Biography of Melvin Chrislip Jr.

Melvin Chrislip was born on March 29, 1924 in Jethrow Hollow, East Liverpool, Ohio, a town which was frequently flooded by the Ohio River. A few days after his birth, he and his mother had to be evacuated from their upstairs bedroom window into a row boat. After graduating from high school he enlisted into the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 18 on March 18, 1943. He enlisted in Cleveland, Ohio and came home to tell his Dad that he enlisted in the Marines. His Dad said that was good because he thought it was the Merchant Marines and when he found out it was the U.S. Marine Corps, his Dad told him to go back and try to change it.
From Cleveland Melvin was sent to San Diego, California for training. From San Diego he was sent for machine gun training to Camp Elliot in Orange County. He then was sent to Alameda Island across the bay from San Francisco where he was assigned guard duty. He later was shipped to Hawii to Camp Tarrara for further training awaiting being sent to Saipan. He was on a LST landing craft tank which was carried on top of a regular transport ship on his way to the battle of Saipan. The marines slept in the LST’s. They were required to water down the ammunition on board the ship constantly to keep it from blowing up. Another ship was not watered down enough so it blew up and blew an airplane out of the sky. From Hawii we stopped on the Marshall Islands where I was one of the Marines who was assigned to pick up chickens. The boat was small and rocked in the big waves, I got so sick that when one of my buddies said to be careful or they would dump the chickens right on me, I said I didn’t care. Eating chickens meant that we were in for battle.
When we arrived on Saipan on June 15, 1944 our 2nd Division landed on the opposite side of the island from where General Saito expected us. Saipan had been under air attack for four months and was still smoking from three days of shelling from American battleships and cruisers. The Japanese had twice as many troops as intelligence reports predicted. Saipan was so narrow that when the Marines came ashore on the west coast, the Japanese guns on the east coast were able to take them under accurate fire. Rounds from batteries on the island of Tinian three miles to the south and the Marines were in a scrap as soon as they crossed the barrier reef. Saipan is less than 15 miles long and from three to seven miles wide. It is only 1,300 miles from Japan which made it a key to its Military value. Airfields on Saipan would place Tokyo within striking range of the B-29’s that were coming to the Pacific in growing numbers.
General Holland M. ‘Howlin Mad’ Smith who was newly promoted led the troops of the operation. He stopped to talk to me and asked me how I liked my gun. The other officers were observing what was being said and I replied, ‘I don’t carry a gun sir, I carry a rifle.’ In the Marines a rifle is considered the most important equipment a soldier has and it is the most respected part of a Marine.
On the ship going to Saipan I was on guard duty with another Marine. The other Marine said, ‘do you know a guy named Chrislip?’ I thought it was a joke, so I said ‘No, who is he?’ He said ‘I don’t know, but see that fellow over there? He said he was going to shoot Chrislip when we hit the beach.’ Messer and I got into a fight and I beat him so he had it in for me. I had a job and was working in an office because I could type. There was an officer who I didn’t dig a hole for and he had it in for me. He went and told the other officers and they placed me in for a court martial. What happened was we were on maneuvers and my job was to take all messages by radio and log them and give them to the adjutant. I dug my foxhole and was waiting for the messages as they came in and this officer said ‘dig a foxhole for another officer’ since I was working for the adjutant I looked at him and asked ‘is that what you want me to do?’ Then he said to the other officer, ‘this man’s job is to take all the messages that come in.’ It was fairly slow at that time and the officer dug the hole but was glaring at me the whole time, in other words, he had it in for me, he gave me an order and had a higher rank than the adjutant, but that was the job that the adjutant had to do and that came first. After we went back to the office and shortly thereafter I was called in. A couple of the officers and the adjutant were talking and a decision was made that I should be placed in a line company and taken out of the office. This happened because that officer claimed that I was mentioning islands in my letters home. He was a censor officer. I never received any mail from home after that even though my mother had been writing. Later the adjutant gave me a PFC patch meaning that I was promoted to private first class and got a raise of $5.00 a month. They put me over Messer and his friend and I was transferred into the tent area by the officer who didn’t like me. Messer and his friend just came back from Tarrara and they were bragging about being in combat and resented that I had a higher rating than they did. The three of us shared a tent. They would throw their knives each night across the tent and sometimes the knife would fly close to my head, so I told them if any of those knives hit me that I would throw the knife back at them. Messer said if you want to start a fight that’s OK with me. The other Marine said you have got to go to the field. Messer picked up the wire for me to go through the fence and I said ‘you go first’ because I figured when I put my head down to go through, he would jump me. By then allot of the other Marines came to see the fight. He went through the fence and then when I came through, he went after me and we got into a fight and I got the better of him. He tried to trick me into going through first but it didn’t work, so he lost his nerve. Messer bit me which is a ‘no-no’ in the Marines. They gave me a three day pass to have the wound to heal.
I didn’t know what to do, I worried all night while I was on guard duty about Messer’s threat. We were watching to make sure no Japanese would try to board the ship. I didn’t want to tell my officer because I felt he would think I was scared and trying to get out of going to fight. I decided the only thing I could do is keep my eye on Messer and make sure nothing happened and worry about killing Japs instead of other marines. We went over the reef and had trouble getting over the beach because the waves would hit the amtracks and sometimes turn them over.
The bombing was heavy, I hadn’t seen Messer. Later he and his buddy jumped out on the beach. We had to get into the water and help carry the ammunition and wade in the water. My seargent and I started to carry the ammunition in. Messer and his buddy were pointing at us and laughing because we were struggling with the ammunition. I got on the beach and saw my buddies, we had a fellow by the name of Poncho de la Cruz, who was a champion boxer of the South Pacific, I always admired him and wished I was built like him. I found him all curled up and scared to death. Because the Japs were shooting at us. Another friend of mine was shooting his machine gun like he was at a party.
I was crawling along, I noticed a young pretty girl about the age of 19, she was walking around like in a daze. She had a dress on and one side of her dress dropped down and was exposing her breast. Another Marine came up to her and tied her dress to cover her. She just remained standing there.
We were told to move over to a big field and cross it. We saw the Japs come down off the mountain, it looked like hundreds of them. Three small Jap tanks along with about hundred men came down the hill. We were in the sewer trying to shoot at them. We called for bazookas which was a new weapon to the Japanese. Two men could handle the weapon. They came to the front of the line and fired. One of the Jap tanks got stopped by our fire, then the other two small tanks retreated back up the hill. The Japanese soldiers then followed them. We jumped into a ‘stink sewer,’ it was called that because it took the sewer water into the ocean. We all got into that sewer and were glad to be there because we were sure we were going to get killed. In the meantime, the other troop opened up fire and the Japanese went back up the hill.
We came to this field. I was a runner and my job was to run messages, I stayed with the seargent, he would tell me when and where to go, we were the last ones to cross this field. When it came to he and I, and I said ‘you want to go first?’ He said “are you kidding?” No, I said if you want me to go first I’ll go. He said “if you don’t go first my job is to shoot you.” So I said OK and I ran across the field until we got into a wooded area. We thought we would be safe there. The battleships starting shooting at the Japs, the waves were coming up and down, when they went down some of the flack would come down on us. My job was to signal them to raise their fire but I had lost my flags when I was carrying all the ammunition in, so the Marine who had the flags was evidently successful because shortly it stopped the fire from dropping on us. I had a little piece of metal hit my leg and it started to burn so I had to push it off my leg.
We got the word to move out, so we had to move out and we got to the bottom of the mountain. They told us before we left the safe area to fix bayonet. This was the first time that I got really scared. I thought to my self ‘I didn’t want to kill anybody.’ We started off, we got to the bottom of the mountain, heavy firing was coming from the Japs. So we jumped into any kind of crevice we could get into, a little later, I got shot. I couldn’t see the lieutenant because he was in another ditch nearby, I could hear him holler, ‘Chrislip, are you there?’ I yelled ‘yes,’ he said ‘Give the order, all men that aren’t wounded to form up to attack the Japs.’ I said ‘you mean all men who are wounded to pull back, don’t you?’ He said ‘why, are you wounded?’ I said yes. He said you stay where you’re at and kick the man next to you and tell him to go down the line and tell the men to move back 50 yards. I kicked the man to go but he didn’t want to go, finally he went. They formed a line like a firing squad and the lieutenant was ahead of them, everyone was trying to scoot down to be as little as possible. This lieutenant stood up like in the movies and he would direct the fire with his hand to the right, everyone would fire to the right. Then his hand to the left, everyone would fire in that direction. They drove the Japs up and killed many of them. They stopped their advance.
I lay there with my arm almost blown off, Messer and his buddy came up with a stupid grin on their faces. They looked at me, Messer was getting too close to my exposed wounded arm, so I looked up at him and reached over for my knife and pulled it out and stuck it into the ground next to my arm. Messer’s buddy said, ‘watch out you might kick dirt into his wound’ Messer then pulled back and left.
The lieutenant then came over and asked me how I felt and some of the men came over to say goodbye to me. Someone then gave me a shot. Then the lieutenant told Messer and his buddy to get a stretcher and carry me to the beach. I told the lieutenant I could walk. But I was covered with blood all over my uniform from laying all day wounded. The lieutenant insisted they carry me. They would go a few yards and stop, after they got away from where the lieutenant was, they would drop me because there would be fire. Finally, they stopped again and started talking, they asked me if it would be allright if they told me how to get to the beach because it was getting dark and they didn’t want to get caught between the lines. So I said ‘go ahead and go, I’ll get to the beach on my own.’ So I made it to the beach. Someone recognized me, they came out of their trenches and took me into a tent where there were a couple of officers. They said ‘what’s your name?’ I said ‘I don’t know,’ I didn’t remember my name. One of the Marines said ‘I know him, he’s Chrislip.” I said, ‘who in the hell are you?; He said ‘I’m your staff sergeant.’ They took me in their area and someone dug a foxhole and put me in a foxhole and I stayed there all night. First the Japs were all over the place and then the Americans would be running all over, it seemed like they would get right near me all night. Finally, it was daylight, the Japs were all gone. A few Americans were around, I walked over to a Marine and saw him pick up his rifle, I noticed what looked like a Marine going towards the ship, swimming and wading, this fellow with me picked up his rifle and shot him. I said, ‘why did you shoot him, it was a Marine?’ He said ‘I don’t care, he was going the wrong way.’ So I figured I better stay where I was and be careful.
I saw a landing craft and they told me to get in that. The blood was 2 or 3 inches thick in that craft. They took me aboard the ship. I had to get in line to get operated on. I waited and waited until finally they put me in a hammock and cut and cleaned to wound. One medic said maybe we should cut his arm off, I said, ‘No, you’re not going to cut my arm off.’ The Medic said if you don’t start moving it we’ll have to cut it off.
I was in the upper bunk, the ship was making allot of racket and rolling and started to move. It was going slow, I said ‘what’s going on?’ There was alot of firing going on. They said the Japanese army was out there but evidently the Americans got the best of the shootout. I saw some men huddled together praying and I felt like I wanted to join them but since I never went to church, I felt I would be like a hypocrite. I never went to church before and I was laying there I started to cry. I prayed to God that if I got out I would study all the religions and pick the best one I could, and that is what I did later on.
We went full speed all the way to Hawaii. I was able to walk, they took us to the hospital. They started to give us allot of shots. They said they had some Japanese prisoners if I wanted to see them. I said ‘No.’ I stayed in the hospital in Hawaii for maybe a couple of months. I got shots everyday in the butt. One day a guy said ‘cover your head,’ I said ‘why?’ He said just cover your head, the nurse went by and he pulled the shirt over my head and asked the nurse ‘Guess who this is?’ And she said ‘That’s Chrislip. I’d know him anywhere.’ Finally we got on a ship and they took us to San Francisco, we then went to several hospitals where I spent over a year. Then I was sent home.
While recuperating from my wounds in Bambridge, Maryland I was hitchhiking one day and was picked up by General Smith’s Sister. I showed her my citation signed by him and asked her if that really was his signature. She said ‘let me see it,’ then replied, ‘Yes, that was his signature.’
Another incident while on Saipan a Marine came up to me with three handguns and because he had no place to put the third handgun asked me if I wanted one. I said no, because I figured if I got caught by the Japs they would think I was an officer. Also another incident that happened while coming back wounded I saw a friend of mine locked in a wooden cage, they had metal cages for the men who were more severely off. One of my friends was shot in the buttocks and I said ‘If you found the Marine that did that, I bet you’d kill him’ and he said ‘No, I’d kiss him, he probably saved my life!’
Later on, I asked about the Marine that took my place in the office. He was a nice guy and became the head runner replacing me. A Marine told me that he ‘lost his head,’ I said ‘that’s good thinking he went berserk and was sent home.’ But the Marine said, ‘you don’t understand, his head was blown off!’ It seems he was standing between General Smith and another officer and was shot and blood from him was strewn all over the General and other officer and everyone panicked thinking the General had been shot too and that they lost their commander. This news really shocked me.
All the men liked ‘Howlin Mad’ Smith, he was a very good general. When the Army couldn’t hold up their end of the line and kept letting the Japs through the lines, he pulled them out of the lines and put more Marines in and got the job done. He was then put in charge of the whole operation over the Army and the Marines on Saipan.
After I was honorably discharged and received the Purple Heart , I started college at Youngstown University in Youngstown, Ohio. A friend of mine told me to find a ‘nice Slovak girl and get married,’ that’s what I did. August 21, 1995 we will celebrate out 47th wedding anniversary. We have two sons and two daughters and two grandsons and six granddaughters. We moved to California in 1963 and have all our family close to us. I’m thankful to God for answering all my prayers.