HomeMy WebLinkAboutGarland Cannon, Brazos Valley Heroes
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~x Garland~
~nnon, Jr,.,
By Bill Youngkin tabletennisplayertillthat match.Whenhewasn'tentertaining,
al Special to The Eagle he must have been playing table tennis.
"My next assignment was at Eniwetok in the Marshall
3 By the fall of 1941 Garland Cannon, Jr. had graduated from
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Islands. It had alread been taken,andourroletherewastotrain
high school in Sterling City, enrolled at the University of Texas, Y
joined the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity and was enjoying college life for the invasion of the Philippines. We landed in the Philippines
on October 21, 1944, and fought there until we left in December
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to the fullest. Then came Pearl Harbor and the war. 1944. We handed over our big guns to the Army at General
Life for Cannon began in Fort Worth on December 5, 1924. MacArthur's request. The Marines didn't care very much for
Soon after his birth his parents moved to Sterling City in West General MacArthur. I remember one sign printed and posted by
Texas, where he completed high school in May 1941 at 17 years some Marine outside of Manila that said,'With the help of God 445
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' of age. and a few Marines, MacArthur returned to the Philippines'
According to Cannon, "When the war started some of my "Our next action was on Saipan. I wasn't in on the initial
fraternity brothers joined that would allow them to ,t programs invasion, but there were a number of Japanese snipers still left
stay in school for a while and then go to officer candidate school, after we arrived. We suffered several casualties because of them ;
with mostjoining the Navy/Marine program. I was too young to But the biggest and worst of all was yet to come, Okinawa.
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enroll. In the summer of 19431 told my parents I was going to
,
join the Marines, which my father was against. He wanted me "Okinawa was where the Marines, the Navy and the Army
to join the programs my fraternity brothers had joined. Most of suffered some of the worst casualties of the war. It was the
them had completed their programs, received their commissions bloodiest by far. Andthatiswherethelapanesekamikazeplanes
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were used most effectively. There were so many kamikaze planes
and the majority of them were in the Washington, D.C., area %
enjoying life as single young officers and gentlemen. that they couldn't be stopped. From where I was on Okinawa at
night you could see the sky glowing red and yellow from ships ~j
"I was only 19 years old and didn't need my parents' burning in the bay.
permission to join the military. I went against my father's
request, which made him rather unhappy, and joined the "After the first week or so on Okinawa, we began receiving
Marines. I was trained in San Diego and on December 26, 1943, replacements because of our casualty loss. I remember one
@ boarded a ship for the Hawaiian Islands. Almost immediately young Marine replacement who I bet wasn't 18 years old, who
we ran into a bad storm at sea. The ship had a lot of barrels of was told to leave his pack and to join his platoon in an advance
kerosene and gasoline on board ship. Although the barrels were The pack contained a picture of his mother and he wanted to ;A
strapped down, they kept breaking loose, with a lot of sailors take it, but was told to leave it and that it would be there when
and Marines incurring broken arms and legs. he got back. None of the Marines sent on that mission made it
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"We finally landed in Hawaii, where we trained for action back. I always wondered what happened to that picture and
whether it was ever returned to his mother. It is strange about
in the South Pacific. The picture of me was taken in Hilo, Hawaii, some of the things one remembers from war.
after I was promoted to corporal. In Hawaii we trained at Camp
Catlin, which had a jungle environment, so we had a pretty good " It was sent to Tsingtao, China, for a short while after the
idea of where we were headed. Tarawa had been invaded in war ended before being sent home. I remember it as a miserable
November of 1943, and that was where we were shipped. place to be with not enough food. When I was discharged, my
family somehow managed to barter for gasoline coupons and
"We became replacements to the Second Marine Division
drove to meet me in Douglas, Arizona. We had a nice family trip
on Tarawa. It was at Tarawa that I first smelled what war was back to Sterling City. I re enrolled at UT, where I graduated in
like. The bodies had been buried as best they could in the coral 1948, and was married the same year. I received my masters
sands of Tarawa, but that didn't stop the smell of the decaying from Stanford and my PhD. in English and linguistics from UT
bodies. The odor was so bad that a lot of Marines became sick. all under the G.I. Bill.
"There were still some Japanese left on the neighboring
islands in the Gilbert Islands chain. From February 17 to March "I accepted a position at A&M in 1966 as a professor of
21,1944, we did clean-up action on a neighboring island called linguistics in the English department, with my specialty being
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• the Arabic, Farsi and Japanese languages. I remained at A&M
Apemama Island. Though the Japanese were few, they,fought
until I retired in 1992.
to the death. That was going to be pretty much the way the
Japanese defended for the rest of the war, to the death." "Looking back on that time, I remember all too well how
bloody World War II was. But we had to go and do what we did
. In April Cannon returned to the Hawaiian Islands to train
and to become part of the newly formed Sixth Marine Division. If you want to have a name added to the Veterans Memorial
As recalled by Cannon, "We trained hard but were able to see for more information, to make a contribution, or if you know a
several USO shows. I was chosen to play Bob Crosby, Bing's World Warllveteran whosestoryneedstobetold,contacttheBWM
brother, in a table tennis match. I always thought I was a good at www.veteransmemorial.orgorBill Youngkinat(979)260-7030