HourGlass Interviews, Page One
With the kind permission of the staff and Editor of the Hourglass, we present the interviews & information they printed with many of the Raiders and family members who traveled to Kwajalein in 2003 to dedicate the plaque to the brave Raider prisoners who were executed there by the Japanese during the war.

Kwajalein visit brings back memories of war

By Jan Waddell Reporter

For many Marine Raiders, revisiting Kwajalein sparked memories of other battles. For those who had never been to Kwajalein, just the Pacific island atmosphere brought back memories. Here are just a few:

Brian Quirk

Kwajalein is civilized now, Makin Raider, Brian Quirk said. It was very primitive then. “The hospitality of the Kwajalein people transcends all else,” Quirk said. In 1944, we laid over for four hours, drinking beer and playing ball here, Quirk said, but they were mainly drinking beer. Quirk was one of the 222 Marine Raiders who stormed the beaches of Makin Island in 1942 under the command of Lt. Col. Evans Carlson. Norm and Debbie Black, residents of Kwajalein, sponsored Quirk. Quirk said, “The Blacks treated me like I am someone special and I am not.” He admitted, “I have been dealt a good hand.” He now has a loving wife of 60 years and seven children, Quirk said.

Dr. Ervin Kaplan

It was a long flight, Dr. Ervin Kaplan said, but it was easier to get here on a plane than an outrigger canoe. Kaplan was a 2nd Battalion Marine Raider, who took part in the Long Patrol on Guadalcanal. Kaplan said he came on this trip, to Kwajalein, as a Marine Raider and as a tribute to the men executed on Kwajalein. This trip to Kwajalein brought back his memories of serving as a Raider during the Long Patrol at Aola Bay, he said. Kaplan said 266 men were in the Marine Raider B and C Company and about 3,000 Japanese held the mouth of the river. In 1942, they attacked the East-West trail, a Japanese strong hold, he added. Kaplan said they knocked out the “Pistol Pete,” a gun which the Japanese used to shell American troops. After the assault, 16 Marines died and the Japanese officially lost 415, according to Kaplan.

He recalled eating only one meal a day while on the Long Patrol. The only food they carried with them was some salt pork, sugar, dry rice and raisins, he said. They could not carry C-rations because it was in a can and that was too heavy, and K-rations didn’t exist yet, Kaplan added. He cooked in his helmet. He rendered the salt pork and cooked it with the rice and river water, then added sugar and raisins to it, Kaplan said. “That was our meal,” Kaplan said. “When we finished the mission we looked like pale ghosts,” he added. “We were a skinny beat up bunch, but we accomplished the goal.” Kaplan returned to the 1998 Guadalcanal dedication ceremony. “It was quite a change from sleeping in a hole in the ground to an 18x18 square foot room, in a hotel,” he said.

Mel Heckt

Marine Raider Mel Heckt said his memory of Kwajalein is vague. “They tell me I was here but I don’t remember it,” Heckt said. “We were on one of the islands here. It was much more desolate [than now]. They gave us two cans of beer and that was our R and R.” This was after he had spent two months on a landing craft. Hecht said, “I am so happy to have made this trip. We are grateful for what the Army has done. “He said the people here have been so warm and friendly, he really enjoyed his trip.

“It meant a great deal to me to make this trip to eulogize and memorialize the lives of the nine Makin Raiders who were beheaded here by Japanese Vice Admiral Koso Abe. Thank God he got his.” Heckt said as his eyes watered-up. “It brings a partial closure.”

“We have been working hard to bring the four Raider Battalions together,” Heckt said. He added Lt. Col. Harry B. Liversedge, Lt. Col Evans Carlson and Maj. James Roosevelt were all good leaders. Heckt recalled when he was with the Raider replacement training unit he was in two movies, Gung Ho and Marine Raiders. His job in Gung Ho was to run and hit the barbed wire fence and then everyone would run over his back. A young actor, lying on the fence next to him, cut his finger. According to Heckt the actor received immediate medical attention while Heckt said, “I was bleeding like a stuck hog.” He added that was part of being a Raider.

Heckt also played a small part in the Marine Raiders movie where he was part of a detachment landing on the beach, in a rubber raft. At 81, Heckt is still a practicing attorney. He deals with estate planning and wills. Heckt has a mentally challenged child, and he helps other families plan their estates to care for their mentally challenged children.Heckt said, “I can’t retire. My wife won’t let me come home for lunch.”

Kenneth [Mac] McCullough

Kenneth [Mac] McCullough, Marine Raider, said Kwajalein reminded him of a vacation resort. Everything is so neat and the people are so wonderful, he added. He added, “The last Marine Ball I attended was in 1948.”

Chuck Meacham

Chuck Meacham, president of the United States Marine Raiders Association, and former Marine Raider, was on Kwajalein during the war. “It was my first airplane ride in route from Guam to Okinawa,” Meacham said. “We landed [on Kwajalein], blew out a tire and almost creamed that thing [the plane]. We were in that tin can [plane] until they finally got it jacked up and the tire fixed.” They were on the tarmac, in the hot sun for about an hour. He added,” I didn’t know where I was.”

When he stepped off the plane last Saturday Meacham said, “I am impressed with the golf type atmosphere.” “We trained hard together. We fought hard together. There is a certain kinship between us, once a Marine always a Marine. Don’t tread on us,” Meacham said.

Jack Freeling

Raider Jack Freeling said, the people here on Kwajalein reminded him of the Marine Raiders. They are so caring and loyal. It is just like being with family.

Two Raiders recount the Makin Atoll raid

Nov 14, 2003

By Jan Waddell Reporter

It was two days in history for the Marine Raiders, who stormed the beaches of Makin Island, in 1942. Kenneth “Mac” McCullough, and Brian Quirk were two of the 222 Marine Raiders who remembered what it was like to be on Makin Island, during the raid. “They [Japanese] had no chance with us,” Quirk said.

McCullough said all the Marines knew where they had to go and what they had to do, once they landed on Makin Island. “We had dummy runs in Honolulu,” said Quirk. “We trained for 10 days.” McCullough explained when they left the subs for Makin Island, they faced 10-15 foot waves and a coral reef before getting to the beach. “We knew where we had to go,” McCullough said.

Both McCullough and Quirk said weather and acts of God played a part in the original planned raid on Makin. The raid hinged on catching the Japanese sleeping. All that changed, according to Quirk “There was a shot fired upon landing,” Quirk said. “If it hadn’t been for our training each one of us had, we would have been in trouble. Some of the squads were hit hard,” he added. The shot woke the Japanese and instead of a surprise invasion the Japanese came to them.

Quirk said he was lying on the beach, after the landing and thought, “They can hear that [the shot] in Tokyo.” Quirk said he laid on the beach with his feet in the water he remembered looking at his feet and thinking, “I wonder if I am ever going to get the hell of this island.”

McCullough said the battle was over around noon and the Raiders had 10 or 11 wounded. According to McCullough, two Japanese planes strafed the Marine’s rubber rafts and the subs as the Marines attempted to get back. “We were all washed back to the same place [on the beach],” Mc­Cullough said. There wasn’t much to do  until they could make another attempt to get to the subs, McCullough said. They had four rubber boats left, he added.

According to McCullough, the intelligence officer and the other four communications officers died the first morning. He was the only communications officer left. Mac recalls Lt. Col. Evans Carlson saying to him, “Stick close to me Mac.” “His [Lt. Col. Carlson outsides were always calm,” McCullough said. “I don’t know what his insides were doing. He was a very unexcitable man.” McCullough said around dusk that night Carlson decided the only way to get the remaining Marines off Makin was to have the subs meet them on the lagoon side of the island. He instructed McCullough to signal the subs with the change of plan.

“I was in this coconut tree,” McCullough said. “I was signaling the subs.” He was trying to tell the subs of Carlson’s plan using a military issue flashlight. All the radios were destroyed, he added. “I asked them [the subs] to come to the lagoon side around 7 p.m.,” McCullough said. “They kept signaling back one word, “Who.” McCullough said he just kept signaling the subs and they kept signaling back, “Who.” McCullough told Carlson what the sub was saying and Carlson gave McCullough the code word. Then he was able to complete his message to the subs. The subs were just verifying who was signaling them, McCullough said. He added once they were on the subs they did not know who got on which sub.

“We couldn’t break radio silence to check on the other sub,” he added. When we got to Honolulu there was “brass knee deep” on the dock, Quirk said. They said the raid had been a success, he added.

Granddaughter represents Raiders commander

By Jan Waddell Reporter

Although he died three years before she was born, Karen Carlson Loving learned about her grandfather through her father. Loving is the granddaughter of Marine Brig. Gen. Evans F. Carlson, and the daughter of Marine Col. Evans C. Carlson. Brig. Gen. Carlson, then a Lt. Col., commanded the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion from Feb. 19, 1942 through March 21, 1943. He led the Makin raid, along with several other combat missions.

Carlson then went on to become operations officer for the 4th Marine Division and landed on Tarawa. He participated in the Kwajalein and Saipan assaults, too. He died in 1947. Loving said she quit her job as a realtor three years ago, to devote her time to write a book about her grandfather and the Marine Raiders.

“My grandfather’s story needed to be told,” Loving said. “The Raiders who have gone before us are helping. Each one of these men has a story.” She added, “I have walked away from my career to work on this.” Loving said, “The heart of his story and the birth of the Raiders is in China.” She traveled to the Republic of China twice, tracing her grandfather’s career. He was a military advisor at the Taihang Base in 1937-38.

Loving traveled to Kwajalein to participate in the Makin Raider monument dedication, Tuesday. She said she was moved by all the hospitality here on Kwajalein and added, “I was so struck by the beauty and the horror which have taken place here [Kwajalein],” Loving said. “It is a lot to take in.”

Loving said she does not, however, have a sense of closure from the Makin monument dedication ceremony. “I think they [the missing Raiders will be found. It may not be in these men’s [visiting Raiders] lives, but it will happen,” she added. “I can’t remember when I have seen them [visiting Raiders] so happy.” Loving’s father served under his father on Guadalcanal and earned the Silver Star in the battle of Asamana. Loving’s father went on to become a fighter pilot and fought in the Korean conflict.

Raider tells of three-man teams and airfield strike

By Jan Waddell Reporter

While laying in the Kwajalein hospital this last Tuesday, Marine Raider Milton Horton’s memory went back to the two days spent on Makin Island in 1942. Horton joined the Marines on Dec. 31, 1941, at 20 years old, but he said “I got much older faster.” According to Horton, when Lt. Col.Evans Carlson made his pitch, about. Marine Raiders to a room full of young Marines, he thought, “Who wouldn’t want to join that organization.”

Horton said Carlson asked the Marines if they could march 50 miles a day, “and we did,” Horton added. “You wanted to be in his organization because it was going to be a good one,” Horton said. Horton recalled the raid on Makin Island, and when the Marines left the subs, Horton said they were hit with 20-foot waves which would toss the rafts right back at the subs. The waves swept some of the Marines out of the rafts. He was one of those men. “I cut off my gear,” Horton said. But, even with his gear gone he was still sinking. He then cut off his boot laces and kicked off his boots. “I came up then and hit the bottom of the boat,” Horton said. He said he kept hitting the bottom of the boat and bouncing off, when someone reached into the water and grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him on board. He was back in the same seat he had been swept from. When they reached Makin, Horton said there was a plan to fight in three-man groups. He carried the Thompson machine gun for his group “ It was a wonderful way to do it[fight],” Horton said.

“We had a plan laid out,” Horton said. “We were just following the plan. After they had taken control of the island, Carlson gave out duty assignments. Horton said Carlson ordered him and Earling “Saki” Matson to burn the stockpiled aviation fuel. “I was told it looked like we were burning the island down,” Horton said. “I didn’t see it; I ran.” He says he didn’t care about being barefoot, all he could think of was, “All that airplane gasoline and all those airplanes didn’t fly against us or anyone else again.”

After two days they left on the lagoon side of the island and rowed out to the waiting subs. “I was in an oversized row boat, after dark.” Horton added. “On the lagoon side it was real nice. We didn’t have any trouble at all,” he added. When they arrived back in Honolulu Horton said they had a band playing, an honor guard on the dock and Adm. Chester Nimitz to greet them, Horton said. That was a good welcome,” he added. “A returning soldier’s welcome, but we just did our job.”

Horton said he has no doubts about joining the Marines. “I am proud to be a Marine and proud to be a Marine Raider,” he added.

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