friend’s Fred Bahlau and Don Brinninstool of the 101st Airborne told me that they did.  Another thing that RV said during a phone call in August 2015 is that “if a man said he was going to die they did die”  RV was caught in a Tree burst and that was the worst thing because you were not only getting hit by metal from the artillery but by the wood from the tree.  He also feared enemy mortars because they could come straight down and land in your back pocket while you were in a fox hole.

RV told of a Army dog handler who lost his mind one night screaming and a Marine killed him with a entrenching tool.  He was there and knows who killed him but no one would identify the Marine and there was no legal repercussions from the killing.  The man was screaming and the position of the Marines in the dark would have been given away and many Marine’s killed.  I interviewed a Marine named Woody Brown who was wounded at both Peleliu and Okinawa who was in the 1st Marine’s said that the 1st Marines had the worst of the fighting on both islands.  I later read a book about Colonel Chesty Puller (personally very brave) was in command of the 1st Marines at Peleliu and was later criticized for the number of causalities  his outfit 1st Marines suffered.

The Academy  Award winner Tom Hanks wrote in Burgin’s book “Islands of the Damned” and Hanks accepted NO money for the words written.

I asked RV about the Navy Corpsmen who were stationed with the Marines and he said they were very brave men.

He had no reservations about ordering Flamethrowers in to hit the Japanese it was just another tool he could use if needed.  When the Japanese would come running out from the flamethrower they were shot point blank.  Did RV ever shoot any of them point blank and he said yes he did and it did not bother him.  His wife 5o years later after the war asked RV if he should quit calling the Japanese “Dirty Japs”  RV said NO because he still hated them and hated them until he died.  He never had anything against the Japanese citizens but still hated the soldiers because of what they did to the Marine’s when they were captured.

Most of the following questions that I asked RV were questions that I had from reading his book  “Islands of the Damned”

I asked RV if as a forward observer, did he have any extra protection from the riflemen.  His answer was NO.  I also asked about the sights and sounds of a battle field to see if he had any PTSD or shell shock.  He said he never had any problems and that none of his Marine friends had any he said NO.  Speaking of PTSD and suicides of Veterans.  I asked RV if he had a opinion as to why so many men returning from combat today seem to commit suicide, his answer was The WW II generation were tougher. I do know from both reading and RV that Eugene Sledge (writer of the Book With the Old Breed) who RV knew well.  NEVER got over the war.  Maybe RV did not think that that was PTSD.  I do not know.

Atrocities to Japanese by Marine’s pp 171.   Did you RV ever see any Japanese POW’s shot by Marine’s while escaping.  He said the did not personally see it but, knows that it happened.  I asked if he ever saw any mistreatment of live Japanese he said no but saw gold teeth being taken from corpses.

The following questions were kind of a hap hazzard questions and statements by RV.

Today is 7-10-20 these notes are from a Dec. 2-2015 phone conversation that I had with RV.  This would have been after the face to face interview that I did at his home in Dallas Tx on Nov. 15 of 2015.  RV saw Marines tied to trees used for bayonet practice with their penis cut off and put in their mouths.   I asked RV Burgin if he did slit throats and shoot Japanese point bland to make sure they were dead he said that he did that and had no regrets then or later in life.  RV quote of the Japanese soldier of WW II was that “They were sadistic bastards”

 

 

 

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