‘I hope I don’t get hit’
WWII Navy veteran from Allentown landed troops on six Pacific islands
Mathias F. Gutman, a son of Yugoslavian immigrants, left Allentown High School in 1943 to join the Navy. After amphibious training, “Matt” was assigned to a landing ship, tank (LST) as coxswain on one of its two Higgins boats. He landed troops on six Japanese-held islands in World War II.
Now 97 and living in Allentown, he remembers his first landing as the worst. It took place Sept. 15, 1944, at Peleliu. He was 19.
An LST was a big box. It carried troops and tanks, and had antiaircraft guns for firepower. The night before the invasion, everyone on our ship was quiet. All hands — sailors and Marines — knew that tomorrow was the day. We looked closely at each other. Who among us are going to survive?
We were writing letters, because it might be the last night we’re alive. I wrote to my sweetheart from high school and my parents. I told them I’m OK. We couldn’t tell where we were, because
everything we mailed out was read by our officers. We were only allowed to write on one side of the paper, because they didn’t black anything out. They cut it out with a razor blade.
I didn’t sleep much. It was going through my mind: What if this, what if that? Will I survive? That was uppermost in my mind all the time.
Peleliu was just a small island. What was important was: It had an airfield. My assignment was to take care of my Higgins boat. I got up early, while it was still dark, and had some chow. Then I went to my boat. It was mounted high on the port side of the ship, near the bridge. I had a crew of three other sailors. One was a machinist mate who took care of the diesel engine, one to lower the ramp, and one to tie up the boat.
That boat was 36 foot long and 10 foot wide. Before we lowered it to the water, we made sure the bow line was fastened to the ship, so that when we hit the water, we wouldn’t drift away. Once we were down, they threw cargo nets over the side of our LST. The nets were like a ladder coming down to my boat. The Marines climbed down.
I had 35 men from the 1st Marine Division aboard. They were ready for combat. They were all wearing helmets and had life preservers on, and they had weapons and really heavy packs. As coxswain, I was in the stern. I had to stand to see where I was steering. The Marines were hunkered down. All I could see was the back of their heads. They were quiet. They knew they were going into battle, and for how long?
We pulled away from our ship and went out and circled, waiting for other Higgins boats to join us. Once we were all together, we lined up and went toward the beach. My boat was in the third wave.
We were coming in real fast. It was complete chaos. Noisy! Diesel engines and gunfire and planes battling overhead. Our fleet pounding the island with big shells. Our air force bombing installations.
That island was a big dust bowl. Smoke everywhere, places on fire.
I could only go in so far. Coral reefs surrounded that whole island. We needed about four foot of water to go over them. The seaman in the bow was on the lookout, and he shouted, “Coral reefs, coral reefs!” So I had to stop about a hundred yards from the beach. I had to transfer these troops from my boat into an LVT, a landing vehicle tracked [or amphibious tractor], that could make it over the reefs. That took time.
We were floating, tied up to each other. Gunfire was coming at us. I hope I don’t get hit. That’s what was going through my mind.
The Marines climbed into the LVT. Some got shot up during the transfer. Some were killed, some seriously hurt. Several of the wounded were on my boat. Guys were hollering for their mothers, and the floorboards were covered with blood.
Once the Marines were on their way in the LVT, they were going in real slow. They were targets. The Japanese sank a lot of those tracked vehicles. A lot of Marines got killed before they reached the beach.
I had to turn my boat around. I took the wounded Marines to a hospital ship. By that time, my LST had gone out to sea, past the horizon. I had to go back to the island.
I was able to get my boat in between the coral reefs. We weren’t getting fired on then, because the Marines had already established that beachhead. It was pretty well cleared. I beached the boat and spent the night with two Marines in a foxhole, maybe 200 yards in. One of them gave me a hand grenade. The other gave me a knife. My crew found other Marines close by and stayed with them in foxholes.
Nothing happened that night. The two Marines and I took turns dozing. Very seldom did we talk, because we didn’t want the Japanese to hear us. Our ears were perked for anything that moved. Any slight movement, and we woke up right away.
The next day, my ship, LST-553, came back. The crew didn’t know what happened to me. They thought I was not coming back.
‘I’ll do what I can’
I liked the idea of joining the Navy, because I wanted good, warm chow and a bunk to sleep in, not a mud hole.
I wanted to go into the Seabees [for construction work] originally. I went to the Navy recruiting station at the post office and talked to the chief Seabee, and he said, “What’s your occupation? What did you do?” I said, “I just came out of high school. I had basic electric.” He said, “Look, son, go next door. Talk to the Navy recruiter. We can’t be teaching you. We want people that are already trained.”
So I went to the office next door and enlisted.
I went to Sampson, New York, for basic training, then by train down to Camp Bradford, Virginia, for amphibious training. They taught me how to operate the Higgins boat. They asked me if I’d like to do that, and I said, “Why not? I’ll do what I can.”
They shipped a crew of us to Evansville, Indiana, where we boarded LST-553. It was built there, right alongside the Ohio River. At Pearl Harbor a few months later, we enjoyed a week of liberty. God only knew where we were going. A lot of guys got pie-eyed. I think I had a couple of beers.
Battling kamikazes, typhoons
After Peleliu, our next invasion was at Leyte in the Philippines, and that was in October 1944. That is where we encountered the first kamikaze planes diving on our ships. We were at our guns three days straight.
My battle station was at one of our 20-millimeter guns. I was the gunner. Some kamikazes tried to dive onto our ship. Our crew shot down two fighters and a twin-engine bomber.
From Leyte, we invaded Mindoro, Lingayen Gulf and Zambales-Subic Bay in Luzon, all in the Philippines. Then we found out our next assignment was going to be Okinawa, the biggest island we invaded. We landed Marines and soldiers there on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945.
After Okinawa, we had a layover in the Philippines and encountered the fiercest typhoon I went through in the Pacific — and I went through three of them. The wind was so strong, it broke our anchor chain. Our ship drifted ashore and hit the rocks. They cut open the bow and bent our big bow doors. We sailed to Saipan for repairs.
When the war was over, we were assigned to disarm the Japanese at three different islands. We went ashore, and our commanding officer told their commanding officer to bring all their guns, explosives and ammunition down to the beach, which they did. We had the Japanese break up all their rifles and load everything onto their large, wooden boats.
I was assigned to take this stuff out to sea and have the Japanese throw it in the water. I made about two or three runs that day. On my return, I saw that a Japanese officer was coming down the road, and he was still wearing a samurai sword. I quickly went over to him and said, “Sir, you won’t need this anymore.”
I unbuckled it from his belt and brought it home.
Now that we’d disarmed the Japanese, 28 of us on our LST volunteered to sweep the pressure mines that had been dropped by our planes in Japanese harbors. It was called guinea pig duty. The mines were on the sea bottom. If our ship passed over one, the mine would explode directly underneath us. We swept several harbors, traveling back and forth six times every hundred yards. We never set off any mine.
We put our lives on the line to open up those shipping lanes.
Epilogue
Gutman was awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for voluntarily sweeping the harbors for pressure mines “despite the personal danger involved.” The work ensured safe entry for U.S. occupation forces.
He got through the war without being wounded. His brothers Louis and Joseph fought in the European Theater and also came home unhurt. Louis was a soldier and Joseph, a sailor.
“My mother must’ve been praying day and night,” he said.
Gutman was honorably discharged from the Navy in December 1946. He had active duty in the Navy Reserve as an instructor and recruiter, and retired as a chief petty officer with 22 years of service.
He and his first wife, Bernadine, had six children. He has three stepsons from his second marriage, to Arlene.
A sign painter, Gutman worked for Stehly Sign Co. and later Mack Trucks, where he did gold-leaf lettering and striping on firetrucks.
“I was always good in art,” he said.
While on the LST-553, he painted two images on the conning tower — a diving Japanese Zero and, beside it, a palm tree on a sandy beach. Hash marks indicated the ship had shot down three enemy planes and participated in six landings.