MARTIN L. ALLDAY
Patriot, Chapter 1919
(Army, WWII, Pacific) Article
January 2005
Martin L. Allday was born in El Dorado, Arkansas
in 1926. When he was three years old his family moved to Waco,
Texas, and after five years there moved again to Austin. His father died
there in 1935 and his mother then started work as a state employee, in a job
arranged by Governor Allred (who had once been given work by Martin’s
father). Martin attended public schools in Austin from age nine through his
junior year of High School. His mother then sent him to Schreiner Institute
in Kerrville where he graduated from High School in 1943 and then completed
his first year of college in the Spring of 1944. Shortly afterward he
received his draft call and on Aug 31, 1944 he reported for induction into
the Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
He
immediately went into Basic Training at Camp Hood, Texas. The standard 17
week course had been cut down to 15 weeks in order to speed fillers,
especially infantrymen, to replace the losses in France after the D-Day
Invasion. So, Martin originally had orders for Europe, but before he had
completed Basic at the end of December those orders were cancelled and he
was sent to the Pacific instead. After staging at Fort Lewis, Washington
he, sailed from the U.S. on February 12, 1945 and arrived in Hawaii on
February 19th. He went through a quick two-weeks jungle training
course on Oahu and, without so much as a pass or any time off, was shipped
out again before the end of February, this time for Saipan. After a further
two-weeks of training on Saipan, Martin was put on a ship with orders for
Okinawa. A convoy started to assemble at Eniwetok and Martin remembers his
ship being at anchor there when the news came about President Roosevelt’s
death. His ship then staged to Ulithi, remained at anchorage there for a
number of days as more vessels assembled, and then they all steamed in
convoy to Okinawa, zigzagging all the way.
Meanwhile,
on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, a landing force of 60,000 U.S. troops had
gone ashore on Okinawa at the beginning of the campaign that would continue
through June 22nd. Eventually, the U.S. committed 180,000 combat
troops and 368,000 support troops against approximately 130,000 Japanese
troops on the island.
On May 1st,
PFC Martin L. Allday
arrived off Okinawa, climbed over the side and down the net into a landing
craft and was put ashore. On the beach, he says, “The first thing we
were told was to throw our gas masks away, and so we did. All of us had
been issued our gas masks upon induction at Fort Sam Houston, and we had
carried them all through training and everywhere else. Also, because I wore
glasses, my mask had been specially fitted with glasses, but it went onto
the pile with all the rest. Everybody unloaded as much as they could in
order to get as light as possible. From that point on, I carried no
personal equipment except a poncho and a small sack with a change of socks,
a toothbrush, and a spare pair of glasses.” The men were loaded onto
trucks and moved out to join their designated units. As an Infantry
replacement, Martin was assigned to Company C, 382nd Infantry, 96th
Infantry Division (the “Deadeyes” Division). He was put in a rifle
squad(normally 12 men) that had only 2 men remaining present for duty at
that time, but the infusion of replacements brought them up over-strength to
a total of 15. Martin was made First Scout and he and PFC Scott Blackmore
made up the 2-man scout team in their rifle squad.
By early
May the main body of the remaining enemy troops (about 100,000 men of
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima’s 32ndArmy) had been pushed into the
southern part of Okinawa and offensive operations were pressing the Japanese
all across the width of the island along the so-called Naha, Shuri, Yonabaru
defense line. The Japanese had forcibly moved many civilians with them when
they withdrew to the south and at night they attempted to infiltrate by
concealing troops within large groups of civilians and forcing them through
gaps in the American lines. The tactic was unsuccessful. Martin says,
“Our orders were to take them under fire and we did. Large numbers of
civilians were killed, and the Japanese never successfully infiltrated our
positions.” By daylight, the U.S. troops continued a slow and costly
advance each day.
On May 10th
the 382nd Infantry attacked and took “Zebra Hill.” Company C
went into position occupying the right-side half of that horseshoe shaped
hill. Their company dug in on the reverse slope, concealed from enemy
observation, but; Scouts Allday and Blackmore were assigned to man a
look-out post out front. They prepared their foxhole on the side of the
hill facing the enemy. They soon drew fire from a light machine gun
positioned only 300 yards away on the hill to their front and so they stayed
down under cover continuously to avoid taking fire. But, the next day, May
11th, Company C resumed the attack and, obedient to orders, the
two scouts rose up to join in. Immediately upon exposing themselves they
caught a burst from the machine gun, a .25 caliber weapon, and were both
hit. One bullet pierced high up on the front of Scott’s steel helmet,
creased the top of his scalp, and came out the back of the helmet
splattering fragments, some of which wounded him in the shoulder and one of
which also hit Martin in the face. Bleeding profusely from the
fragmentation wound to his face, Martin at first believed he had taken a
bullet in the head and was much less anxious about a wound to his right
hand. Another of the small caliber bullets had shot through his hand,
passing cleanly between the bones without breaking any. Although exposed and
vulnerable, unaccountably after that initial burst, the wounded men were not
fired upon again. The two scouts assisted each other back to the company
position where they received first aid and were sent on their way back to
the aid station.
Martin
says, “I was treated and then held in a tent hospital unit that was set
up on the beach back about 10-15 miles behind the front line, and I was
there for three days awaiting evacuation. There were many Kamikaze attacks,
they came often and when they did we took shelter in trenches outside our
tents whenever the alarm sounded. I watched a Japanese suicide plane hit
one of our cruisers just out from the beach where we were. It struck the
fantail and killed all of the sailors at their stations there. The
Kamikazes were doing tremendous damage, 36 ships were sunk, 368 others were
hit and 5,000 navy men died before the campaign ended.
I was
flown out on a 4-engined Medevac plane to Guam where I remained for another
30 days in the hospital. I tried to write a letter home to my mother using
my left hand, but just couldn’t do it. A Red Cross Nurse offered her help
and by the time I left Guam she had written 17 letters for me. Because of
that I have been generous to the Red Cross ever since. My right hand was
far from healed, but; losses had been heavy and men in my condition were
being returned to their units in combat. I could not close my hand to make
a fist so the medics gave me a pencil to squeeze as they sent me on my way
back to Okinawa.
PFC Allday
rejoined Company C the day the island was declared secure, but they spent
the next ten days in “mopping up,” an operation that Martin describes where,
“No prisoners were taken, they did not take prisoners and neither did
we.” The 96th Infantry Division remained on Okinawa for
another month and then was withdrawn to the Philippines for refitting and
training in preparation for invasion of mainland Japan. Martin remembers
that they were aboard ships enroute to Mindoro Island when the Atomic Bombs
were dropped and the war ended. The men of the 96th Infantry
Division stayed on Mindoro for three months waiting their turn to be shipped
home. When they sailed, Martin was left behind.
Only men
with 85 points could go home and Martin L.
Allday had only accrued 29 points. He was first
put in the “Port Company” which had the job of cleaning off the island of
Mindoro, shipping away the equipment and supplies that had been left behind
by the departing troops. That mission was completed after two months work,
and after that Martin was transferred to Luzon and assigned to the 86th
Infantry Division until his turn came to go home. He had a sketch artist do
his picture when he was on Luzon, and it accompanies this article. Finally
his time was up, and on August 12, 1946 Martin sailed from the Philippines.
On September 7, 1946 he was discharged at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the same
place where he had been inducted two years before.
Martin L. Allday enrolled at the University of
Texas the week after his discharge from the Army. As a Purple Heart
recipient with 10-percent disability, he was paid $125 per month instead of
the $75 per month that was the normal rate for veteran students and that
made life a lot easier for him in school. Martin graduated in three years
and immediately entered law school. He graduated from the University of
Texas Law School in 1951 and took his first job; two weeks dredging Lake
Austin for 40 cents an hour. He was next employed by the Texas Railroad
Commission as a legal examiner in oil and gas for 18 months in Austin. In
February 1953, he was hired by Superior Oil Company for their legal office
in Midland, Texas. Martin says, “After four years in Midland I was
transferred to Houston. I was the only lawyer in the whole company that was
under 50 years old and I didn’t like Houston anyway, so after two years
there I quit and went back to Midland.”
In Midland, Martin
helped start a 3-man law firm. It proved to be very successful and
thirty years later the firm had built up to 42 lawyers. After
first arriving in Midland, Martin met, and then a year later, married Patricia
Pryor. They had three children and their home was catercorner to the Welch
family. The Welches were parents of a daughter known today as Laura Bush.
Also during
his early years in Midland, Martin first met future President George H. W.
Bush and he remembers that first meeting, seeing a young couple dragging two
little kids aged 8 (George W.) and aged 1 (Jeb) around with them. The two men became friends through their
shared interests and work in community service. When George H. W. Bush ran
against Ralph Yarborough for the Senate, he asked Martin to serve as his
statewide campaign chairman and he did. George Bush lost that race, but
didn’t lose much after that and when he became President he asked Martin to
serve as Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. So, at age
63, Martin and Patricia Allday moved to Washington, D.C. and took on
regulatory responsibility for all oil and gas transportation across state
lines. Martin played golf with the President,
traveled with him on Air Force One, visited Camp David and he and Patricia
attended about 30 White House receptions and numerous other social events
during their four years in the nation’s capital.
In
1993 Martin and Patricia moved back to Austin where Martin continues to
pursue his career in law, currently being “of counsel” with Scott, Douglass
and McConnico, L.L.P. In 2001 the President and First Lady, George W. and
Laura Bush, had Martin and his family as their guests in the White House for
the celebration of Martin’s 75th birthday. In 2004 Martin and
Patricia toured the island of Okinawa where Martin revisited the scenes of
his combat service 59 years before. Martin and Patricia have three children
and seven grandchildren, all living in Austin, San Antonio or Houston. |
