When every day is Memorial Day

Skill, judgment and no small amount of blind luck had enabled Lt. Mike DeSandis to get all the Marines under his command through their ghastly introduction to war on Guadalcanal.
Some of his men were wounded during the long, fierce opening chapter in the nation’s struggle to defeat Japan during World War II. And many, including himself, had been desperately ill, shaking with chills even as fevers soaked them in sweat.

Yet unlike thousands of other leathernecks with the 1st Marine Division, none of his guys had been buried in the blood-stiff clothing they died in. Neither had any of their loved ones had to bear the raw and bitter keen of loss.
But the war didn’t end on that strategic piece of real estate in the southern Solomon Islands in the Pacific Theater. It got unimaginably worse, and late in the war on an island named Peleliu the young Marine officer would lose more than 60 percent of his men, and nearly his own life.

Today is Memorial Day, and America will honor all those who died serving the nation in its times of need. In a sense every day is Memorial Day for men and women like DeSandis who have witnessed the human cost of armed conflict.
These veterans will forever carry the sacred memories of a friend’s long-stilled smile, a remembered touch, a special moment shared. When the 95-year-old combat veteran was asked what this day of remembrance means to him, there was a long pause before he spoke.
“My God, how do I put it into words,” DeSandis finally said, sitting at the kitchen table of his Lake Monticello home. Silence closed back in as he pondered the impossible task of finding words for the inexpressible.

After a time he sighed, lifting his gaze from the table.
“A somber situation, but a proud one,” the aged Marine said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
DeSandis was born Oct. 25, 1913, in the Bronx, N.Y. He graduated from high school, but without the financial wherewithal to go to college he decided to join the Marines in 1935.
“Maybe the uniform had something to do with me joining the Marines,” said DeSandis, who after living in Virginia for six years says he’s still amazed at how warm and friendly the people here are.
“We love that uniform. The first time I put it on I felt up in the air.”
DeSandis was helping to build the Marine camp at New River in 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. That Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, he and friends were enjoying liberty.
“There were four of us, and when we heard the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor we didn’t know what to do,” DeSandis recalled. “We decided to go back to camp, and the guy driving the car was going about 80 miles an hour.
“When we got to camp we went to our bunks and started to get ready to go to the ship. We were ready to go right then, but one of our leaders told us to take it easy, because we had a lot of training yet to do.”
Unlike the waves of new Marines who joined up after war broke out, DeSandis had already proven his leadership abilities during several years on active duty. Based on his outstanding record he was given a direct commission to 2nd lieutenant.
That’s the rank the young man from the Bronx wore as he landed on Guadalcanal with the 1st Marine Division’s Reconnaissance Company on Aug. 7, 1942. Initially the Marines met with light resistance, but this quickly changed.
Back to the ‘scary stuff’
“The Japanese weren’t expecting us, and we had the opportunity to get on shore without having many casualties,” said DeSandis, who still works out “with iron” three times a week. “As time went on they started to get reinforcements from ships, and they were beating the hell out of us.
“They were bombing us from planes, but most of the heavy fire was coming from their 14- and 16-inch naval guns offshore. It wasn’t just one or two salvos — it went on for hours, days. You just held on, that was it.
“I can’t describe what I thought or what I felt. It was horrible. The Japanese would sneak up on us at night. We were fighting body to body, bayonets, knives, whatever. Hand-to-hand combat at times.
“They told us they would be small guys, but I’ll tell you, they weren’t so small. They were big monsters.”
DeSandis said the men in Recon Company were largely used as riflemen, because everyone knew the Japanese were right in front of them. Occasionally they would be sent out beyond the lines to see what they could learn about the enemy’s troop concentrations or equipment.
“We took great pride in everything we did, but going out on recon missions was scary stuff,” DeSandis said. “We didn’t dare go too far out.
“Then malaria started to hit us and it was a case of, ‘OK, today you fall out with malaria and rest, and tomorrow you get up and go back in again.’ That was the way it was.
“There was no thought of surrendering, but I remember at one point we were burning our classified material so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands. It was that close.”

Knowing your enemy

It was on Guadalcanal where the Americans were introduced to the Japanese fight-to-the-death mentality. It was also where the Japanese learned about the U.S. Marine Corps.
“The Japanese were tough little bastards,” DeSandis said with a strong ring of certainty in his voice. “They fought until they died — a hell of an attitude.
“So, we had the attitude that we would kill them, and that was it. If we don’t kill them, then we’ll take them prisoner, but they wanted to die. It was crazy.
“It was the tenacity of the Marine Corps that enabled us to win. We just didn’t say die. We thought, ‘Well, this is the Corps, and we’ll fight, and that’s it.’”

On Sept. 15, 1944, DeSandis, now a captain and commander of Recon Company, waded through bullet-lashed surf dotted with bobbing corpses and geysers of water lifted by exploding mortar and artillery shells to reach the island of Peleliu.
The American high command estimated it would take four to five days to secure the island. It took more than two months, and cost the lives of 1,794 American Marines and Army soldiers, and another 8,010 were wounded.
“Oh, my. We were still on the beach after four or five days,” DeSandis said. “It was horrible — I was fighting for my life, and trying to take care of my men.
“Then I felt something hot hit me in the back. At first I thought, ‘What the hell is that?’ Then, ‘Oh God, I’m hit. Son of a bitch.’ The corpsman came over and started working on me, and said they had to move me back off the lines.
“I said, ‘Come on, work with me so I can stay with my troops.’ He went along with that, and pulled the piece of shrapnel out right there and patched me up. Once he did that everything was great.”

Always a Marine

The only decoration DeSandis received during the war was the Purple Heart for his wound. He said he was there for his country, not the glory.
After the war DeSandis stayed in the Marines, and got a degree in accounting. He loved the Corps so much that he cried when he was forced to retire in 1970 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
DeSandis moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he had a second successful career as an accountant, but he never stopped being a Marine. Recently he was sworn in as a member of the Bradley T. Arms Detachment of the Marine Corps League during a ceremony in Charlottesville.
“I had the privilege of being next to Mike when he was sworn in,” said Art Beltrone, junior vice commandant of the detachment, named for a local Marine killed in Iraq. “He’s a real Marine’s Marine.
“I knew I was standing next to a Marine Corps legend. He typifies what a Marine is — he really does.”

Mercifully, many of the horrific images of war that were seared into DeSandis’ memory have faded away. But there are still some that remain clear.
“My philosophy was to take care of my men,” DeSandis said quietly. “They were… My God. It was a hell of a feeling when I first lost people.
“I didn’t lose anybody on Guadalcanal. Then we were in the Battle of Cape Gloucester and that wasn’t too bad. But Peleliu was a bloodbath.
“I was here in the States on a 30-day leave when the war ended. I couldn’t believe it at first.
“My wife and I just hugged each other and cried. It was a nice feeling.”