Ronald F. Adams, a member of UGA’s Greatest Generation, was well known throughout Georgia as a politician and judge, but few knew of his exploits in the U.S. Marines in World War II.
Judge Adams graduated from Law School in 1940. He has two sons, Walter ’77, ’80 and Ronald M. ’80, ’81.
Dr. Peter Shedd, professor of Legal Studies and Director of the MBA program for the UGA Terry College of Business, who grew up in Glynn County says he remembers Adams as his state senator and later as State Court Judge: “Judge Adams was clearly the most distinguished gentleman from my Brunswick days,” Shedd says. “He carried himself with a sense of dignity and southern gentility that few others could match. He remained an inspiration to me and many, many others until his death in 2003.”
Shedd adds, “he never spoke about his service in the Marine Corps. His long, flowing white hair belied the typical appearance of a Marine!”
Judge Adams recorded his war experiences in a memoir he titled, “Tales of the South Pacific.” Through Shedd’s friendship with the Judge’s son Ron, the UGA Alumni Association was able to secure a copy of this first-hand accounting.
I graduated from the University of Georgia Law School in June of 1940. As the final exam period of my last term began, I had an emergency appendectomy, and the school waived the requirement that I take the final set of exams. I did take the state bar exam soon after graduation, but I was not prepared due to the appendectomy and I did not pass the bar exam in the summer of 1940. I then accepted a position as a teacher at Blackshear High School in Pierce County. I boarded in Blackshear and got a key to a local lawyer’s office, where I went in the evening to prepare to take the bar exam again in December, 1940. I was successful that time.
Congress had passed a law requiring compulsory military service, and every man within the specified age range was given a number by the draft board.. I had a very low number, and I knew that I was soon going to be called on to enter the service because the war clouds were gathering thicker and thicker by the day. My brother Dow, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1937, was in the regular army. The Army officer candidates at that time were coming through R.O.T.C., but Dow told me that the Marine Corps had openings for officer candidates. He advised that I apply for officer candidates school at Quantico, VA.
Based on my application to the Marine Corps recruiter in Savannah, after answering questions, I was accepted and immediately given the oath of office. I told the recruiting sergeant that I would need a week or two to give the Pierce County Board of Education time to hire a new teacher. He told me that, as a result of the oath, I was already in the service and that I had 24 hours to get back to Savannah. I took a day to get my affairs in order and then arrived a couple of days late at Quantico, where boot camp had already started. Since we were candidates to serve as commissioned officers, we had better than average drill sergeants.
One problem that had to be addressed was my age. At the time I joined the Marines I was over 25 and therefore too old for OCS. I asked my mother’s brother, Talmadge Middleton, and one or two other people to certify that I was born July 23, 1916, even though I was born in 1915. The Marines accepted a certificate issued on the basis of those certifications. After the war was over, I realized that I should correct this “error” in the Marine records, so I got my mother to sign a new certificate about my birth year and the Marines changed their records to show my correct date of birth.
We remained at boot camp for ninety days, where we were trained in bayonet, Springfield rifle and other weaponry. We also learned first aid and other basics for the Marines. A footlocker was issued to every man, and we all received identical articles of clothing and personal gear. Each item was required to be placed in a particular place in every footlocker, so that any person trained in this system would go to any footlocker and find any garment or possession that he might need. After practicing on the rifle range and going through strict military training and calisthenics, we were commissioned in May, 1941, We were then given about ten days leave when we went to our homes for a short furlough.
We then returned to Quantico where we were trained for another 90 days. We were then commissioned as second lieutenants in the Marine Corps Reserves. My first station was at Paris Island, South Carolina as an officer supervising recruits at boot camp. This is where I learned an expression from an old first sergeant, “If one can do it, they can all do it.” That was one of the basic principles behind the operation of the Marine Corps.
I was still at Paris Island on December 7, 1942, when the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. My brother, Dow, and his wife, April, and their son, Peter, were in Hawaii at that time. Dow was stationed at Schofield Barracks, but he and April were on the “Big Island” for the weekend when the attack occurred. I don’t remember exactly how, but we learned fairly that Dow and his family were safe.
I had a battalion of approximately 2,600 men. I was unable to get the necessary equipment for my troops. I went to the quartermaster, Col. Wynn, at the recruit depot. He then told me that I would have to make do with the available equipment. I was not satisfied with that answer and said, “I’d like to put in a request for a transfer.”
He responded, “What do you want, parachute duty?” I didn’t know that the Marine Corps had a parachute training program, but I replied immediately, “Yes, Sir.” He said “We’ll prepare a request for transfer for you.” A company clerk typist happened to be in earshot of our conversation. He prepared my request for parachute duty, and I signed it. Colonel Wynn signed my request which was immediately sent to Charleston, where they ordered a more strenuous physical examination than they required for the regular Marines. I passed the examinations and got orders for Lakehurst, N.J., where I entered the parachute training program.
On the first day of the program, everyone went for a short indoctrination flight, to give us all a chance to ride in a plane. However, having arrived after the training started, I missed that and I took seven jumps before I ever landed in an airplane. I have always contended that the purpose of an airplane was to jump out of it with a parachute.
I had rigorous training, which on the final day included one hour of calisthenics, and a five-mile run after the calisthenics. We graduated as qualified parachutists and were assigned to duty at New River, North Carolina where the parachute group of the First Marine Division was training. My commander was Col. Robert H. Williams, later called Gavutu Bob Williams. I was assigned to Company C under a man named Richard H. Heurth. His family had a furrier business in Boston. I was made a platoon leader.
“About this time military intelligence learned that the Japanese had moved into Guadalcanal in the British Solomon Islands, where they were establishing a military base. The Solomon Islands are a chain of islands located in the South Pacific. After I learned where we would be landing, I wrote to my parents that the wisest man in the world could not say where we were going. The military censors who read our letters missed this clue, but I knew that my father, a student of the Bible, would understand.
The first Parachute Battalion, a battalion of special troops, was part of the First Marine Division. We loaded our gear on transport trains and traveled with the gear on troop trains from New River, N.C. to San Francisco, where we boarded civilian transports, and headed for Wellington, New Zealand. I traveled on a luxury liner called the Kungsholm, which was Greta Garbo’s favorite ship. It was ornate and highly decorated, but it was carrying more men than you could pigs. They had the chow line running 24 hours a day, so that some troops were always eating. We arrived at Wellington in the middle of July, which is the dead of winter in that part of the world. We spent about a week out there on the docks, transferring equipment and supplies from the civilian transports to the U.S. Navy transports, which met us there.
After a few days when the Navy transports had been loaded, we went down into the South Pacific for maneuvers. Paratroopers didn’t have any planes for mission, so we were used as assault troops to invade in the Guadalcanal campaign. We did dry runs at the British Samoa Islands, American Samoa Islands, and the Fijis. We landed on Gavutu which was part of the British Solomon Islands on August 7, 1942.
The paratroopers of the First Marine Division were assigned the mission of taking Gavutu and Tanambogo. The Navy transports landed at a dock not too far from the shore, and big rope ladders were thrown over the side. Troops learned how to embark and disembark from a ship by climbing these rope ladders. We timed our activities with the motion of the waves when we went down the net when we went down to the net, so we could jump over the net to the landing barge without difficulty.
In the last two or three days before we landed, we were given our last minute instructions on how to pack our gear and what to carry. We were all supposed to have a first aid pack and a musette bag to carry some of our gear. Our medical department issued large quantities of condoms. We put anything we didn’t want to get wet inside the condoms –items such as ammo, a pistol, a radio, personal items, and several cartons of cigarettes. Then we packed these things in our backpacks and prepared to go ashore. Each platoon was assigned a wave of landing barges.
We boarded Higgins boats. A higgens boat was a 30-foot long Navy vessel made out of plywood by a man named Higins. These boats were equipped with very good packard engines, and were driven by Navy men called coxswains. The coxswain stood in the bow (the front) and steered the boat from that position. As we headed for the point where we were to land, all 30 men in my platoon were lying down, but I was standing in the middle of them with my binoculars. Standing in the stem was my captain, Captain Richard Huerth. About 300 yards off-shore, we were hit by a round of bullets. I looked forward and the coxswain was slumped over dead. I looked behind me and there was Captain Huerth sitting on gear of some kind and blood was gushing out his nose and mouth, and of course he, too, never reached the shore. As we approached the shore, the boat ran into some underwater concrete piling. We had to bail out over the side, and we waded in to shore through water up to our chests.”
“After securing Gavutu and Tsnambogo, we were taken to Tulagi Island where the First Marine Raider Battalion had established its headquarters… There was a boy from Arkansas who had a Higgins boat assigned to him. His cargo ship had sunk and he had nowhere to go, so he attached himself to my platoon. I was the only company officer with an admiral’s gig in the Guadalcanal area. One day we decided to go over to Florida Island on a foraging mission. When we got to shore, some Polynesian natives told us that there were two Japanese living in the shacks up the trail. I had eight men pretty well armed and we decided to capture the two Japanese. They were two of the most emaciated, infested and scratched men I had ever seen. One was little more than an animal, but the other one was a more intelligent officer. He could read and write perfect English, but he couldn’t speak it.
I communicated with him by writing on a pad. The Japanese were trained not to give out information, but this one did. We took the two back to Tulagi where they were turned over to the intelligence section for questioning. Someone later informed me that the Japanese officer told where his people had buried their code book for the South Pacific. The book was found where he said it would be, wrapped in oil cloth. The book proved very valuable in helping us decipher Japanese transmissions. I think capturing that man and turning him over to our intelligence section was the most important thing I did during my five years in the marines.
When we left Tulagi, we were put on three tuna ships and taken over to Guadalcanal, a much larger island, perhaps 90 miles long with big coconut groves. We were assigned a position around Henderson Air Field on the south end of the island that was the key to controlling Guadalcanal. We went out on patrol and scouting missions and we knew that the Japanese were continuing to come ashore on the north end of the island. Some days we would run into Japanese snipers and they would take off. We’d get a few of them, but not many.
It was during that period that we learned a bit more about the Japanese. We were asked if we could hold Henderson Field and I felt that we could. For one thing, we were about four inches taller than the average Japanese and outweighed them by about 25 pounds. We were better trained and educated and better equipped. We felt we could whip them on any field if we had equal numbers, but the Japanese were fanatics and willing to commit kamikaze for their cause. We took the attitude of a Tennessee mountain Marine when he was heard to say, “I don’t want to lay down my life for my country, I want to make the enemy lay down his life for his.”
For instance, while we were guarding Henderson field our men were in foxholes at night. One night, a Japanese soldier stuck his bayonet in the thigh of one of our Marines. The Japanese soldier couldn’t pull the bayonet out and he fled. The Marine then pulled the bayonet out of his own thigh, ran after the infiltrator and killed him with his own bayonet.
On another occasion a big marine (a Polish man with large feet) was attacked at night. This Marine didn’t have a weapon to defend himself, so he engaged in a hand to hand fight with the Japanese soldier and killed the man with his sheer weight and strength.
A good many Japanese spoke English and they began to intercept our radio messages between platoons (walkie-talkies and small radios). In order to communicate without the Japanese being able to intercept, we began to use the Navajo Indians in outfit who spoke English and Navajo. I had one assigned to me and I would give him the message in English and he would convey my message in Navajo. It completely baffled the Japanese who knew no Navajo. Using condoms to keep materials dry was the first thing that had not been done before in battle and the second thing was using the Navajo Indians as communicators.
Each platoon leader would take his platoon down to the river to bathe and get cleaned up. We undressed and washed our clothes with soap we had. Half would bathe while the other half guarded the perimeter. One day we were in the process of bathing, as naked as the day we were born (which nobody paid any attention to) when a large patrol came down and ordered us to one side. We didn’t know what was happening and we were reluctant to move aside. Then out of the sand dunes came a big walrus of a man with a towel on his shoulder. It was the senior officer of the Guadalcanal campaign, the division commander General A.A. Vanderdrift. We were detailed to guard him while he bathed. This was the only time I ever bathed with a general.
A spotter stayed near the front lines and would call in artillery support where help was needed. When he called in fire, the shells would come in immediately over our heads. They had a frightening whistle when they came in and our spotters did a great job. Without them, we could not have held our line.
As we continued to guard Henderson Field, the Japanese kept coming closer in larger numbers. On a particular night, we were dug into our positions and began to sense that a major engagement was about to commence. Suddenly, two Japanese rose out of the bushes and threw two hand grenades right into my platoon area. Their hand grenades gave off a little pink glow like a lightening bug. I saw them coming and yelled, “look out.” I rolled away. I was going to throw the hand grenade back, but my feet slipped and I went down. The grenade went off and small fragments hit my arm and leg. A man next to me rolled over on the other grenade and it exploded in his belly, killing him. I shot the Japanese that ran by me and I don’t know what happened to the other one.
At Guadalcanal, the Japanese began to come in larger numbers and we retreated up the ridge as the engagement later referred to as the ‘Battle of Bloody Ridge’ began. This was the night of September 12, 1942, which is said to have been the most intense single engagement of the entire war. Every man in my platoon except two was either killed or wounded. The ridge where we fought had a sort of nose that stuck out, and that’s where we made our stand.
Adams was wounded and spent the night in a fox hole throwing hand grenades.
Our dead were buried in shallow graves, maybe only about a foot beneath the surface, wrapped in a poncho, wearing their clothes….Each grave was marked with one of the two dog tags that every soldier wore for identification. Later the graves on Guadalcanal were re-located to a beautiful cemetery in Hawaii and family could have bodies returned to the States for burial.
Adams was taken to the field hospital at Guadalcanal and kept there for a week. He was awarded the Purple Heart after Bloody Ridge. Adams explains, “On February 6, 1943, Guadalcanal was declared secure. Total American casualties were 6,000 of the 60,000 who participated in the campaign, including 1600 dead. Japanese casualties were 24,000 of their 36,000 troops. The UGA graduate was then shipped to Caledonia.
After a few months, I was sent back to the States to go to Command and General Staff School in Quantico, where we studied strategic principals of war and tactics. When I finished the course at Quantico, I was sent back to Hawaii. Adams was transferred to the Fifth Marine Division and assigned to Division Headquarters to prepare for landing on Iwo Jima. He reports, “We loaded our ship in Hilo, Hawaii and landed at Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. On our way to Iwo Jima, we stopped at the Marine Islands of Guam, Tinian and Saipan. Between the time we took Iwo Jima in March of 1945 and the end of the war in August of that year, 2,200 partially disabled B-29 planes made emergency landings at Iwo Jima, but nearly 7,000 Americans, almost all Marines, died fighting there. American casualties were over 20,000 in 35 days.
It was a brutal battle, far worse than Guadalcanal, where many more wounded survived. At Iwo Jima, more casualties were fatalities and those who survived were more seriously wounded than at Guadalcanal. One morning in the early stages of the campaign, I heard a deep roar. I turned around and looked back to see a sight that has remained vivid in my memory from that day on. The Second Battalion, 28th Marines, had raised a flag on Mount Suribachi. The sky was gray and it was windy, and there was a silk flag billowing against the gray sky. It is hard for me to imagine a more inspiring sight. Sometimes it brings tears to my eyes to think about this. Seeing our nation’s flag flying on top of Mount Suribachi, where the Japanese had said we would never step, was a great event in terms of building the morale of the men who were fighting there. There was a second flag raising when a larger flag was substituted for the smaller one. It is the most famous military photograph in the world.
I was awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” for action at Iwo Jima. The citation refers to a particular day and describes various activities, but I have never had any specific memory of that day. All the days were the same. After we had taken Iwo Jima, we went back to our base camp on the big island of Hawaii. The atomic bomb was dropped in August and ended the war.” Adams and his division were sent to Japan as occupation troops. About the bomb, Adams says “I for one have always been thankful that we dropped the atomic bomb and ended the war when we did. An invasion might have cost a lot more lives on both sides.
I came home around Christmas. It turned out that I had pneumonia, so I went to the doctor and got medication for it. I then went on inactive duty. I was promoted at that time from major to lieutenant colonel. My pay had gone from $21 a month when I was a PFC to $125 a month when I was a 2nd lieutenant to $250 a month when I was a major. I think I was paid $100 a month extra for being a paratrooper and enlisted men were paid $50 a month for extra parachute duty.
I returned to Jesup to practice law. I graduated from law school and passed the Georgia Bar. I remained in the reserves for a few years, but I never enjoyed that activity, which interfered with developing my law practice and with my family life, so I resigned my commission. The Marines promoted me to full colonel on my retirement.
My service in the Marines was an important part of my life. Combat is a brutal experience, but I never expected to die in battle, and there was never any doubt in my mind that it was my duty to fight to defeat our enemy. The Marines exposed me to parts of the world that it would have been hard for me to see otherwise and I got to know people from all over the country, many of whom remained friends. I enjoyed being part of an enormous operation that was successful and I am proud to have been a Marine.
