Published Dec. 2, 2002
Hendersonville Times-News

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20021202/EXTRAS02/212020317/0/search

Scout It Out

By Jennie Jones Giles
Skills learned from years spent hunting squirrels in the mountains on his family’s farm were put to use by a young Marine in World War II.
Le Roy Hawkins, 85, was born about 300 yards from where he now lives. He grew up on land owned by his family since the turn of the century near the Horse Shoe community.
The Tree Haven farm was a training ground for learning to shoot, treading quietly through the woods and reading signs of animals and humans.
Hawkins used those skills as a scout for Marine patrols on the island of Guam.

Training and forestry

Hawkins, a 1934 graduate of the former Etowah High School, and his wife, Zoda Mae McCraw Hawkins, were expecting their first baby when Hawkins was drafted in 1943.
The draft board allowed Hawkins to remain in the county until his son, Bill, was born.
“I had to go up there and show them I was pregnant,” his wife said.
Five days after the baby’s birth Hawkins reported for duty.
He arrived at Parris Island, S.C., on May 18, 1943.
“It was a tough time,” he said. “Basic training was really tough. They were trying to get us ready for war. They worked us to death.”
Rather than leaving the Marine Corps Recruit Depot to fight, Hawkins remained at Parris Island as a forester.
“A group of five of us Marines and about 25 civilian workers were cleaning up the storm mess from a hurricane,” Hawkins said.
Later he was sent to Camp Lejeune as part of a replacement unit of the 3rd Marine Division.
He left Camp Lejeune on a troop train for California, where the Marines boarded the troop transport ship Anne Arundel for the journey to the Pacific Theater.
The ship left the West Coast on Jan. 14, 1945, and headed for Guam.
“We were the floating reserve for Iwo Jima,” said Hawkins.
But the Marines returned to Guam without landing on Iwo Jima. They were not needed because the battle for the island had ended.

Guam

Hawkins spent most of 1945 on Guam.
Guam, the largest island in the Marianas chain and the largest of the 2,000 islands in Micronesia, had belonged to the United States since the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War.
The island was attacked, invaded and occupied by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, concurrent with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese occupation lasted until July 21, 1944, when the 3rd Marine Division, 77th Army Infantry Division and 6th Marine Provisional Brigade liberated the island.
The people of Guam, the Chamorros, had been subjected to forced labor, marches, beatings and public executions. Groups of Chamorro women, children and men were herded into caves and massacred, write historians.
“They (the people) were in bad shape,” Hawkins said. “The Japanese had mistreated them before we took it back. I used to see them washing clothes in the river. They would soak the clothes and then put them on a rock and beat them with a paddle.”
The battle to regain Guam ended Aug. 15, 1944, but there were still Japanese hiding on the island.
“I was a scout for the regiment,” Hawkins said. “We swept the island for surviving Japanese. They were hiding in caves. They just kept coming out. There must have been 1,000 hiding on that island. It was thick with jungle and caves.
“We were also training for the home invasion of the Japanese islands,” Hawkins said. “We were getting ready to load for Japan when the (atomic) bomb was dropped.”

Tropical fever, return home

In November, Hawkins became extremely sick. He had contracted dengue fever, a tropical disease.
“I was burning up with fever and I told one guy to find me a doctor or I was going to crawl up that hill and find me one,” he said.
The doctor who arrived was from Asheville and knew Hawkins’ family.
“He said the fever had turned into double pneumonia,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins was in the Marine Reserves after returning home and was called back in the Korean War. He was sent to drill instructor school and trained Marine recruits at Parris Island, S.C.
“It was a busy job, taking boys right off the street and making Marines out of them,” he said. “I taught them to march, a lot of history about the Marine Corps and discipline.”
Before the war, Hawkins worked for a wholesale florist. After his military service, he worked as a clerk at the Hendersonville Post Office for about 25 years before retiring.
He and his wife have been married for 62 years. In addition to his son, Bill, he has a grandson, Derek, and three great-granddaughters. The family still lives on the land the family has owned for more than 100 years.