Gabaldon
Guy Gabaldon is born into the Mexican-American family of 30-year-old Pedro Jose Gabaldon and 33-year-old Leandra Amada Serna Gabaldon in Los Angeles on March 22, 1926 (in all there will be nine births in the Gabaldon family, sister Deluvina, brother Sylvester, and brother Arthur will precede Guy, Elias Pedro and Guillermo Alfonso will pass in their infancies before being followed into the clan by sisters Juanita, Florinda, and Martha). The Great Depression in full swing by the time Guy is four, the tyke grows up dirt poor (Gabaldon will remember it as a time of tortillas and frijoles being served daily) in the Boyle Heights region of East Los Angeles with Pedro trying to make ends meet as a machinist and welder for the Pacific Freight Express, while momma Leandra stays home trying to look after her growing brood of kids. Constricted within the family's small home on Chicago Street, Guy is wildly adventuring as a street urchin by the time he is ten as he becomes an expert at ditching school to shine shoes (he takes in the princely sum of $1-a-day) on Skid Row and earning ice cream and candy treats from the police for keeping a secret eye on this-or-that shady customer, and picking up pennies and nickels (and the occasional beer) for running errands for the prostitutes and drunks found in the bars on the city's downtown Main Street. A budding juvenile delinquent with a local group of kid punks that call themselves the Moe Gang (named after Mo Howard of the Three Stooges), a potential pathway to a different life presents itself to the youth when he is 12 and meets the Nakano brothers, Lyle and Lane.
Boyle Heights - Intersection Of Whittier & Soto
The community a "melting pot" mix of Jews, Russians, Armenians, Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans, Gabaldon meets the two Japanese-Americans youngsters in 1936 while they are all attending Hollenbeck Junior High School (the Nakanos live a few blocks to the north of the Gabaldons on 1st Street). Close in age, Guy is drawn to the attributes of the brothers that seem foreign to his own personality, the brothers excell at school work, are honest, and have zero interactions with law enforcement, while Lyle and Lane are attracted to Gabaldon's sense of humor, willingness to fearlessly take a dare, and his devotion to defending the brothers from any local troublemakers. Introduced and fascinated by strange traditions and customs of the Nakanos, Guy is soon spending more and more time at his new friends' home and eventually moves in with the family as a surrogate son (and one less worry and mouth to feed, the Gabaldons don't mind at all). Immersed in the culture of the first-generation immigrant family, Gabaldon begins attending language school with the family's children and eventually learns how to speak and write in a slang style he will called "backstreet Japanese." However, the siren call of petty criminality and being a tough guy (at 5'3" the youth has a bit of a "Napoleon Complex" and to prove his manhood, jumps out of second story windows, regularly risks life and limbs diving into the waters below the Hollenbeck Bridge, and is constantly getting in fist fights from which he receives a broken nose multiple times, a fractured jaw, broken ribs, and a perforated eardrum) is still calling to Gabaldon and as a Moe, he will steal cigarettes, begin boosting cars for joy rides about the city, and rides the rails of trains passing through Los Angeles. Caught hot-wiring a car he wishes to "borrow without permission," he spends two weeks at a juvenile detention facility before his mother Leandra is able to persuade a judge to release the lad to the out-of-state discipline of his 80-year-old paternal grandfather and Uncle Sam in New Mexico. 
Executive Order 9066 signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, as a knee-jerk reaction to Imperial Japan's December 7, 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nakanos are uprooted from their Boyle Heights home and sent off to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, an internment camp for Japanese-Americans located near the towns of Cody and Powell in northwest Wyoming (Lane and Lyle will both enlist in the U.S. Army and become members of the 442nd Infantry Regiment as it fights through Italy and southern France on into Nazi Germany). Gabaldon is not allowed to accompany them into captivity, nor is he allowed to enlist in the military, being only sixteen. What he is allowed to do is drop out of his classes at Andrew Jackson High at the completion of his sophomore year, after which he makes his way north to Alaska where he toils in the state's fishery industry, working in a salmon cannery. Salmon season over and back in California, on his 17th birthday, he tries to enlist again and become a submariner but is rejected once again by the U.S. Navy for his age and his ruptured eardrum. Their Pacific campaign quickly becoming a bloodbath, the United States Marine Corps is not as picky, and when Gabaldon touts his knowledge of the Japanese culture and the language, he is allowed to join the Leathernecks and is sent off to Camp Pendleton, California for basic training. The training does not go well as Gabaldon is teased about his short stature (which leads to even more fights) and he barely qualifies as a marksman, the minimum shooting qualification for a Marine. He also chaffs at the length of time the training takes (believing seven weeks of being yelled at is seven weeks too much, calling it "constant harassment"), the discipline demanded by the Corps, and is constantly touting his "Japanese" abilities to his superiors. After boot camp, Gabaldon is scheduled to attend Japanese language classes in San Diego, but while on leave, he tangles at a bowling alley with the Russian boyfriend of a young beauty he is flirting with, suffering a fractured jaw that sends him to the Long Beach Naval Hospital for two months and gets his language schooling plans canceled. Next stop are the Hawaiian Islands where Gabaldon receives more training, this time as an 81mm mortarman.
The first objective of the United States' Operation Forager plans to provide a forward base for the B-29 Superfortress' bombing of the home islands of Japan (Guam and Tinian are also targeted for taking), while also being a step closer to Japan (Tokyo is 1,500 miles away) and a means of cutting off the Japanese monster base at Truk, nine days after the greatest armada in military history crosses the English Channel to land in France on five Nazi defended Normandy beaches, Gabaldon finds himself part of the second biggest invasion force of the war, an invasion force responsible for capturing the largest of the Marianna islands (named for Spanish Queen Maria Anna in 1667), a piece of volcanic limestone called Saipan. Five nautical miles to the northeast of Tinian (the sea separation is known as the Saipan Channel) and 120 miles to the north of Guam, Saipan is a dot on the Pacific Ocean that is roughly 12 miles long and 5.6 miles wide with a total landmass of 44.55 square miles. A volcanic island of diverse terrain well-suited for defensive warfare, the highest point is in the center of the island at 1,564 foot Mount Tapochau, with a high ridgeline of limestone filled with ravines and caves concealed by brush and forests running north seven miles to the Marpi Cliffs and the sea. The west side of the island is lined with sandy beaches, with an offshore coral reef forming a lagoon, while the eastern side consists of rocky cliffs and another offshore reef. Relatively flat plains can be found south of Mount Tapochau, most of which are covered in sugar cane. The south is also where the Marines will encounter their first city in fighting their way across the Pacific, the 10,000 citizen (a mixture of native Chamorro people, subject civilians from Okinawa and Korea, and Japanese civilians) town of Garapan (named for a vine with heart shaped leaves found along the island's western beaches and formally known as the "Tokyo of the South Seas"). Built to accommodate the island's trade in sugar cane, a narrow-gage railroad runs around the perimeter of the island.
Arriving in the Marianas, the invasion force of the United States (only three British vessels will be represented in the struggle to come) spends four days softening up the island with bombs and naval gunfire. An incredibly formidable force of 15 aircraft carriers, 7 battleships, 13 cruisers, 58 destroyers, and hundreds of auxiliary ships (a task force of over 500 ships) carrying over 300,000 men with Lt. General Smith's V Amphibious Corps assault force consisting of the 2nd Marine Division (21,746 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 52-year-old Major General Thomas Eugene Watson), the 4th Marine Division (21,618 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 58-year-old Major General Harry Schmidt), and in reserve, the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division (16,404 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 51-year-old Major General Ralph Corbett Smith). After the traditional Marine pre-invasion breakfast of steak and eggs, the Leathernecks clamber aboard roughly 700 amphibious vehicles that include 393 amphibious tractors and 140 amphibious tanks, and start the 1,500 dash to shore at 8:40 in the morning (the 2nd Division is tasked with landing on two beaches on the southwest side of the island at the town of Charan Kanoa, designated Red and Green, while the 4th Division is to land at two beaches to the south of the town, sand designated as Blue and Yellow beaches). Despite strong currents that cause many units to land at the wrong locations and fierce defensive counter-fire from the Japanese that knocks out or damages 164 of the Marine tanks and tractors, roughly 40% of the assault force's amphibious assets (along with causing approximately 2,000 casualties), in the first 20 minutes of the invasion the Americans put 8,000 men on the beaches, and by nightfall, 20,000 Leathernecks have established a beachhead about 5.5 miles long with a depth of roughly half a mile. Among the men ashore is Private Guy Gabaldon.
Ghosting his way forward and into enemy lines, Gabaldon discovers a dugout full of Japanese soldiers. As the smells of the men cooking a meal comes to his nostrils, the 18-year-old concocts a plan that will get him more prisoners, a sampling of cuisine he loves, and just might keep his commander from serving his balls to the 2nd's division commander, General Watson. Waiting for the early morning confusion that often causes fuzzy and slow thinking as darkness becomes dawn, Gabaldon tosses two fragmentation grenades at the dugout, then follows up by pitching a smoke grenade into the structure's entrance. Ruse backed up by a bit of magical violence, Gabaldon yells in Japanese for the men to come outside with their hands raised in surrender, orders that the soldiers comply with. Running his charges back to the American line, Gabaldom yells over and over, "Don't shoot! Don't fire! These men are prisoners." Miraculously, no one fires on the strange group (Gabaldon's second sortie into the Saipan darkness has netted 50 more prisoners, a true horde considering that during the 2nd Division's previous encounter with the Japanese on Tarawa, only 17 Japanese surrendered during the entire battle) and word soon goes up and down the line about a prisoner hunting Leatherneck everyone is now calling "the Pied Piper of Saipan." Put in the horribly bad position of having his direct orders disobeyed, but praised by headquarters for the wealth of information Gabaldon's activities have produced, Captain Schwabe reluctantly decides to greenlight the youth's prowling adventures for the length of the battle, or the more likely scenario, until the crazy Mexican-American gets himself killed (not surprisingly, after the war, Gabaldon will describe his commanding officer as "capable, sympathetic, and fair."). Addicted to the adrenaline rush of the unknown and the challenge of saving both Marine and Japanese lives, operating independently and by himself, the private revels in his mission.
John Wayne mixed with Gary Cooper and then sprinkled with a dash of Boyle Heights magic and toughness, for the next 22 nights (the battle was estimately to end in a week), Gabaldon creeps out into the night seeking captives ... and over and over he is successful in the endeavor. Slipping into his role as"Pied Piper," Gabaldon creates his own hero costume that consists of wearing a Japanese officer's .32 caliber pistol in a shoulder harness over a white t-shirt, decorating himself with Japanese medals he hasn't earned, covering his eyes with aviator style sunglasses, and keeping the sun off his head with a baseball cap with it's brim turned up. Already rewarded with praise from his superiors and the knowledge of the lives he is saving, Guy also enjoys rewarding himself with treats and souvenirs of his missions, along with getting his hands on an array of military paraphernalia that include knives, diaries, Samurai swords, helmets, Kirin Beer, pistols, watches, and flags (all great trade fodder), Gabaldon pilfers tins of crab meat, rock candy, and bottles and canteens full of Japanese rice wine, sake. His pirate adventures even net the Leatherneck a phonograph and 78 style records, bags full of yen (taken from an artillery leveled Garapan bank with a safe the private has blown, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle (which the teenager frees of passengers with well placed bullets from his carbine), and one soldier he convinces to surrender, a man named Shimabukaro, becomes the young Marine's personal barber.
The Hollenbeck Park Bridge
From the concrete jungle of Los Angeles to the deserts and mountains of the Land of Enchantment, the change in scenery is as if Guy has stepped into a John Wayne movie. The owner and operator of cantina called Tinaja (a large clay vessel for storing various liquids) located between the towns of Grants and Gallup, near Inscription Rock (a sandstone cliff into which travelers have scratched out names and messages since Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate passed by in 1598) and El Morro National Monument, grandpa gives his grandson a Palomino mare to ride about on and a .22 shotgun and a .44 revolver for protection as pay for sweeping up after all night poker games and cleaning out the bar's spittoons. When spending time with his uncle, the postmaster of San Rafael, Guy accompanies Sam on morning runs to Grants to pick up the day's mail, and is often allowed to drive back into town (valuable experience that allows Gabaldon to get a driver's license before he is 13). More of a vacation than a punishment, purged of his desire to become a thug by the love of two strong men, after a few months with his relatives, Guy returns to Boyle Heights and is soon living with the Nakanos again, but only until early 1942 when he is sixteen.
Inscription Rock
Executive Order 9066 signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, as a knee-jerk reaction to Imperial Japan's December 7, 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nakanos are uprooted from their Boyle Heights home and sent off to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, an internment camp for Japanese-Americans located near the towns of Cody and Powell in northwest Wyoming (Lane and Lyle will both enlist in the U.S. Army and become members of the 442nd Infantry Regiment as it fights through Italy and southern France on into Nazi Germany). Gabaldon is not allowed to accompany them into captivity, nor is he allowed to enlist in the military, being only sixteen. What he is allowed to do is drop out of his classes at Andrew Jackson High at the completion of his sophomore year, after which he makes his way north to Alaska where he toils in the state's fishery industry, working in a salmon cannery. Salmon season over and back in California, on his 17th birthday, he tries to enlist again and become a submariner but is rejected once again by the U.S. Navy for his age and his ruptured eardrum. Their Pacific campaign quickly becoming a bloodbath, the United States Marine Corps is not as picky, and when Gabaldon touts his knowledge of the Japanese culture and the language, he is allowed to join the Leathernecks and is sent off to Camp Pendleton, California for basic training. The training does not go well as Gabaldon is teased about his short stature (which leads to even more fights) and he barely qualifies as a marksman, the minimum shooting qualification for a Marine. He also chaffs at the length of time the training takes (believing seven weeks of being yelled at is seven weeks too much, calling it "constant harassment"), the discipline demanded by the Corps, and is constantly touting his "Japanese" abilities to his superiors. After boot camp, Gabaldon is scheduled to attend Japanese language classes in San Diego, but while on leave, he tangles at a bowling alley with the Russian boyfriend of a young beauty he is flirting with, suffering a fractured jaw that sends him to the Long Beach Naval Hospital for two months and gets his language schooling plans canceled. Next stop are the Hawaiian Islands where Gabaldon receives more training, this time as an 81mm mortarman.
Heart Mountain Relocation Camp
Rifle Training At Camp Pendleton
Long Beach Naval Hospital
Jaw healed, Gabaldon spends five months in the Hawaiian islands driving his superiors crazy with his pleas to become a Japanese translator (along with his promises to stay out of fist fights). Tired of the pestering, he is eventually transferred to the G2 (Intelligence) Section of Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, and sent back to California and finally completes the Enlisted Marine Japanese Language School at Camp Elliot in San Diego, graduating as a scout-observer with the rank of private. Back in Hawaii, at Camp Tarawa, the feisty Mexican-American reunites with the 2nd Division ... just in time for the Leatherneck forces westward boat ride of over 3,500 miles to the Japanese held Central Pacific island of Saipan.
On The Island Of Hawaii - Camp Tarawa
Godzilla Lurching Forward - Saipan
Part Of The Narrow Gauge Railroad - Garapan
Traces of human occupation of the island date back over 4,000 years. The island, along with Tinian, first comes to the attention of Europeans when the ill-fated around-the-world Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan (Magellan won't make it all the way, getting slaughtered in the Philippines while trying to convert the locals to Christianity) arrives in 1521. The Spanish formally occupy Saipan in 1668, and by 1670 the island becomes a port of call for Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and occasionally English ships seeking food and water. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States occupies the island until by terms of the German-Spanish Treaty of 1899 it becomes part of the German Empire. The Germans will then lose the island during WWI when it is captured by the Japanese in 1914, and becomes officially Imperial Japan's property in 1919 by way of the South Seas Mandate of the newly formed League of Nations. Wanting to keep it that way, by 1944, the Japanese Army and Navy both have substantial presences on Saipan that add up to over 32,000 soldiers and sailors under the overall command of the Commander of the Central Pacific Area Fleet, 57-year-old Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (the leader of the Japanese fleet that attacks Pearl Harbor, and the carrier commander that suffers Japan's Midway defeat), while the army soldiers fall under the guidance of 53-year-old Lt. General Yoshitsugu Saito (who encourages his charges to fight to the death and kill seven soldiers for every life they lose). In 1944, on orders from Admiral Chester Nimitz, trying to be the next possessors of the island is the Fifth Fleet of Admiral Raymond Spruance and the Joint Expeditionary Force of Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, with the ground forces (Task Force 56) under the guidance of legendary Marine tactician, 62-year-old Lt. General Holland McTyeire "Howlin' Mad" Smith.
Nagumo & Saito
Smith
Arriving in the Marianas, the invasion force of the United States (only three British vessels will be represented in the struggle to come) spends four days softening up the island with bombs and naval gunfire. An incredibly formidable force of 15 aircraft carriers, 7 battleships, 13 cruisers, 58 destroyers, and hundreds of auxiliary ships (a task force of over 500 ships) carrying over 300,000 men with Lt. General Smith's V Amphibious Corps assault force consisting of the 2nd Marine Division (21,746 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 52-year-old Major General Thomas Eugene Watson), the 4th Marine Division (21,618 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 58-year-old Major General Harry Schmidt), and in reserve, the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division (16,404 enlisted men and officers, commanded by 51-year-old Major General Ralph Corbett Smith). After the traditional Marine pre-invasion breakfast of steak and eggs, the Leathernecks clamber aboard roughly 700 amphibious vehicles that include 393 amphibious tractors and 140 amphibious tanks, and start the 1,500 dash to shore at 8:40 in the morning (the 2nd Division is tasked with landing on two beaches on the southwest side of the island at the town of Charan Kanoa, designated Red and Green, while the 4th Division is to land at two beaches to the south of the town, sand designated as Blue and Yellow beaches). Despite strong currents that cause many units to land at the wrong locations and fierce defensive counter-fire from the Japanese that knocks out or damages 164 of the Marine tanks and tractors, roughly 40% of the assault force's amphibious assets (along with causing approximately 2,000 casualties), in the first 20 minutes of the invasion the Americans put 8,000 men on the beaches, and by nightfall, 20,000 Leathernecks have established a beachhead about 5.5 miles long with a depth of roughly half a mile. Among the men ashore is Private Guy Gabaldon.
Invasion
At The Waterline
Though it is certainly one of the most dangerous places on Earth for both sides as Saito launches a series of counterattacks against the Marine beachhead the first night of the Battle of Saipan (roughly 700 Japanese corpses will litter the area by the time dawn arrives), Gabaldon treats his presence on the island as if he is back in California as the smartest juvenile delinquent on the street, looking for action in East Los Angeles. His unit told to "dig in and stay put" near a small airfield the 2nd Regiment has reached by 25-year-old Captain John L. Schwabe (a veteran of storm landings at Guadalcanal and Tarawa, where he earns a Silver Star for bravery), attacks finally over at 3:00 in the morning, Gabaldon has a quick meal of "scrambled eggs and beach sand," before deciding to leave his position to "see what it was all about." Moving about the shadows and wreckage of the "no man's land" of the invasion beaches to the 2nd's front, the 18-year-old reaches a trench filled with Japanese soldiers killed in the morning's pre-invasion bombardment, and three living foes. Using the trio's own language, Gabaldon orders the men to drop their weapons, but one man turns his rifle in Guy's direction and the wary Marine shoots first and drops his target, before again calling on the other two to surrender, which both soldiers quickly do. Expecting to be applauded for his actions when he and his captives make it back to Gabaldon's unit the next morning, the East Los Angeles teenager is instead read the riot act by Captain Schwabe and told he will be court-martialed if he ever leaves his position without orders again. Though he listens to his commanding officer's threats and keeps his mouth shut, the chastisement is treated as if he were a bull challenged by a matador waving a red flag, and on his second night on the island, Guy discards his heavy M-1 rifle, takes a carbine off a dead Marine, fills his pockets with ammo clips, and crawls off into the darkness on another "lone wolf" lark.
Waiting For The Next Attack
Ghosting his way forward and into enemy lines, Gabaldon discovers a dugout full of Japanese soldiers. As the smells of the men cooking a meal comes to his nostrils, the 18-year-old concocts a plan that will get him more prisoners, a sampling of cuisine he loves, and just might keep his commander from serving his balls to the 2nd's division commander, General Watson. Waiting for the early morning confusion that often causes fuzzy and slow thinking as darkness becomes dawn, Gabaldon tosses two fragmentation grenades at the dugout, then follows up by pitching a smoke grenade into the structure's entrance. Ruse backed up by a bit of magical violence, Gabaldon yells in Japanese for the men to come outside with their hands raised in surrender, orders that the soldiers comply with. Running his charges back to the American line, Gabaldom yells over and over, "Don't shoot! Don't fire! These men are prisoners." Miraculously, no one fires on the strange group (Gabaldon's second sortie into the Saipan darkness has netted 50 more prisoners, a true horde considering that during the 2nd Division's previous encounter with the Japanese on Tarawa, only 17 Japanese surrendered during the entire battle) and word soon goes up and down the line about a prisoner hunting Leatherneck everyone is now calling "the Pied Piper of Saipan." Put in the horribly bad position of having his direct orders disobeyed, but praised by headquarters for the wealth of information Gabaldon's activities have produced, Captain Schwabe reluctantly decides to greenlight the youth's prowling adventures for the length of the battle, or the more likely scenario, until the crazy Mexican-American gets himself killed (not surprisingly, after the war, Gabaldon will describe his commanding officer as "capable, sympathetic, and fair."). Addicted to the adrenaline rush of the unknown and the challenge of saving both Marine and Japanese lives, operating independently and by himself, the private revels in his mission.
Gabaldon In Sun Glasses With
A Prisoner
John Wayne mixed with Gary Cooper and then sprinkled with a dash of Boyle Heights magic and toughness, for the next 22 nights (the battle was estimately to end in a week), Gabaldon creeps out into the night seeking captives ... and over and over he is successful in the endeavor. Slipping into his role as"Pied Piper," Gabaldon creates his own hero costume that consists of wearing a Japanese officer's .32 caliber pistol in a shoulder harness over a white t-shirt, decorating himself with Japanese medals he hasn't earned, covering his eyes with aviator style sunglasses, and keeping the sun off his head with a baseball cap with it's brim turned up. Already rewarded with praise from his superiors and the knowledge of the lives he is saving, Guy also enjoys rewarding himself with treats and souvenirs of his missions, along with getting his hands on an array of military paraphernalia that include knives, diaries, Samurai swords, helmets, Kirin Beer, pistols, watches, and flags (all great trade fodder), Gabaldon pilfers tins of crab meat, rock candy, and bottles and canteens full of Japanese rice wine, sake. His pirate adventures even net the Leatherneck a phonograph and 78 style records, bags full of yen (taken from an artillery leveled Garapan bank with a safe the private has blown, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle (which the teenager frees of passengers with well placed bullets from his carbine), and one soldier he convinces to surrender, a man named Shimabukaro, becomes the young Marine's personal barber.
Gabaldon, Nurse, And Four Of The "Saved"
Though some of his fellow Marines are jealous of the booty, attention, and freedom from orders (for a different perspective on Gabaldon, see "One Marine's War: A Combat Interpreter's Quest for Mercy in the Pacific by Gerald A. Meehl in which Japanese Language Officer Lt. Robert B. Sheeks will claim the Marine breaks the jaw of a civilian that doesn't answer his questions quickly enough) Gabaldon garners (during one prowl, Gabaldon steals a truck and puts 15 naked prisoners in the back for transportation, only to be interrupted by a superior officer demanding the vehicle be emptied at once because the finest scout-operator in the 2nd Division might need it for POW transportation ... a man the officer names as Guy Gabaldon to the actual Gabaldo), and a handful are angered by what they perceive to be glory chasing, most take pride in the teenager being a member of the 2nd Division and realize the number of lives Guy is saving with his antics ... and as a way of keeping their minds off their own problems. Like following a team in the sports pages back home, each morning Gabaldon's latest prisoner totals are released, gambles are paid out, and new bets are placed on how many captives Guy will nab next (a winner, one of Guy's buddies even puts down money that the Leatherneck will beat his own record of 50 prisoners in one evening before the end of the battle). It is as if Gabaldon is playing a game with a host of sayings to master before anyone can return to the United States:
*Baka ... "Stupid!"
*Te o agete haiyaku koro shitakunaida ... "Raise your hands and I won't kill you!"
*Kochira ni Kaigun tokubetsu rikusentai ga orimasuka ... "Anymore Japanese Marines in this area?"
*Dozo o suwari nasai ... Please sit down!"
*Tabako hoshi desu ka ... "I offer them cigarettes!"
*Heitai san ... "Fellow soldiers!"
*Shogun ... "Leader!"
*Heitai san Amerika no Kagun no Kampo de anata tachi minna korusu koto ga dekimas ... "The American Navy with its firepower can kill all of you!"
*Chuii ... First Lieutenant!"
*Warera nihonjin to shite hazukashī koto o shitara ikemasen ... "As Japanese people we should not do something embarrassing!'
*Tabemono nomimono chiryo o agemasho Amerika Oisha takusan orimasu Anata no heitai ga kegashita ka ... "We have fine, well-equipped doctors, do you have many wounded?"
*So da yo Horyo ni naru ... "So be it, I become your prisoner!"
*Heitai-san Minasai Asoko ni Amerika heitai ga masu ... "Marine-san look at the American soldiers!"
*Tomare tomare seppuku shinaide Kodomo korosanaide dozo korosanaide ... "Stop, stop , not suicide, don't kill the children, don't kill the children!"
*Hidari-maki ... "Lost her mind!"
In his own words, Gabaldon will state, "It was foolish. I knew that. I must have seen too many John Wayne movies. I couldn't stop. I was hooked! Yes, I fought the war the way I wanted to, when I wanted to, and where I wanted to.“
Gabaldo With Captured Child
“Yes, I fought the war the way I wanted to, when I wanted to, and where I wanted to,” Gabaldon will say, but the facts are that his deadly walks out into the darkness are never a game, and lots of times, his Japanese pleas and commands fall on deaf ears. Serving with the Headquarters and Service Company, Gabaldon is always aware that like everyone else in the 2nd Regiment, he is first and foremost a rifleman, and as such, he empties his carbine at enemy soldiers more than once during the 24-day campaign for the island (and he throws an accurate grenade too!). For the private, less than peaceful moments take place when he kills one soldier on the first evening trying to get two other men to surrender, three Japanese fall trying to protect their Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and he empties a fifteen round clip into two madmen that swing swords at his head during the 2nd Division's march up the island to Marpi Point. By Gabaldon's own count, he believes he kills 33 Japanese soldiers while fighting with the Marines on Saipan and then Tinian. And there will be scenes and events that the private experiences which will scorch his soul for the rest of his years; he is particularly haunted by a Japanese mother that throws her baby into the sea, and a split second later, follows the child into eternity.
Gabaldon Behind Naked Civilian Child
The Plunge
Without question, Gabaldon's finest performance of World War II takes place after the Japanese launch the biggest banzai attack of the battle (and as it will turn out, WWII itself). Almost out of water and food, with his command trapped in the northern corner of the island and being pummeled each day by overwhelming American firepower, Lt. General Yoshitsugu Saito decides the situation on the island is hopeless and orders what remains of his force, to launch itself into a suicidal banzai attack on the U.S. forces on the evening of July 7th (everything ordered, after a last meal of canned crabmeat and sake, Saito will commit ritual seppuku outside his headquarters cave, disemboweling himself with a samurai sword as a split-second later his adjutant shoots him in the head), with Saito's chief-of-staff, Colonel Takuji Suzuki leading the gyokusai (the term means "smashing the Jewel" and is a metaphor for a suicide attack made by a doomed force) charge of over 4,000 Japanese soldiers (all the wounded that are mobile are released from their beds to participate too) and civilians. The attack eventually fails of course, but not before many, many Americans die and the Japanese survivors hobble back to hiding places and caves (over 2,295 dead Japanese will be found in front of the overrunned United States Army's 105th Infantry Regiment, and another 2,016 enemy dead will be found to their rear ... for above and beyond courage in blunting the banzai charge, posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor will go to 45-year-old Lt. Colonel William Joseph O'Brien of New York, 29-year-old front line surgeon, Captain Benjamin Lewis Salomon of Wisconsin, and 28-year-old Private Thomas Alexander Baker of New York. Out of his fox hole once more, Gabaldon stays out of sight and somehow avoids coming in contact with Japanese belligerents swarming about in the darkness.
Some Of The Japanese Dead
More Dead Attackers
With dawn, Gabaldon begins moving through the wreckage of the suicide attack and soon comes upon two weary Japanese survivors. Using his knowledge of Japanese and the military warrior code of Bushido, Guy convinces the men that they will be made safe upon surrender (giving them his cigarettes helps) and their captivity will be honorable despite tales of the Leathernecks being murderers and rapists that love the taste of barbequed Japanese children ... and anyone else the first two men can convince, will also receive the same gracious treatment. The two soon return with twelve more soldiers, all still armed to the teeth as more cigarettes are given out. One of those surrendering is a Japanese lieutenant who asks if the wounded will be treated well, and told that they will be treated the same as wounded American troops, and seeing the massive U.S. fleet just offshore, he officially becomes Gabaldon's prisoner as he leaves to bring in his command, and shortly afterwards, the teenager has another 50 enemy soldiers to deal with. Only the start, the lieutenant comes back the next time with a hundred more survivors of the previous evening and suddenly as if someone has called "Alle, alle, in-come free" in Japanese, streams of soldiers and civilians materialize out of caves and from under rocks; hundreds of people wishing for help and an end to the fighting. Overwhelmed by the hordes of people now surrounding him, Gabaldon buys time for himself by organizing the group into soldiers and civilians, then within those groups divides the healthy from those that are sick or wounded.
The Pied Piper
Mopping up after the banzai attack, on the morning of August 8th a Marine patrol is surprised to see a short Marine wearing a white t-shirt, baseball cap, and sun glasses, on the flats atop a nearby cliff, surrounded by still armed Japanese soldiers ... and incredibly, the Marine is ordering his charges about and they are doing as he says. It is the Pied Piper of Saipan, Guy Gabaldon. Recognizing that help has finally arrived, the private tells one of his prisoners to take off his white skivvies, tie the underwear on a stick, and wave at the men on the ridge across the way ... and as if a magic wand has sent a summoning spell out, soon hundreds of prisoners are also stripping and waving their underwear in the air. No longer worried for his safety once the first Marine jeep reaches his position, Gabaldon seemingly is everywhere at once as he orders captives about and issues safety assurances as the prisoners slowly but surely are processed into captivity until 2:00 in the morning the following evening (by that time, the group is already known in Marine Corps lore as "The 800," the amount of soldiers Gabaldon has talked into surrendering. Finally done and worn out from the physical and mental pressures of the last two nights and days, Gabaldon makes a verbal report of his activities, helps himself to a warm plate of K-rations, and then grabs a cot and sleeps into the next day (later, looking back, Gabaldon will state, "My actions prove that God takes care of idiots!"), while in a nearby tent, Captain Schwabe, a man that called Guy a "little jerk" only two weeks before, begins writing up a recommendation that the private should be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his prisoner bagging activities (for some reason though, Gabaldon will believe it is racism mixed with his former life as a teenage street thug, by the time the award is approved, it has become a Silver Star).
Gabaldon And Some Of His Captives
Campaign basically over with the blunting of the July banzai attack and the capture of "The 800," Gabaldon moves his prisoner grabbing operations over to the Mariana island of Tinian (about five nautical miles to the southwest of Saipan with a landmass of 39 square miles and a high elevation point only 614 feet above the Pacific) when the V Amphibious Corps invades it on July 24, 1944. Unlike Saipan however, the contest for this second bit of Central Pacific territory will only take the 2nd & 4th Marine Divisions one week and a day to achieve (landing where they are not expected and destroying another useless banzai attack, Marine commander, General Holland Smith, will describe the battle as "the perfect amphibious operation in the Pacific War"), so Gabaldon only has time to talk 183 more Japanese soldiers into surrendering (of the 9,000 Imperial troops on the island, only 404 will chose captivity over death). Battle over as the island is turned into the biggest air base of WWII (almost the entire island will become airfields for bomber groups capable of hitting the Japanese home islands ... eventually the Tinian Naval Base built by the U.S. Navy Seabees will be a 40,000 person installation that is laid out and named to resemble New York's Manhattan Island, including having a "Village" named after Greenwich Village, a Central Park area, and street names like Broadway, 42nd Street, Lenox Avenue, Riverside Drive ... both the Enola Gay and Bockscar, the B-29 bombers that will end the war by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, come from Tinian), Gabaldon is sent back to Saipan to help talk more Japanese out of hiding spots on the island. Down to convincing die hards that they still have life to live, Guy's luck finally runs out when he is ambushed during one of his prowls, taking a machine gun bullet to his left arm. War over, the private is credited with capturing over 1,500 Japanese military personnel (the most by a single individual in United States military history).
Invading Tinian
Converted To An Air Base
Wounded Gabaldon
Arm healed and a honorable discharge from the Marines received, Gabaldon spends the next 61 years of his life on a new batch of battles and adventures. After spending time with his family and friends in East Los Angeles, Gabaldon is off to Alaska once more, but decides the cold and cannery industry isn't for him, so he returns to Southern California where he makes a former Russian-American schoolmate, Dunkya Tsikunoff, his first bride. Wife in-hand, the couple is then off to Mexico where they try their luck at a number of businesses like running a furniture store, owning a fishing boat, and coordinating the efforts of a import-export Mexican goods outlet (in Mexico, Gabaldon also learns how to fly a plane), none of which hit paydirt, and eventually the couple divorce (they will have six children together during their marriage), making room for Gabaldon's second wife, a Japanese woman living in Mexico named Ohana Suzuki (they will be married the rest of Gabaldon's life and the union will produce an additional five offspring). The public becomes aware of Gabaldon's WWII exploits in 1957, when Guy's story becomes an episode of Ralph Edwards NBC hit show, "This Is Your Life" (there will also be an appearance by Gabaldon on the 1960s CBS game show, "To Tell the Truth."). Among those who take part in the Gabaldon episode are Marine intelligence officer, Colonel Walter Francis Layer, Guy's former commander, Marine Colonel John Schwabe, Marine Major James High, and several enlisted men the Leatherneck served with on Saipan ... all telling aspects of the same story that Gabaldon's is a hero that single handedly captured over 1,500 Japanese and civilians, saving thousands of Japanese and Marine lives.
This Is Your Life
Hollywood now aware of a fresh war tale never previously told, Gabaldon's life story becomes the property of Gramercy Pictures in 1957. In 1960, "Hell To Eternity," the Hollywood bowdlerization of Gabaldon's exploits as a Marine is released by Allied Artists. 131 minutes of Hollywood gobbledy-goop with little tie to Gabaldon's actual life (despite Gabaldon himself being a technical advisor on the movie) and what really happened on Saipan, the movie stars Jeffrey Hunter (fresh from working with director John Ford on the film "Sergeant Rutledge"), David Janssen (soon to rocket to TV stardom in the thriller "The Fugitive"), Vic Damone (branching out from his pop singing), Patricia Owens (the female lead in the sci-fi classic, "The Fly"), George Takei (five years before becoming Sulu on the hit TV show, "Star Trek"), and Sessue Hayakawa (the same year the legendary Japanese actor does Swiss Family Robinson for Walt Disney Productions). Among the "improvements" Hollywood makes to Gabaldon's life are the introduction of a romance with newspaperwoman that never took place and Guy's newly created "friends" going out with him on his lone prowls. All one really has to know though about the film is that the dark complected, brunette, brown-eyed 5'3" Hispanic soldier is played by six foot tall, blonde hair, blue eyed Jeffrey Hunter (the following year, in 1961, Hunter will play Jesus Christ in director Nicolas Ray's epic, "The King of Kings."). Briefly back in the spotlight with the success the movie receives (becoming friends with Hunter, Guy will name one of his sons Jeffrey Hunter Gabaldon), the energy generated by the production has friends of Gabaldon getting his Silver Star upgraded, but not to the Medal of Honor many believes he deserves, but instead to the Navy's highest award for bravery, the Navy Cross (the struggle to have it made a Medal of Honor remains ongoing ... in 2000, when he is officially promoted to corporal on the retired rolls of the Marine Corps, Marine corps General James Logan Jones Jr. will tell Gabaldon that if he keeps his nose clean for another 50 years, he might make sergeant someday.) He will also use the fame the movie provides to run as a Californian Republican for the United States Congress He does not win
Film Advisor With Hunter & Jassen
Movie Poster
In addition to not being elected to office, Gabaldon runs afoul of the United States government in 1961 when he puts together a force of 1,000 American mercenaries to travel to Cuba to fight against the Communist soldiers of Fidel Castro. His efforts blocked by the Justice Department of the United States, Gabaldon's reward will be having Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy call him a "vigilante" (years later, his efforts to raise a force to fight against communism in Nicaragua will also come to naught). He hits an emotional post-war low in his life in 1970, when still living in Mexico, his wife is treated rudely by United States border personnel and arrested as an illegal immigrant, though the couple crosses the border all the time on business and to visit relatives. Upset remembering the upsets of his youth, now seemingly reborn with his wife's arrest, Gabaldon writes a seering letter to then President Nixon in which he warns, "You're on your last leg, Tricky Dicky," condemns past instances of discrimination in his life that have never been ameliorated, and returns his Navy Cross (the medal will eventually be returned to Gabaldon's father while Guy is abroad). Seeking a locale that might be free from the racism he has experienced in the United States, Mexico, and the Marine Corps, Gabaldon and his family move to a spot where Guy is loved by many and has been a success introducing the locals to freedom, and so, in 1970, he is back on the island of Saipan.
RFK
President Nixon
The island proves once more to be a good luck talisman for Gabaldon. Welcomed by the island's residents, Gabaldon and his wife establish a successful seafood business, he flies all over the Marianas in his small plane, runs a youth camp, and he writes and self-publishes his story about WWII, calling his tale, "Saipan: Suicide Island" (it will also be published under the title, "America Betrayed"). For a time, he will also serve as a police chief, a drug abuse counselor for struggling teenagers, and an island tour guide. His ire with the United States finally dampened by his years on Saipan, and his family thousands of miles away, in 1995, Guy and Ohana return to California. In 2003 though, wanderlust still a vital part of his personality, Gabaldon uproots himself one final time and moves with his wife to Old Town, Florida. In Florida, Guy has lots of time to fish, enjoy his wife, and spend time with his children and grandchildren ... and to reflect on the accolades that have come his way. The cities of Los Angeles and Chicago will both pass resolutions honoring the Hispanic Marine, as will the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas. In 2004, the Pentagon will honor Gabaldon at a tribute ceremony for Hispanic-American veterans of WWII. Once a Marine, always a Marine, in November of 2005 he is the recipient of the Chesty Puller Award (named for the most decorated Marine in United States history) from the World War II Veterans Committee (Gabaldon's medals as of 2024 are the Navy Cross, the Purple Heart Medal, a Combat Action Ribbon, a American Campaign Medal, a World War II Victory Medal, and an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two Bronze Stars). In 2006, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council pass a resolution honoring Gabaldon, which they then send off to the White House in support of Guy's Navy Cross being upgraded to a Medal of Honor. Also in 2006, the World War II Veterans Committee in Washington D.C. features Gabaldon on the cover of their quarterly magazine, and later in July, Guy will be honored by the National Council of La Raza.
Gabaldon
Talking About His Experiences
Too many adventures for one body, in Old Town, Florida on Thursday, August 31, 2006, Corporal Gabaldon dies of heart disease at the age of 80 (after his death there will be a 72-minute documentary made about his life, "East L.A. Marine," by Hollywood producer Steve Rubin for Fast Carrier Productions, and Gabaldon will be the featured subject in a 2006 commissioned painting by military artist Henry Godines called "Pied Piper of Saipan, Guy Gabaldon."). At his death, Guy is survived by his wife, Ohana, nine children (located in San Diego, California, Orlando, Florida, Lake Havasu, Arizona, Saipan, Las Vegas, Nevada, Modesto, California, and Old Town, Florida), seventeen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. On Tuesday, 9/5, Gabaldon will be honored in Cross City, Florida by a Marine color guard firing off a 21-gun salute as his wife receives the American flag that draped Guy's coffin. Cremated, part of Gabaldon's ashes will by scattered on Mount Tapochau in Saipan, with the other part going to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, at Court 8, Section AA, Column 19, Niche 1.
Ohana With The Painting Of Guy
Gabaldon
Rest in peace, Corporal ... thank you for your service ... gracias, mucho-mucho Gracias!
The Gabaldon Story
Guy Luis Gabaldon
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