March 25, 2024 • 38 mins
An hour of Medal of Honor Monday with Captain Arthur Junior Jackson and Major Everett Parker Pope's actions on Peleliu. From the beachhead to Bloody Nose Ridge.
Follow The Jesse Kelly Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJesseKellyShow
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. There's
all kinds of news we could talk about, and we're
going to talk about, like NBC being mad about Ronald
McDaniel getting hired and people were moving and the spending
thing and all kinds of stuff, the comments from Mexico's president.
So of course we're not doing any of that. I mean,
(00:36):
I'm gonna get to it. Don't You're wrong that's coming.
But look, you know what time it is. It's Monday.
It's the start of the second hour on Monday. So
it's Medal of Honor Monday time. And I warned you
last week that this was going to be a a
double whammy, a two banger. I've been doing a bunch
of different reading. I've written like three different books right
now on Pelulu. Well that's not really true. I read
(00:58):
one and I read another one on my third one
on pelelu one of the Pacific War battles, And there's
just some backstory, a little expanded stuff on a couple
of medals of honor that were won on Pelulu that
I wanted to talk about. Someone had a question about
Vietnam I thought was fascinating. Essentially, we're gonna do some
battlefield war history Medal of Honor honoring some heroes stuff.
(01:20):
So buckle up and enjoy the ride. It's Medal of
Honor Monday slash History Hour, and it might go on
for a while. Now I'm gonna set both of these
stories up, and this may take just a few sore.
Here's kind of how it works in the Pacific War.
As you know this longtime listeners are people who've read
(01:42):
about it will understand this. But for those who don't,
the high points you need to understand are this about
the Pacific War, the Pacific portion of World War two
US versus the Empire Japan early on, you know, December seventh,
nineteen forty one, and then after that for a long
time nineteen forty one, early nineteen forty two, for months
(02:05):
and months and months and months and months, we were losing,
we were getting pushed backwards, we had no wins. And
for Americans alive today, there aren't very many of these
old timers still left. So for Americans alive today, we
don't even understand what that's like.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, we've had obviously some foreign engagements where we've had
setbacks here, or we're lose a battle there, or or
this guy will die here. Of course we've had loss.
I'm not acting like we don't have loss. But I'm
talking about another nation pushing us around America. For the
early part of World War Two in the Pacific was
(02:50):
pushed around Japan. It was more than just Pearl Harbor.
Japan took the Philippines away from US. Japan had naval
reority over the United States of America, had air superiority
over the United States of America early World War two,
early nineteen forty two, nineteen forty one, and forty two,
(03:14):
those were the years that belonged to Japan. Then Battle
of Midway happened. We went into Guadalcanal and pushed them
out of there. After that it belonged to us. The
entire rest of the war was US slowly but surely
conquering island after island after island. Really airstrip after airstrip
(03:37):
after airstrip. Remember it's always an airstrip war. Conquering airstrip
after airstrip after airstrip on our way to Japan. Where
As you know, we eventually dropped the bomb and we
won but that's the story of World War two in
the Pacific, right, So by the time we get to
Pelulu Pellu. Part of the reason I've been reading Pellu,
let me just get get it out of the way now.
(03:59):
I've been a lot of Pelolu is because I find
Pelulu to be, for a variety of different reasons, the
most horrifying and heartbreaking of all the World War two
Pacific battles. And I wasn't there, right, but I find
it to be the worst. And there are a couple
different reasons why. The first one is this, and we've
(04:21):
been talking about this a lot lately when it comes
to global War on Terror stuff GWATT veterans, how they're
struggling right now. They're struggling because their country, their country
didn't try to win their wars, and their country used
their sacrifice and then we pull out of Afghanistan and
just throw it all away. And it's hard for you,
(04:43):
if you're one of those guys, I'll tell you, it's
hard for me to accept that overall, it wasn't necessary.
Part of the reason Pelulu is so awful, so awful
to me, uniquely awful, is it wasn't necessary. Look, we
really had to take Guadalcanal Ewojima. As horrible as Ewojima was,
(05:09):
we really we kind of had to have it. There
was a strategic purpose for it. Okinawa. Okinawa maybe the
worst of the Pacific War battles. There was not an option.
You must have Okinawa if you're not if you're the
United States of America. It's right there, just south of Japan.
If you want to do a bombing campaign that's effective
on the Empire of Japan, you must have Okinawa. By
(05:31):
the time we invaded Pelulu, we didn't need it anymore.
We could have taken all of our troops, all those
Marines and Army, although this was kind of mainly one
the Marines had to take on the Chin, although they
kind of did it to themselves. But anyway, it was
the one we didn't have to do. And it's not
as if that's me doing a twenty twenty In hindsight,
(05:55):
look at Pelulu. At the time, people were say, high
up admirals, generals were saying, I don't think we need
to go to Pelol. Lou even MacArthur, who you know,
I don't care for at all. I do not care
for Doug out. Doug MacArthur at all. Personal opinion, I
do not like him. I never trust generals whose men
(06:17):
dislike them, because that tells you everything you need to know.
His men didn't like him, so I don't. But even
MacArthur was saying, hey, why are you guys, Hey Marines, Nimitz, Chester, Nimitz,
the admiral, why are you doing this? Well Nimitz, who
is a great man and a great admiral in an
American hero, he just had it in his mind that
(06:39):
he was doing it. And momentum is a powerful thing.
Now we know that. Now let's talk about this again.
This is the Jesse Kelly Show, and I swear it's political,
but too bad, so sad. We're doing a bunch of
Medal of Honor World War Two, probably some Vietnam history
stuff tonight because I feel like it anyway. Another reason
pelul Lou seems so horrible is the environment itself sounds
(07:05):
like a hellscape. And let me explain why Pellu is
not really a jungle. We think of the World War
Two in the Pacific and we mostly think about tropical right,
it's a jungle. It's a jungle that were fighting in
the jungles and for the most part that was true,
not really necessarily so on Ewo Jima or the others,
but Pelllu it's just a big rock. It's just a
(07:28):
big piece of coral And when they were doing reconnaissance
of Pelelu, they didn't really realize that because there is
the thinnest layer in the world of dirt on top
of a lot of that rock, the thinnest layer in
the world, and then some shrubs. So from if you're
on a plane looking down, you think, wow, it's another
tropical island. It's not tropical. It's just coral rock. There's
(07:51):
no water. It was one hundred and fifteen degrees and
no water. The Marines who were on Pellu sually the
first ones all talk about how fast they ran out
of water and how thirsty they were at all times.
That's brutal. But mostly the reason Pelulu is so incredibly
(08:12):
terrible is well the enemy learned. And we've talked about
this before and I'm going to get to my first citation,
Medal of Honor citation here in a minute. But when
we think about battles and talk about battles and wars,
whether it be today, tomorrow, whatever, when we think about
these things. We don't think about the enemy as being
(08:38):
like us, and that's a very human thing to do.
We want to dehumanize the enemy. Don't think you're a
bad guy if you do that. It's very common. That's
why you use racial or ethnic slurs against whoever your
opponent is. This is not an American thing. This has
been done in every single war battle in the history
(08:59):
of mankind. Why are you doing that? You're trying to
make them less than men in your mind, makes it
easier to kill them. So if you're fighting the Empire
of Japan, you don't want to think about them like
flesh and blood, human beings with values and minds and
like you. You want to think about them like they're dogs. Right,
So you come up with you know, Japs and nips
(09:20):
and all kinds of racial slurs you would use to
do that for you in your mind, right, But the
truth is they are thinking human beings just like you,
and they learn just like you learn. And we had
taken all these islands from them, and the Japanese finally
figured out, look, we cannot stand up to American naval gunfire.
(09:43):
It's just like someone dropping five hundred pound bombs on you.
You can't stand. We can't withstand naval gunfire. We cannot
withstand American air superiority. By now we had air superiority,
we were dropping bombs on them from the sky. We're
dropping artillery on them, naval gun gunfire. The Japanese Pela
(10:03):
Lou was there, their real first, brand new, first experimentation
with this concept. Instead of being on this island, let's
be in it. Let's dig inside of it like rats
and make them come get us. And that is going
to bring us to our first medal of honor citation.
(10:25):
There are a couple we are going to get to
here before we do that, and honestly, they get better,
I think as we go along. I don't know. They're
both incredible. Before we get to our first one, let's
do this, let's take care of our puppies. Did you
know that? Probably I'd say a year after we got Fred,
maybe six months to six months maybe after we got Fred.
(10:46):
The wife had let him get up on the bed,
which she's not supposed to do, and he's up there
and has a digestive problem. Fred used to have the
weakest stomach in the world, and he would die digestive
problems everywhere, to the point we considered making him just
an outside dog. It was that bad frantic. He doesn't
(11:10):
have those anymore. Why Roughgreens. We give Fred Roughgreens with
every meal. We pour Roughgreens on every dish he gets. Yes,
dogfood is dead food. We still give him his dog food.
He loves it, have the empty calories. But the nutrition
he gets from rough Greens includes probiotics, vitamins, minerals. That
(11:33):
keeps Fred healthy and it's going to keep him around
for a long time and keeps him from having problems
in our bed. Go get a free Jumpstart trial bag
for your dog. Free go to Roughgreens dot com, slash
Jesse or call eight three three three three. My dog.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You're listening to the auricle.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You love this one.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
It's a scream baby, the Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. It's
already been a great Monday. We got all kinds of
educated with b K with a foreign policy stuff isis Russia.
We got drug dealers running cities in the country. But
now you know, we were in Medal of Honor Monday time,
and I just did a little bit of history behind
(12:19):
pellou and the start of Pelolu and the World War
two Pacific Battle. Of course, Pelolu is what I'm talking about.
And I'm about to do our first Medal of Honor citation.
I'm gonna explain. I'm gonna give you a little bit
more detail on each citation after I do each one.
I think that's how I'm gonna do these. That was
the background of Pelulu. Now it's time for our first one.
(12:40):
This is the Medal of Honor citation of a mister
Arthur Junior Jackson. And just know, honestly, the story after
this one is probably even cooler than the citation itself.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Hey, honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal
of Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
This is for Arthur Junior Jackson, USMC, World War II Pacific,
for conspicuous gallantry in intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with
the third Battalion, seventh Marines, first Marine Division in action
against enemy Japanese forces on the island of Pelulu in
the Palau Group eighteenth to September nineteen forty four, boldly
(13:30):
taking the initiative when his platoon's left flank advance was
held up by the fire of Japanese troops concealed in
strongly fortified positions. Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly preceded forward of our
lines and courageously defied the heavy barrages. Charged a large
pill box housing an approximately thirty five enemy soldiers, pouring
(13:51):
his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed installation
to trap the occupying troops. He hurled white phosphorus grenades
and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing
the pill box and killing all the enemy. Advancing alone
under the continuous fire from other hostile emplacements, he employed
similar means to smash two smaller positions in the immediate vicinity.
(14:16):
Determined to crush the entire pocket of resistance, Although harassed
on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese weapons
and covered only by small rifle parties, he stormed one
gun position after another, dealing death and destruction to the
savagely fighting enemy in his inexorable drive against the remaining
defenseless defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a total of
(14:41):
twelve pill boxes and fifty Japanese soldiers. It was closer
to one hundred by the way. Stouthearted and indomitable, despite
the terrific odds, Pfc Jackson resolutely maintained control of the
platoon's left flank movement throughout his valiant one man assault,
and by his cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during
(15:02):
a critical situation, contribute essentially to the complete annihilation of
the enemy and the southern sector of the island. His
galliant initiative and heroic conduct in the face of extreme
peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson in the
US Naval Service. Now let me explain the rest of
(15:22):
the story. A mister Arthur Junior Jackson. One thing you
should know about Arthur Junior Jackson is, and this is
going to come into play here a little bit more
in a moment, is he was enormous. I've heard he
was two hundred and thirty pounds. I've heard he was
two hundred and ten pounds. Well, however big he was,
(15:43):
everyone knew he was huge. He was not only huge.
I need to clarify before I say the next thing.
He lived to be an old man with his wife
and was supposed to be I've never met him the
kindest most humble human being in the world. But you
did not want to cross Arthur Junior Jackson because not
(16:03):
only was he huge, he was really good at violence,
the Marine Corps, self defense, beating people up, learning how
to stab people's stuff. Yeah, he was an expert at that.
He excelled in virtually every field that involved shooting someone
or beating somebody to death. That's what Arthur Junior Jackson did,
(16:23):
a born warrior in a monster, huge, huge, so big
that when he eventually got wounded. I forget which of
the books I've read this sin this weekend. When he
eventually got wounded, his stretcher bearers who had to haul
him off of the island were cussing him out the
whole way because he was so heavy trying to get
him off the island. That's Arthur Junior Jackson. Now, the
(16:46):
pillbox story, it kind of tells itself. His unit was
pinned down, they were being slaughtered by these guys. He
didn't run the whole way like the Medal of Honor
citation makes it sound. It's actually more impressive than that.
He got into the prone. And remember I just described Pelulu.
It's all coral, it's all rock, tears up your elbows,
(17:06):
your knees just to get down on it, let alone.
It being hot. He essentially low crawled almost the entire
way up to the pill box. A white phosphorus grenade.
Not only does it create incredible heat, incredible heat if
you're right by it, If you get hit with any
of the white phosphorus, whatever it touches is gonna burn immediately.
It'll burn water. You could drop one in water and
(17:28):
it'll burn right down to the bottom. Water would not
put it out, but it creates an intense amount of smoke.
This dude low crawls. If he did this once, it
would be unreal. All the way up to a pill box.
That's slaughtering his men. He's waiting the entire time on
the way up to the pill box. He's looking up
at it. All they have to do is look down
(17:50):
enough and they're going to see him crawling up to it.
He is not in cover. I need to stress. He
is not in cover. He's in like this little depression,
kind of a little path on the way up there.
If they look over, he won't even it'll be a
machine gun burst in his head. It's over. He low
crawls the entire way up and then just on his own,
(18:12):
figures out, Hey, I've got an idea. I'm gonna empty
a mag into this thing. He was a bar man,
Browning automatic rifle. This that's going to come into play
in just a moment. Actually, there's a really cool story
about that. He was a bar man. He unloads a mag,
then drops a Willie Pete in there, a white fosphorus
(18:32):
round in there, so the place is full of smoke.
Now the Japanese in there, they can't see, they don't
know what's going on. He then yanks a satchel charge.
Dude hands him a satchel charge that came up with him.
He drops it in there, but it's on a time fuse.
He has to turn now and sprint away. But he
has to sprint away. Remember if they see him still,
(18:53):
he's dead. They're right there in the pill box. The
satchel charge explodes and essentially fills his body with concrete fragments.
He then goes and does it eleven more times to
all the other pillboxes, just him, just by himself. All right, now,
that's Jackson. Let me finish the Jackson story, and then
(19:14):
we'll get to one more. And then maybe we'll do
some more politics before I do other history.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hang on, Jesse Kelly returns next.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, doing
an extended history portion of Medal of Honor Monday today.
I mean, why not? What are we gonna do? We
want to talk about that or don't.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Day I'm launching the National Resource Center for Red Flag Loss.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I can't do it. We'll get back to her in
a little while. We're talking. We're too busy talking, Pella Lou. Now,
let's finish the Arthur Junior Jackson story in case you
dis missed it. I just did the Middle of Honor
citation for Arthur Junior Jackson. I'm about to do another one.
If you missed any of this stuff, let's go download
the podcast. It's free too. iHeart Google Spot iTunes. Go enjoy.
(20:01):
All right now, Arthur Junior Jackson had another little part
of his story. It didn't make it into the Medal
of Honor citation because he didn't win one for this one.
He's on Pelolou still. And remember how I told you
he's a baar man. Now, for you non military types,
that's a big it's a machine gun. Okay, it's a
machine gun that shoots heavy rounds and shoots them fast.
(20:25):
That look, this is honestly what it sounds like. This
is the sound of a bar. That's what a bar
sounds like. High caliber make a big old mess of you.
You generally want big guys like Arthur Junior Jackson carrying
it because the weapon itself is heavy and Sosiamo. He's
on Pelolu. And part of the reason Pelolu got so
(20:47):
horrible was the Japanese member. How I was talking about
how they learned and they dug in. Well, it was
all just a big network of caves and spider holes
that they had created for themselves. So these guys would
pop up out of nowhere. Four Japanese guys pop up
directly in front of Arthur Junior Jackson, and he didn't
(21:11):
even know they were there. Now, according to the stories,
and I've read a few different things, and I listened
to a podcast on it, he didn't think or someone
didn't think they knew he was there either. They essentially
surprised each other. But either way, he's alone, four Japanese
troops in front of him. Jackson pulls out the bar,
(21:34):
unloads immediately on them. Three of them go down right away.
Apparently he just turned these guys in a mince meat
with the bar. But then again, you get different versions
of it depending on what you read. Either the mag
was empty or the weapon jammed or something. But no
(21:54):
more shooting. Now you've got three dead. There's a fourth
guy there. Dude attacks him. Jackson was not the man
to attack, and this is a Japanese dude. He was
not very big, Jackson, he said. Later on, he said,
(22:15):
this is a physical encounter where he grabs the Japanese
guy off of his back, chucks him on the ground,
and beats him to death with his bar. And Jackson,
talking about it later said, poor little guy didn't stand
a chance. That is a stud right there. Arthur Junior
Jackson lived in I believe it was Florida for the
(22:36):
rest of his days. That's a great man, all right.
Now that's one. Now this one's probably a little darker,
but it's all dark. And I realized that wasn't exactly light.
We're talking about war and combat and things like that.
But this one, look, he lives. But there's more to
this story. So without further ado, let's do our second
one of the day. And then I'll give you a
little bit more background on it, and mister Everett Parker Pope.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Hey honoring those who went above and beyond its Medal
of Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty, while serving as
commanding officer of Company C, first Battalion, First Marines, First
Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Pellu Island,
Palau Group, on the nineteenth of September through the twentieth
of September nineteen forty four. So in case you're keeping track,
(23:36):
this is the day after Jackson earned his Medal of Honor.
Subjected to point blank cannon fire which caused heavy casualties
and badly disorganized his company while assaulting a steep coral hill,
Captain Pope rallied his men and gallantly led them to
the summit in the face of machine gun, mortar and
sniper fire. Forced by widespread hostile attack to deploy the
(24:01):
remnants of his company thinly in order to hold the
ground one and with his machine guns out of order
and insufficient water and ammunition, he remained on the exposed
hill with twelve men. We'll get back to that in
a minute, and one wounded officer that determined to hold
through the night, attacked continuously with grenades, machine guns, and
(24:23):
rifles from three sides. He and his valiant men fiercely
beat back or destroyed the enemy, resorting to hand to
hand combat as a supply of ammunition dwindled, and still
maintaining his lines with his eight remaining riflemen when daylight
brought more deadly fire and he was ordered to withdraw
(24:44):
his valiant leadership against devastating odds while protecting the units
below from heavy Japanese attack. Reflects the highest credit upon
Captain Pope in the US Naval Service. And now let's
dig into Pelolou a little bit more, because there is
something about Pelolu you should understand. Again. I would encourage
you to go read something on Pelolu. Books on tape
(25:04):
or fine choreus or look, hey, go watch a documentary
on it. I haven't looked. I bet you there's a
thousand on YouTube on there. I believe I've seen other
ones floating around. There are always there's someone's always done
a documentary. Go learn about Pelolu. Terrible, terrible thing. But
when you start reading about it, learning about it, you
(25:24):
will you will undoubtedly hear bloody nose ridge. You will
hear that term bloody nose ridge. And this is gonna
come back to Pope and what his men did, and
just stories you just can't imagine, stories you've never heard
of before. But bloody nose ridge, I know you're gonna
find this shocking. Was a ridge, a ridge of coral again,
(25:44):
all hardened coral. And it was a ridge the Japanese.
That's where they had made their caves and made their tunnels.
It was their fortress. And you couldn't blow them out
of there with naval gunfire, with artillery. You have to
go get them out. Now, what was happening here with
Parker Pope and his first Marine Division allowed me to
(26:07):
explain the first Marine division going into Pelolu. Many people say,
and obviously I'm very partial to the Marines, so I
don't know whether or not this is true, but I
certainly noded my head and say, oh, yeah, that's definitely true.
Many people say this was the finest fighting division on
the planet at this time. We're talking Germans, Russian, Japanese, Americans.
(26:28):
You want one infantry division to go fight for you.
It would be the first marine division because of the
things they had done. Another reason Pelolu was so horrible
is the first marine division got destroyed the Marines, and look,
they have to own it, the Marines, the commanders, nimats
(26:48):
has to own it too. They took the finest division
on the planet and they completely decimated it because they
threw it against these defenses that could not be broken
in that way. Now with Pope and his men the
reason we kept citing how many men he had is
you have to understand this again, there's the ridge there.
(27:11):
You understand this about combat. Doesn't matter whether you're a
twelve year old listening to my show or ninety seven.
Everyone understands this about combat. You have to have the
high ground. You want the high ground. You want to
be able to shoot down, throw down. You don't want
to attack up ever, ever, you want to attack down.
That is a basic thing. Everyone knows that. You don't
(27:32):
need to exactly need to go to West Point to
know high ground, high ground, high ground. Well bloody knows.
Ridge was not only the place with all the Japanese
caves and tunnels and fortifications. It was the high ground
so no matter what, you had to take it, and
even getting up to the ridge, Pope and his men
Charlie Company, it doesn't I'm just gonna call him Charlie
(27:55):
Company because that's what it was called when I was
in the Marine Corps. Charlie Company. Pope is the commanding officer.
They are given orders. They have to get up and
establish a foothold on this hill. They're at the base
of it. They believe it's a hill, a hill top.
He needs the Marine Corps, the first Marine Division the America.
(28:16):
They need Pope and his men to get to the
top of this hill and hold this hill. Except there's
a problem. The Japanese understand that people are going to
be taking this hill and it's not a grassy hill.
It's a cliff. One you have to climb as if
it's a cliff. And believe me, I'm just starting on
(28:38):
the story of Pope and Charlie Company and heroes and
things people have gone through to protect this country because
I feel like and I don't want to talk about
politics right now. I'll get to that next hour. I
will continue that in just a moment. Before we continue that,
let's talk about this. Let's talk about our own ways
we are trying to save country are very very small
(29:01):
ways compared to men like this. Right. But one of
the reasons I do love Pure Talk so much is
their CEO is a veteran. Why do you think Puretalk
what do you think their mission is veterans' suicide. Well,
all the other cell phone companies are giving to Black
Lives Matter and Planned parenthood. Pure Talks trying to save
(29:21):
our guys who are hurting right now. I love that, man,
I just I love it. She's so patriotic. He only
hires Americans. Customer service is based in America. You get
a hold of Pure Talk, you're speaking to an American
and your bill goes down, not up. Same five G network.
Switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk. Dial pound
(29:42):
two five zero and say Jesse Kelly. They're given out
free smartphones right now, Samsung five g's pound two five zero,
Say Jesse Kelly, We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Feeling a little stocky, Follow like and subscribe on social
at Jesse Kelly DC.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, completely
driving the show off the rails and doing an extended
medal of honor. Monday History story Monday, so I'm not
catching you up on everything. You're gonna have to go
download a podcast to get caught up. We're in the
middle of Pelulu. Everett Parker, Pope Company commander, Charlie Company.
He's trying. He's been told, he said, they're trying to
(30:23):
get up on top of this hill. And he's been told,
get your men up on top of the hill. And
so the men of Charlie Company begin to climb. They're climbing,
they're rock climbing up. The Japanese are not only on top,
they're also built into the sides of the hill. When
I say built in, meaning if there's enough room for
(30:44):
one of these guys to wedge himself onto the hill,
he will simply hide there with the box of grenades
and a gun and drop grenades on the Marines as
they're coming up. There's a famous story, in fact, there
are multiple stories like this, and this isn't the last
time you're going to hear this, of a marine tripping
on one on the way up. He didn't even know
(31:06):
he was there. He looks down and it's a Japanese soldier,
and I guess he was a bigger marine. We don't
know his name to this day. He reaches down and
snatches him up and just chucks him off the cliff,
and all the guys down below are cheering, Yeah, look
at a fly that This is the story of pelol Lou.
I'm telling you, this is why I go crazy when
I hear about Hollywood not having any ideas. Hollywood, call me,
(31:27):
are you kidding me? Not any ideas? You can make
an entire movie about just this part of Pelolu. So
Pope's men are climbing and they're dying. I want you
to know, fast forward to the end of this. I
told you about the first Marine Division. I want you
to know by the time Peloa Lou's done, three fourths
of them gone casualties, the wipeout, and Pope's company is
(31:50):
being wiped out. By the time his men get to
the top, well you heard it's twelve minutes, thirteen, it's fourteen.
The numbers kind of go back and forth. But he
gets to the top of this quote hill he's supposed
to take. And the reason I use the words, the
reason I did the quote thing there is Hill and
his men discover once they get to the top of
(32:12):
the hill that they're actually not on a hill at all.
They're on the tip of the ridge, the ridge the
Japanese have complete control of. So after getting to the top,
his completely decimated unit is now facing the entirety of
the Japanese army built into Pelulu, and he's not allowed
(32:36):
to leave, and he can't dig in. Back to what
we were talking about, it's coral. You can't dig in it.
They can't, and they can't sit and blast out holes.
They don't. They don't even have communication with headquarters anymore.
He's lost that now. I want you to imagine this
speaking of Hollywood, what I'm about to describe is real.
(32:57):
It happened Pope and his men and they got into
whatever depressions they could find. There weren't many of them,
as you heard. They couldn't they couldn't really dig in well,
but they got in where they could. And they understood
that the Japanese were going to counterattack to run them
(33:18):
off that hill. And they understood that the Japanese loved
to attack at night. They knew this well by now.
They would attack with bayonets, with Samurai swords. They're going
to come for you in the night, they are, and
they're going to sneak in and they're happy to die
doing it. And so Pope and his men lay out
on this hill, and they all believed they were about
(33:38):
to die, and they set all of their they were
clips because it was m one grand, but they set
out all their ammo, all their grenades, and they didn't
have many left. They collected rocks to throw, rocks to throw,
and they watched as the sun began to go down,
and they knew it was coming. And as they were
laying there, they were hearing enough in front of them
(34:01):
that they believed that they had some people getting ready
to get on top of them. They get some naval
flares overhead, Flares get launched overhead. Tell me, this isn't
out of the movies. And as soon as the flares
light up in front of them, they see a sea
of Japanese bodies low crawling towards their position. And then
(34:25):
it's on all night long, hand to hand combat grenades.
By now you learned that you didn't shoot when you
heard someone in front of you, because that gives away
your position. You threw grenades, you threw rocks. Pope himself,
with a fellow marine, had a couple of Japanese guys
(34:47):
drop into whatever makeshift fighting hole he had. Hand to
hand combat ensued. They overcame them and one and this
took place the entire night. Once they defeated the two
Japanese troops who dropped into their hole, there wasn't room
for everyone up there. Again, they were on a cliff.
They just kept grabbing the dead Japanese and chucking them
(35:09):
off the end of the cliff after they killed him
in the middle of the night. An entire night hand
fighting with Japanese troops. That is, Pope, that is what
people have gone through for your country. In my country,
they barely survived, had no ammunition. They were well aware
(35:34):
by now of what Japanese, of what the Japanese troops
would do if they were taken alive. Pope had a
pistol on him as well as his rifle. Pope was
down to the last round in his pistol and said,
I could have fired it many times, but that last
one in the chamber was for me if they finally
got to me. They barely got off the top of
(35:57):
that ridge alive. And from there, I mean, the first
Marine Division, for lack of a better way to put it,
was no more. They had to go essentially retire to
the rear and took so much time to rebuild them
into a fighting force. And we didn't even have to
be there. And Pellu is such a horrible, horrible place.
(36:21):
If you're not a reader, you don't want to do
an audio book or whatnot. And maybe you're just more
of a hey, I like to watch TV type person.
It's been a while since I've seen it. But you
know that HBO series Hell in the or no, not
Hell in the Pacific, the Pacific I about called not
Hell in the Pacific, It's just called the Pacific. It's
a quote fiction series with actors, but it is actually
(36:45):
made based off in large part, Eugene Sledge. Eb Sledge's book.
He wrote a book called With the Old Breed and
Pelllu was the first action he saw in Pelolu. So
if you walk the Pacific, it's an extremely realistic re
(37:05):
enactment of the various things Eugene Sledge and his men
went through on Pelulu. If you want to understand what
the environment was like, and the rocks and the hills
and the crags, and if you want to understand how
and why that place just absolutely shattered men at broke men.
You could watch The Pacific. I should note, I'm sorry,
(37:27):
little dad note here not for the kids, not for
little kids, for sure, the Pacific. It's been a while,
but I know. Look it's salty and raw, it's marines.
The language is bad, the violence is bad. There may
even be some little Kamala stuff in there. I don't know,
but maybe. Probably not for the kids, but something worth watching.
(37:47):
All Right, we're going to talk about other things. There's
a headline out here about the Great Divorce. We'll get
to that, but first we're going to talk about controlling
the message communism. Why is NBC mad about Ronald McDaniel
an employment Next,
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. There's
all kinds of news we could talk about, and we're
going to talk about, like NBC being mad about Ronald
McDaniel getting hired and people were moving and the spending
thing and all kinds of stuff, the comments from Mexico's president.
So of course we're not doing any of that. I mean,
(00:36):
I'm gonna get to it. Don't You're wrong that's coming.
But look, you know what time it is. It's Monday.
It's the start of the second hour on Monday. So
it's Medal of Honor Monday time. And I warned you
last week that this was going to be a a
double whammy, a two banger. I've been doing a bunch
of different reading. I've written like three different books right
now on Pelulu. Well that's not really true. I read
(00:58):
one and I read another one on my third one
on pelelu one of the Pacific War battles, And there's
just some backstory, a little expanded stuff on a couple
of medals of honor that were won on Pelulu that
I wanted to talk about. Someone had a question about
Vietnam I thought was fascinating. Essentially, we're gonna do some
battlefield war history Medal of Honor honoring some heroes stuff.
(01:20):
So buckle up and enjoy the ride. It's Medal of
Honor Monday slash History Hour, and it might go on
for a while. Now I'm gonna set both of these
stories up, and this may take just a few sore.
Here's kind of how it works in the Pacific War.
As you know this longtime listeners are people who've read
(01:42):
about it will understand this. But for those who don't,
the high points you need to understand are this about
the Pacific War, the Pacific portion of World War two
US versus the Empire Japan early on, you know, December seventh,
nineteen forty one, and then after that for a long
time nineteen forty one, early nineteen forty two, for months
(02:05):
and months and months and months and months, we were losing,
we were getting pushed backwards, we had no wins. And
for Americans alive today, there aren't very many of these
old timers still left. So for Americans alive today, we
don't even understand what that's like.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, we've had obviously some foreign engagements where we've had
setbacks here, or we're lose a battle there, or or
this guy will die here. Of course we've had loss.
I'm not acting like we don't have loss. But I'm
talking about another nation pushing us around America. For the
early part of World War Two in the Pacific was
(02:50):
pushed around Japan. It was more than just Pearl Harbor.
Japan took the Philippines away from US. Japan had naval
reority over the United States of America, had air superiority
over the United States of America early World War two,
early nineteen forty two, nineteen forty one, and forty two,
(03:14):
those were the years that belonged to Japan. Then Battle
of Midway happened. We went into Guadalcanal and pushed them
out of there. After that it belonged to us. The
entire rest of the war was US slowly but surely
conquering island after island after island. Really airstrip after airstrip
(03:37):
after airstrip. Remember it's always an airstrip war. Conquering airstrip
after airstrip after airstrip on our way to Japan. Where
As you know, we eventually dropped the bomb and we
won but that's the story of World War two in
the Pacific, right, So by the time we get to
Pelulu Pellu. Part of the reason I've been reading Pellu,
let me just get get it out of the way now.
(03:59):
I've been a lot of Pelolu is because I find
Pelulu to be, for a variety of different reasons, the
most horrifying and heartbreaking of all the World War two
Pacific battles. And I wasn't there, right, but I find
it to be the worst. And there are a couple
different reasons why. The first one is this, and we've
(04:21):
been talking about this a lot lately when it comes
to global War on Terror stuff GWATT veterans, how they're
struggling right now. They're struggling because their country, their country
didn't try to win their wars, and their country used
their sacrifice and then we pull out of Afghanistan and
just throw it all away. And it's hard for you,
(04:43):
if you're one of those guys, I'll tell you, it's
hard for me to accept that overall, it wasn't necessary.
Part of the reason Pelulu is so awful, so awful
to me, uniquely awful, is it wasn't necessary. Look, we
really had to take Guadalcanal Ewojima. As horrible as Ewojima was,
(05:09):
we really we kind of had to have it. There
was a strategic purpose for it. Okinawa. Okinawa maybe the
worst of the Pacific War battles. There was not an option.
You must have Okinawa if you're not if you're the
United States of America. It's right there, just south of Japan.
If you want to do a bombing campaign that's effective
on the Empire of Japan, you must have Okinawa. By
(05:31):
the time we invaded Pelulu, we didn't need it anymore.
We could have taken all of our troops, all those
Marines and Army, although this was kind of mainly one
the Marines had to take on the Chin, although they
kind of did it to themselves. But anyway, it was
the one we didn't have to do. And it's not
as if that's me doing a twenty twenty In hindsight,
(05:55):
look at Pelulu. At the time, people were say, high
up admirals, generals were saying, I don't think we need
to go to Pelol. Lou even MacArthur, who you know,
I don't care for at all. I do not care
for Doug out. Doug MacArthur at all. Personal opinion, I
do not like him. I never trust generals whose men
(06:17):
dislike them, because that tells you everything you need to know.
His men didn't like him, so I don't. But even
MacArthur was saying, hey, why are you guys, Hey Marines, Nimitz, Chester, Nimitz,
the admiral, why are you doing this? Well Nimitz, who
is a great man and a great admiral in an
American hero, he just had it in his mind that
(06:39):
he was doing it. And momentum is a powerful thing.
Now we know that. Now let's talk about this again.
This is the Jesse Kelly Show, and I swear it's political,
but too bad, so sad. We're doing a bunch of
Medal of Honor World War Two, probably some Vietnam history
stuff tonight because I feel like it anyway. Another reason
pelul Lou seems so horrible is the environment itself sounds
(07:05):
like a hellscape. And let me explain why Pellu is
not really a jungle. We think of the World War
Two in the Pacific and we mostly think about tropical right,
it's a jungle. It's a jungle that were fighting in
the jungles and for the most part that was true,
not really necessarily so on Ewo Jima or the others,
but Pelllu it's just a big rock. It's just a
(07:28):
big piece of coral And when they were doing reconnaissance
of Pelelu, they didn't really realize that because there is
the thinnest layer in the world of dirt on top
of a lot of that rock, the thinnest layer in
the world, and then some shrubs. So from if you're
on a plane looking down, you think, wow, it's another
tropical island. It's not tropical. It's just coral rock. There's
(07:51):
no water. It was one hundred and fifteen degrees and
no water. The Marines who were on Pellu sually the
first ones all talk about how fast they ran out
of water and how thirsty they were at all times.
That's brutal. But mostly the reason Pelulu is so incredibly
(08:12):
terrible is well the enemy learned. And we've talked about
this before and I'm going to get to my first citation,
Medal of Honor citation here in a minute. But when
we think about battles and talk about battles and wars,
whether it be today, tomorrow, whatever, when we think about
these things. We don't think about the enemy as being
(08:38):
like us, and that's a very human thing to do.
We want to dehumanize the enemy. Don't think you're a
bad guy if you do that. It's very common. That's
why you use racial or ethnic slurs against whoever your
opponent is. This is not an American thing. This has
been done in every single war battle in the history
(08:59):
of mankind. Why are you doing that? You're trying to
make them less than men in your mind, makes it
easier to kill them. So if you're fighting the Empire
of Japan, you don't want to think about them like
flesh and blood, human beings with values and minds and
like you. You want to think about them like they're dogs. Right,
So you come up with you know, Japs and nips
(09:20):
and all kinds of racial slurs you would use to
do that for you in your mind, right, But the
truth is they are thinking human beings just like you,
and they learn just like you learn. And we had
taken all these islands from them, and the Japanese finally
figured out, look, we cannot stand up to American naval gunfire.
(09:43):
It's just like someone dropping five hundred pound bombs on you.
You can't stand. We can't withstand naval gunfire. We cannot
withstand American air superiority. By now we had air superiority,
we were dropping bombs on them from the sky. We're
dropping artillery on them, naval gun gunfire. The Japanese Pela
(10:03):
Lou was there, their real first, brand new, first experimentation
with this concept. Instead of being on this island, let's
be in it. Let's dig inside of it like rats
and make them come get us. And that is going
to bring us to our first medal of honor citation.
(10:25):
There are a couple we are going to get to
here before we do that, and honestly, they get better,
I think as we go along. I don't know. They're
both incredible. Before we get to our first one, let's
do this, let's take care of our puppies. Did you
know that? Probably I'd say a year after we got Fred,
maybe six months to six months maybe after we got Fred.
(10:46):
The wife had let him get up on the bed,
which she's not supposed to do, and he's up there
and has a digestive problem. Fred used to have the
weakest stomach in the world, and he would die digestive
problems everywhere, to the point we considered making him just
an outside dog. It was that bad frantic. He doesn't
(11:10):
have those anymore. Why Roughgreens. We give Fred Roughgreens with
every meal. We pour Roughgreens on every dish he gets. Yes,
dogfood is dead food. We still give him his dog food.
He loves it, have the empty calories. But the nutrition
he gets from rough Greens includes probiotics, vitamins, minerals. That
(11:33):
keeps Fred healthy and it's going to keep him around
for a long time and keeps him from having problems
in our bed. Go get a free Jumpstart trial bag
for your dog. Free go to Roughgreens dot com, slash
Jesse or call eight three three three three. My dog.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You're listening to the auricle.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You love this one.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
It's a scream baby, the Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. It's
already been a great Monday. We got all kinds of
educated with b K with a foreign policy stuff isis Russia.
We got drug dealers running cities in the country. But
now you know, we were in Medal of Honor Monday time,
and I just did a little bit of history behind
(12:19):
pellou and the start of Pelolu and the World War
two Pacific Battle. Of course, Pelolu is what I'm talking about.
And I'm about to do our first Medal of Honor citation.
I'm gonna explain. I'm gonna give you a little bit
more detail on each citation after I do each one.
I think that's how I'm gonna do these. That was
the background of Pelulu. Now it's time for our first one.
(12:40):
This is the Medal of Honor citation of a mister
Arthur Junior Jackson. And just know, honestly, the story after
this one is probably even cooler than the citation itself.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Hey, honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal
of Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
This is for Arthur Junior Jackson, USMC, World War II Pacific,
for conspicuous gallantry in intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with
the third Battalion, seventh Marines, first Marine Division in action
against enemy Japanese forces on the island of Pelulu in
the Palau Group eighteenth to September nineteen forty four, boldly
(13:30):
taking the initiative when his platoon's left flank advance was
held up by the fire of Japanese troops concealed in
strongly fortified positions. Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly preceded forward of our
lines and courageously defied the heavy barrages. Charged a large
pill box housing an approximately thirty five enemy soldiers, pouring
(13:51):
his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed installation
to trap the occupying troops. He hurled white phosphorus grenades
and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing
the pill box and killing all the enemy. Advancing alone
under the continuous fire from other hostile emplacements, he employed
similar means to smash two smaller positions in the immediate vicinity.
(14:16):
Determined to crush the entire pocket of resistance, Although harassed
on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese weapons
and covered only by small rifle parties, he stormed one
gun position after another, dealing death and destruction to the
savagely fighting enemy in his inexorable drive against the remaining
defenseless defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a total of
(14:41):
twelve pill boxes and fifty Japanese soldiers. It was closer
to one hundred by the way. Stouthearted and indomitable, despite
the terrific odds, Pfc Jackson resolutely maintained control of the
platoon's left flank movement throughout his valiant one man assault,
and by his cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during
(15:02):
a critical situation, contribute essentially to the complete annihilation of
the enemy and the southern sector of the island. His
galliant initiative and heroic conduct in the face of extreme
peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson in the
US Naval Service. Now let me explain the rest of
(15:22):
the story. A mister Arthur Junior Jackson. One thing you
should know about Arthur Junior Jackson is, and this is
going to come into play here a little bit more
in a moment, is he was enormous. I've heard he
was two hundred and thirty pounds. I've heard he was
two hundred and ten pounds. Well, however big he was,
(15:43):
everyone knew he was huge. He was not only huge.
I need to clarify before I say the next thing.
He lived to be an old man with his wife
and was supposed to be I've never met him the
kindest most humble human being in the world. But you
did not want to cross Arthur Junior Jackson because not
(16:03):
only was he huge, he was really good at violence,
the Marine Corps, self defense, beating people up, learning how
to stab people's stuff. Yeah, he was an expert at that.
He excelled in virtually every field that involved shooting someone
or beating somebody to death. That's what Arthur Junior Jackson did,
(16:23):
a born warrior in a monster, huge, huge, so big
that when he eventually got wounded. I forget which of
the books I've read this sin this weekend. When he
eventually got wounded, his stretcher bearers who had to haul
him off of the island were cussing him out the
whole way because he was so heavy trying to get
him off the island. That's Arthur Junior Jackson. Now, the
(16:46):
pillbox story, it kind of tells itself. His unit was
pinned down, they were being slaughtered by these guys. He
didn't run the whole way like the Medal of Honor
citation makes it sound. It's actually more impressive than that.
He got into the prone. And remember I just described Pelulu.
It's all coral, it's all rock, tears up your elbows,
(17:06):
your knees just to get down on it, let alone.
It being hot. He essentially low crawled almost the entire
way up to the pill box. A white phosphorus grenade.
Not only does it create incredible heat, incredible heat if
you're right by it, If you get hit with any
of the white phosphorus, whatever it touches is gonna burn immediately.
It'll burn water. You could drop one in water and
(17:28):
it'll burn right down to the bottom. Water would not
put it out, but it creates an intense amount of smoke.
This dude low crawls. If he did this once, it
would be unreal. All the way up to a pill box.
That's slaughtering his men. He's waiting the entire time on
the way up to the pill box. He's looking up
at it. All they have to do is look down
(17:50):
enough and they're going to see him crawling up to it.
He is not in cover. I need to stress. He
is not in cover. He's in like this little depression,
kind of a little path on the way up there.
If they look over, he won't even it'll be a
machine gun burst in his head. It's over. He low
crawls the entire way up and then just on his own,
(18:12):
figures out, Hey, I've got an idea. I'm gonna empty
a mag into this thing. He was a bar man,
Browning automatic rifle. This that's going to come into play
in just a moment. Actually, there's a really cool story
about that. He was a bar man. He unloads a mag,
then drops a Willie Pete in there, a white fosphorus
(18:32):
round in there, so the place is full of smoke.
Now the Japanese in there, they can't see, they don't
know what's going on. He then yanks a satchel charge.
Dude hands him a satchel charge that came up with him.
He drops it in there, but it's on a time fuse.
He has to turn now and sprint away. But he
has to sprint away. Remember if they see him still,
(18:53):
he's dead. They're right there in the pill box. The
satchel charge explodes and essentially fills his body with concrete fragments.
He then goes and does it eleven more times to
all the other pillboxes, just him, just by himself. All right, now,
that's Jackson. Let me finish the Jackson story, and then
(19:14):
we'll get to one more. And then maybe we'll do
some more politics before I do other history.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hang on, Jesse Kelly returns next.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, doing
an extended history portion of Medal of Honor Monday today.
I mean, why not? What are we gonna do? We
want to talk about that or don't.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Day I'm launching the National Resource Center for Red Flag Loss.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I can't do it. We'll get back to her in
a little while. We're talking. We're too busy talking, Pella Lou. Now,
let's finish the Arthur Junior Jackson story in case you
dis missed it. I just did the Middle of Honor
citation for Arthur Junior Jackson. I'm about to do another one.
If you missed any of this stuff, let's go download
the podcast. It's free too. iHeart Google Spot iTunes. Go enjoy.
(20:01):
All right now, Arthur Junior Jackson had another little part
of his story. It didn't make it into the Medal
of Honor citation because he didn't win one for this one.
He's on Pelolou still. And remember how I told you
he's a baar man. Now, for you non military types,
that's a big it's a machine gun. Okay, it's a
machine gun that shoots heavy rounds and shoots them fast.
(20:25):
That look, this is honestly what it sounds like. This
is the sound of a bar. That's what a bar
sounds like. High caliber make a big old mess of you.
You generally want big guys like Arthur Junior Jackson carrying
it because the weapon itself is heavy and Sosiamo. He's
on Pelolu. And part of the reason Pelolu got so
(20:47):
horrible was the Japanese member. How I was talking about
how they learned and they dug in. Well, it was
all just a big network of caves and spider holes
that they had created for themselves. So these guys would
pop up out of nowhere. Four Japanese guys pop up
directly in front of Arthur Junior Jackson, and he didn't
(21:11):
even know they were there. Now, according to the stories,
and I've read a few different things, and I listened
to a podcast on it, he didn't think or someone
didn't think they knew he was there either. They essentially
surprised each other. But either way, he's alone, four Japanese
troops in front of him. Jackson pulls out the bar,
(21:34):
unloads immediately on them. Three of them go down right away.
Apparently he just turned these guys in a mince meat
with the bar. But then again, you get different versions
of it depending on what you read. Either the mag
was empty or the weapon jammed or something. But no
(21:54):
more shooting. Now you've got three dead. There's a fourth
guy there. Dude attacks him. Jackson was not the man
to attack, and this is a Japanese dude. He was
not very big, Jackson, he said. Later on, he said,
(22:15):
this is a physical encounter where he grabs the Japanese
guy off of his back, chucks him on the ground,
and beats him to death with his bar. And Jackson,
talking about it later said, poor little guy didn't stand
a chance. That is a stud right there. Arthur Junior
Jackson lived in I believe it was Florida for the
(22:36):
rest of his days. That's a great man, all right.
Now that's one. Now this one's probably a little darker,
but it's all dark. And I realized that wasn't exactly light.
We're talking about war and combat and things like that.
But this one, look, he lives. But there's more to
this story. So without further ado, let's do our second
one of the day. And then I'll give you a
little bit more background on it, and mister Everett Parker Pope.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Hey honoring those who went above and beyond its Medal
of Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty, while serving as
commanding officer of Company C, first Battalion, First Marines, First
Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Pellu Island,
Palau Group, on the nineteenth of September through the twentieth
of September nineteen forty four. So in case you're keeping track,
(23:36):
this is the day after Jackson earned his Medal of Honor.
Subjected to point blank cannon fire which caused heavy casualties
and badly disorganized his company while assaulting a steep coral hill,
Captain Pope rallied his men and gallantly led them to
the summit in the face of machine gun, mortar and
sniper fire. Forced by widespread hostile attack to deploy the
(24:01):
remnants of his company thinly in order to hold the
ground one and with his machine guns out of order
and insufficient water and ammunition, he remained on the exposed
hill with twelve men. We'll get back to that in
a minute, and one wounded officer that determined to hold
through the night, attacked continuously with grenades, machine guns, and
(24:23):
rifles from three sides. He and his valiant men fiercely
beat back or destroyed the enemy, resorting to hand to
hand combat as a supply of ammunition dwindled, and still
maintaining his lines with his eight remaining riflemen when daylight
brought more deadly fire and he was ordered to withdraw
(24:44):
his valiant leadership against devastating odds while protecting the units
below from heavy Japanese attack. Reflects the highest credit upon
Captain Pope in the US Naval Service. And now let's
dig into Pelolou a little bit more, because there is
something about Pelolu you should understand. Again. I would encourage
you to go read something on Pelolu. Books on tape
(25:04):
or fine choreus or look, hey, go watch a documentary
on it. I haven't looked. I bet you there's a
thousand on YouTube on there. I believe I've seen other
ones floating around. There are always there's someone's always done
a documentary. Go learn about Pelolu. Terrible, terrible thing. But
when you start reading about it, learning about it, you
(25:24):
will you will undoubtedly hear bloody nose ridge. You will
hear that term bloody nose ridge. And this is gonna
come back to Pope and what his men did, and
just stories you just can't imagine, stories you've never heard
of before. But bloody nose ridge, I know you're gonna
find this shocking. Was a ridge, a ridge of coral again,
(25:44):
all hardened coral. And it was a ridge the Japanese.
That's where they had made their caves and made their tunnels.
It was their fortress. And you couldn't blow them out
of there with naval gunfire, with artillery. You have to
go get them out. Now, what was happening here with
Parker Pope and his first Marine Division allowed me to
(26:07):
explain the first Marine division going into Pelolu. Many people say,
and obviously I'm very partial to the Marines, so I
don't know whether or not this is true, but I
certainly noded my head and say, oh, yeah, that's definitely true.
Many people say this was the finest fighting division on
the planet at this time. We're talking Germans, Russian, Japanese, Americans.
(26:28):
You want one infantry division to go fight for you.
It would be the first marine division because of the
things they had done. Another reason Pelolu was so horrible
is the first marine division got destroyed the Marines, and look,
they have to own it, the Marines, the commanders, nimats
(26:48):
has to own it too. They took the finest division
on the planet and they completely decimated it because they
threw it against these defenses that could not be broken
in that way. Now with Pope and his men the
reason we kept citing how many men he had is
you have to understand this again, there's the ridge there.
(27:11):
You understand this about combat. Doesn't matter whether you're a
twelve year old listening to my show or ninety seven.
Everyone understands this about combat. You have to have the
high ground. You want the high ground. You want to
be able to shoot down, throw down. You don't want
to attack up ever, ever, you want to attack down.
That is a basic thing. Everyone knows that. You don't
(27:32):
need to exactly need to go to West Point to
know high ground, high ground, high ground. Well bloody knows.
Ridge was not only the place with all the Japanese
caves and tunnels and fortifications. It was the high ground
so no matter what, you had to take it, and
even getting up to the ridge, Pope and his men
Charlie Company, it doesn't I'm just gonna call him Charlie
(27:55):
Company because that's what it was called when I was
in the Marine Corps. Charlie Company. Pope is the commanding officer.
They are given orders. They have to get up and
establish a foothold on this hill. They're at the base
of it. They believe it's a hill, a hill top.
He needs the Marine Corps, the first Marine Division the America.
(28:16):
They need Pope and his men to get to the
top of this hill and hold this hill. Except there's
a problem. The Japanese understand that people are going to
be taking this hill and it's not a grassy hill.
It's a cliff. One you have to climb as if
it's a cliff. And believe me, I'm just starting on
(28:38):
the story of Pope and Charlie Company and heroes and
things people have gone through to protect this country because
I feel like and I don't want to talk about
politics right now. I'll get to that next hour. I
will continue that in just a moment. Before we continue that,
let's talk about this. Let's talk about our own ways
we are trying to save country are very very small
(29:01):
ways compared to men like this. Right. But one of
the reasons I do love Pure Talk so much is
their CEO is a veteran. Why do you think Puretalk
what do you think their mission is veterans' suicide. Well,
all the other cell phone companies are giving to Black
Lives Matter and Planned parenthood. Pure Talks trying to save
(29:21):
our guys who are hurting right now. I love that, man,
I just I love it. She's so patriotic. He only
hires Americans. Customer service is based in America. You get
a hold of Pure Talk, you're speaking to an American
and your bill goes down, not up. Same five G network.
Switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk. Dial pound
(29:42):
two five zero and say Jesse Kelly. They're given out
free smartphones right now, Samsung five g's pound two five zero,
Say Jesse Kelly, We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Feeling a little stocky, Follow like and subscribe on social
at Jesse Kelly DC.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, completely
driving the show off the rails and doing an extended
medal of honor. Monday History story Monday, so I'm not
catching you up on everything. You're gonna have to go
download a podcast to get caught up. We're in the
middle of Pelulu. Everett Parker, Pope Company commander, Charlie Company.
He's trying. He's been told, he said, they're trying to
(30:23):
get up on top of this hill. And he's been told,
get your men up on top of the hill. And
so the men of Charlie Company begin to climb. They're climbing,
they're rock climbing up. The Japanese are not only on top,
they're also built into the sides of the hill. When
I say built in, meaning if there's enough room for
(30:44):
one of these guys to wedge himself onto the hill,
he will simply hide there with the box of grenades
and a gun and drop grenades on the Marines as
they're coming up. There's a famous story, in fact, there
are multiple stories like this, and this isn't the last
time you're going to hear this, of a marine tripping
on one on the way up. He didn't even know
(31:06):
he was there. He looks down and it's a Japanese soldier,
and I guess he was a bigger marine. We don't
know his name to this day. He reaches down and
snatches him up and just chucks him off the cliff,
and all the guys down below are cheering, Yeah, look
at a fly that This is the story of pelol Lou.
I'm telling you, this is why I go crazy when
I hear about Hollywood not having any ideas. Hollywood, call me,
(31:27):
are you kidding me? Not any ideas? You can make
an entire movie about just this part of Pelolu. So
Pope's men are climbing and they're dying. I want you
to know, fast forward to the end of this. I
told you about the first Marine Division. I want you
to know by the time Peloa Lou's done, three fourths
of them gone casualties, the wipeout, and Pope's company is
(31:50):
being wiped out. By the time his men get to
the top, well you heard it's twelve minutes, thirteen, it's fourteen.
The numbers kind of go back and forth. But he
gets to the top of this quote hill he's supposed
to take. And the reason I use the words, the
reason I did the quote thing there is Hill and
his men discover once they get to the top of
(32:12):
the hill that they're actually not on a hill at all.
They're on the tip of the ridge, the ridge the
Japanese have complete control of. So after getting to the top,
his completely decimated unit is now facing the entirety of
the Japanese army built into Pelulu, and he's not allowed
(32:36):
to leave, and he can't dig in. Back to what
we were talking about, it's coral. You can't dig in it.
They can't, and they can't sit and blast out holes.
They don't. They don't even have communication with headquarters anymore.
He's lost that now. I want you to imagine this
speaking of Hollywood, what I'm about to describe is real.
(32:57):
It happened Pope and his men and they got into
whatever depressions they could find. There weren't many of them,
as you heard. They couldn't they couldn't really dig in well,
but they got in where they could. And they understood
that the Japanese were going to counterattack to run them
(33:18):
off that hill. And they understood that the Japanese loved
to attack at night. They knew this well by now.
They would attack with bayonets, with Samurai swords. They're going
to come for you in the night, they are, and
they're going to sneak in and they're happy to die
doing it. And so Pope and his men lay out
on this hill, and they all believed they were about
(33:38):
to die, and they set all of their they were
clips because it was m one grand, but they set
out all their ammo, all their grenades, and they didn't
have many left. They collected rocks to throw, rocks to throw,
and they watched as the sun began to go down,
and they knew it was coming. And as they were
laying there, they were hearing enough in front of them
(34:01):
that they believed that they had some people getting ready
to get on top of them. They get some naval
flares overhead, Flares get launched overhead. Tell me, this isn't
out of the movies. And as soon as the flares
light up in front of them, they see a sea
of Japanese bodies low crawling towards their position. And then
(34:25):
it's on all night long, hand to hand combat grenades.
By now you learned that you didn't shoot when you
heard someone in front of you, because that gives away
your position. You threw grenades, you threw rocks. Pope himself,
with a fellow marine, had a couple of Japanese guys
(34:47):
drop into whatever makeshift fighting hole he had. Hand to
hand combat ensued. They overcame them and one and this
took place the entire night. Once they defeated the two
Japanese troops who dropped into their hole, there wasn't room
for everyone up there. Again, they were on a cliff.
They just kept grabbing the dead Japanese and chucking them
(35:09):
off the end of the cliff after they killed him
in the middle of the night. An entire night hand
fighting with Japanese troops. That is, Pope, that is what
people have gone through for your country. In my country,
they barely survived, had no ammunition. They were well aware
(35:34):
by now of what Japanese, of what the Japanese troops
would do if they were taken alive. Pope had a
pistol on him as well as his rifle. Pope was
down to the last round in his pistol and said,
I could have fired it many times, but that last
one in the chamber was for me if they finally
got to me. They barely got off the top of
(35:57):
that ridge alive. And from there, I mean, the first
Marine Division, for lack of a better way to put it,
was no more. They had to go essentially retire to
the rear and took so much time to rebuild them
into a fighting force. And we didn't even have to
be there. And Pellu is such a horrible, horrible place.
(36:21):
If you're not a reader, you don't want to do
an audio book or whatnot. And maybe you're just more
of a hey, I like to watch TV type person.
It's been a while since I've seen it. But you
know that HBO series Hell in the or no, not
Hell in the Pacific, the Pacific I about called not
Hell in the Pacific, It's just called the Pacific. It's
a quote fiction series with actors, but it is actually
(36:45):
made based off in large part, Eugene Sledge. Eb Sledge's book.
He wrote a book called With the Old Breed and
Pelllu was the first action he saw in Pelolu. So
if you walk the Pacific, it's an extremely realistic re
(37:05):
enactment of the various things Eugene Sledge and his men
went through on Pelulu. If you want to understand what
the environment was like, and the rocks and the hills
and the crags, and if you want to understand how
and why that place just absolutely shattered men at broke men.
You could watch The Pacific. I should note, I'm sorry,
(37:27):
little dad note here not for the kids, not for
little kids, for sure, the Pacific. It's been a while,
but I know. Look it's salty and raw, it's marines.
The language is bad, the violence is bad. There may
even be some little Kamala stuff in there. I don't know,
but maybe. Probably not for the kids, but something worth watching.
(37:47):
All Right, we're going to talk about other things. There's
a headline out here about the Great Divorce. We'll get
to that, but first we're going to talk about controlling
the message communism. Why is NBC mad about Ronald McDaniel
an employment Next,
Host
Jesse Kelly
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.