an interview with
Guy Gabaldon

By James Burbeck
On July 7, 1944, the battle to secure the Japanese occupied island of Saipan peaked in one of the largest banzai charges of the Pacific War. This charge, which lasted over 15 hours, brought the total losses for this bloody World War Two campaign to over 30,000. The next morning, American Marine reconnaissance patrols edged their dangerous way forward to map out Japanese lines. As one patrol approached the seacliffs which line the north side of the island, they were greeted by a rare sight. On the flats at the top of the cliff, was a single American Marine surrounded by hundreds of Japanese troops, many of them still armed. One might have thought that this Marine was experiencing his last moments on earth. But as they watched, it became obvious that this lone Marine was actually ordering his hundreds of "prisoners" into smaller groups, even as more Japanese streamed quietly up from their ocean-side caves. Eventually, 800 Japanese soldiers and civilians surrendered on this one morning, an astonishing number considering that the battle for Tarawa, a few months earlier, had produced only 146 prisoners from a total garrison of nearly 5,000!

That lone Marine was Private Guy Gabaldon, and by the time of his July 8 "bagging" of 800 prisoners, he had already become famous on Saipan for his capture of hundreds of die-hard enemy troops using a brisk combination of fluent "street" Japanese and point-blank carbine fire. Indeed, his performance was so impressive that he was awarded almost total discretion for the remainder of the campaign, and his solo raids into Japanese lines soon became a hot topic throughout the island.

                                                                                                                                         ......Continued (click here)
 

Scene from Hell to Eternity (capture of  800 prisoners)

Recuperating from Machine Gun Wound