This article was originally published in the St. Croix Review.
As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, I would like to pay tribute to my step-grandfather Major General O.F. Peatross, United State Marine Corps. He was the embodiment of a hero in his own way, and is resume should wake us all up not only to the call of duty and patriotism but to how much we owe in gratitude to the brave men and women who have fought for our freedom and protection. He died in 1993 after a year-long bout with pancreatic cancer.
Gen. Peatross fought in the worst battles in the Pacific during World War II, as well as in Korea and Vietnam; he was also commanding general at Parris Island from 1968 to 1971. I think he would have been awarded a third star, though by then, my grandmother suggested that he had given enough years to the military, so he agreed to retire. Unfortunately, soon thereafter, she had a terrible stroke. I am proud to write that he took loving care of her for years until she died.
It had not been Peat Peatross’s intention to serve in the Marines for 31 years. In 1939 he received a Bachelor of Science degree from North Carolina State, where he also played on the baseball team. He was a good-ole Raleigh boy, yet with the war breaking out, he felt a need to volunteer. He joined the Marine Corps in 1940. He entered officer candidate school in Quantico. By 1941, he had completed this track and was commissioned as a Marine 2nd Lieutenant. Then, he reported to the 2nd Marine Division in California before being shipped overseas with the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion.
According to the late author George W. Smith in his book Carlson’s Raid, The Daring Marine Assault on Makin, The Raiders were formed by Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, and they were small squads of fire teams that:
“… would often be operating in secret or behind enemy lines or engaged in prolonged marches far from mortars, tanks, artillery, air cover, and naval gunfire. Therefore, they needed to carry their own firepower with them. The weapons had to be light, east to maintain, and effective at close range.”
Over the coming months, Peatross fought in the Makin Island Raid, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Iwo Jima. He earned the Navy Cross for his valor at Makin.
During the Korean War, he was a battalion commander with the 1st Marine Division, and was later awarded the Legion of Merit with Combat V. In Vietnam he was the landing force commander at Operation Starlight and earned a Silver Star, a Gold Star in place of another Legion of Merit, and several medals given by the Vietnamese. He was awarded dozens of medals over the years, too long of a list, and some were awarded more than once.
Peatross was not awarded the Purple Heart because the only wound he had during his years on the Corps was when he jumped in a foxhole and chipped his tooth on someone’s helmet.
After he retired in 1971, General Peatross worked on his book Bless ’em All which author Smith said was “the most accurate and thorough account of the Raider action on Makin.” My grandfather wrote this because he always felt that the Raiders had been given short shrift in history, and he wanted to set the record straight to honor these brave soldiers.
I have recently read the book, and I wish I had ready it while my grandfather was still alive. What those men went through in the Pacific battles just takes your breath away. How any of them survived is beyond me. Seeing your comrades slaughtered in front of you; dodging snipers in palm trees; having poor communications between companies; sometimes not even having food, with the only water coming from rainfall; battling malaria, dysentery and other ailments not to mention swarms of bugs and snakes; wrestling choking vines in jungles and navigating swamps where they would have to wade through waist deep mud (remember they were carrying weapons and often the wounded too); battling torrential downpours which went on for days; and traveling in rubber boots that flipped in rough surf as they tried to navigate coral reefs to land on various islands.
Not to mention they were all dealing with a culture the found honor in suicide, so that soldiers, screaming “Banzai,” bayonets in hand, would charge the Marines, ready to die for their emperor.
Stephen R. Platt in his book The Raider, The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II tells a story about my grandfather returning to base camp in an empty village and sleeping on the ground in a hut. Later in the night there was enemy fire, so he quickly started digging a foxhole with his helmet. He uncovered the face of a dead Japanese soldier. He moved around the hut to dig but kept striking dead soldiers, so he just gave up and went back to sleep on the dirt floor, surrounded by buried soldiers.
If you had the chance to meet Peat Peatross, you would have been surprised to learn he had been a Marine hero and was brilliant at combat and strategy. He was a soft-spoken North Carolinian with a good sense of humor and a wonderful laugh. He was a fine painter – I have a watercolor of a Siamese cat he painted – and he made furniture and carved decoys. One of his passions was quail hunting. I think all those years he and my father spent hunting together is what made them so close.
His grandchildren called him “Daddy Peat.”
Like most veterans, Peatross rarely talked about this wartime experiences. Now that I have read his book, I understand why. How he managed to live with the horrors he must have seen I will never understand. The only effect I ever noticed is he refused to visit Asia again. He would never buy a Japanese car. Once I asked him how he got through all those years as he moved up the ranks to more senior positions, serving at Marine Headquarters, Quantico, Camp Pendleton, Parris Island and the like, and he said he always assigned duties to the busiest people because they get things done. Good advice.
After he retired, he worked on his art, his writing, and he became involved in the Presbyterian church and the community of Beaufort, South Carolina. He lived on St. Helena’s Island, not far from Pat Conroy. His great faith probably helped him get through so many of those battles.
On a personal note, he was one of the main people in my life who encouraged me to write.
The copy of Bless ’em All I have is filled with letters of condolence to the wonderful woman, Marie, whom he married after my grandmother’s death. The letters are from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, E. Mundy, Jr., Sen. Strom Thurmond, Congressman Arthur Ravenel, Jr., a few Raiders, Marines, their spouses, the citizens of The Low Country of South Carolina, all describing him with words like gallant, courageous, exceptional, a patriot, a Christian.
Major General Oscar Franklin Peatross, USMC, was buried on Memorial Day Weekend, May 28, 1993, with full military honors at Beaufort National Cemetery in one of the most moving ceremonies I will ever attend, as all of lamented the passing of a great American hero.
