Published: July 04, 2008 01:51 am         

Fighting for freedom – James Cagle remembers service in the South Pacific

GREENVILLE — James Cagle’s life was saved by a can of food, just outside of Davao City on a jungle-shrouded island, called Mindanao on the south end of the Philippines.

The date was May, 1945, and Cagle was a young Browning Automatic Rifle (B.A.R.) gunner trapped by a Japanese sniper.

As the machine gunner and center of the American line, Cagle was the focus of a concentrated Japanese effort to kill him.

“Three bullets went into my pack,” Cagle explained. “We were pinned down by snipers. Every time I’d open up with that B.A.R., they’d all shoot at me, and was they ever. I knew they was coming from my right flank, you could tell from where the bullets were hitting.

“Someone said, ‘Cagle, you reckon he’s in the tree?’ I said, ‘No man. If he was in the tree he’d done got me; he’s on the ground.’ Sometimes they put ‘em up in the tree and tie ‘em up there. Then you shoot a whole lot on them. They knew they had no chance to get down from there.

“He had me pinned down good. He shot and cut my cleaning rod in two, the cleaning rod for my B.A.R. He shot me in the back of the pack, I was laying down flat. Three times, he hit my supper and dinner. I was sweating cold, man. Tell me if I didn’t have a guardian angel looking over my shoulder, I didn’t see any atheists up there. I was scared. Any man say he didn’t get scared, he’s lying to you. They passed the word back that they had got that sniper, but I didn’t believe ‘em. You get as flat as you can, turn your feet so they are flat, you don’t want to get hit in the heel, and if it’s sticking up they will shoot it.”

War is never far away for those who fought in it, no matter how far in the past, and that’s true for Cagle as well. “Just the other night I was having a nightmare, one of those Japs had got down in my fox hole and was trying to stab me, I was fighting him off, tried to get my hands around his neck,” Cagle says, as his hands mimic his words, forming a choke hold. “My wife woke me up because I was trying to fight her. The memories never get too far from you. But I’d do it all again, anything worth having is worth fighting for. ”

“Believe me, I seen ‘em take our boys. Tie ‘em to the tree. Pull their eyeballs out, their toenails, their fingers. While they were still alive,” Cagle says as tears fill his eyes. “That was my friends. You capture our boys back, you could count their ribs, they were so mistreated.”

Things seemed to run in threes for this 86-year-old World War II Army veteran, who now lives in a quiet apartment with his wife of 60 years, Mildred, on Joe Ramsey Boulevard in Greenville.

Cagle served three years in the Pacific Theater of combat; he destroyed three Japanese tanks with a bazooka; made three amphibious assaults; was pinned down for three days on a beach at New Guinea; spent three months training in jungle warfare in Australia; was shot in the backpack three times; and after a bout with three illnesses – malaria, jungle rot, and screw worms – that put him in the hospital for a month; he returned to duty and spent the final three days of the war on the frontlines.

Along the way Cagle fought at places with names like Shaggy Ridge, Mindanao, Luzon, Leyte Island, Mindora and Palau City.

Cagle was drafted in 1942 out of the Civilian Conservation Corps – which he joined at age 15 earning $6 a month and worked, among other things, at building fences for farmers near Wolfe City and on the airport in Sherman – into the 6th Army, serving in Company I of the 19th Division, 3rd Battalion.

“I weighed 113 at 19-years-old, I was a bean pole. They sent me to Hawaii for basic training. I didn’t get but six weeks basic training and then I had to go fight,” Cagle said. “There were still bomb holes in Hickham and Wheeler Fields of Hawaii, the windows were still shot out of the barracks when I got there. Basic training was making repairs and washing the barracks with a tooth brush ‘cause you got gig’ed. I was a PFC, didn’t want no promotion, didn’t want to be a platoon sergeant. As a PFC, you’ve got 11 men beside you, and they’re close as brothers.”

After basic training, Cagle was sent to Australia for training in jungle warfare before being sent to New Guinea. “We fought over New Guinea, then went to the Philippines, and then came home. I landed on Leyte Island, and we took Palau City and when we got that secured General Douglas MacArthur came in, after it was secured.

Cagle said he was in New Guinea for three months. “They were defending it, but they didn’t last too long. We took care of them,” he said. “We’d took a hill from them and they were trying to take it back. It was there on Shaggy Ridge, my assistant B.A.R. man got wounded. You see, one of us would sleep while the other wouldn’t. I had a new greenhorn recruit, we told him, ‘anybody out of the foxhole at night is the enemy’. He woke me up, he says, ‘Wake up, some of our men are out there.’ I said, “None of our men are out there.’ They’re out there saying, ‘Don’t shoot Joe it’s us. Don’t shoot Joe it’s us.’ I let loose on ‘em with the B.A.R. He said, “What’d you do that for.’ I said, ‘That’s the enemy.’ We went out there and counted ‘em. We had 35 dead Japs out there. The next morning, he said, ‘You know, I could have got us all killed’.”

Cagle said one of the hardest parts of jungle warfare was reconnaissance missions. “I went on patrols, I went behind enemy lines. I had a .45, that’s all I had, and a can of water. There was a squad of us, about 12. We were looking for information. We were trying to draw their fire. We had to estimate how strong they were and their position. They’d shoot at us but we couldn’t shoot back, unless they were right on you.”

For the invasion of Leyte, Cagle said the soldiers were loaded in a troop transport and then assembled on deck before the attack. “We went over the cargo net down into the landing barge, and then we’d go into the beach. Them sailors, they told us, ‘I’m gonna hit that barbwire so you guys get back there and lay because that front’s gonna come up and tear that barbwire up so you guys can get in without cutting any barbwire.’ He knew what he was talking about and he done it and saved us a lot. We was stuck on the beach for three days, because our Navy was fighting the Japanese Navy and couldn’t give us any air support.

“After we left Leyte going over to Luzon, that’s where the Japanese started suicide diving. They knew right where to hit those heavy cruisers, right between the stacks. But, you put two and two together and we knew we were winning the war. This war’s over because they’re suicide diving our ships.”

In the Philippines, Cagle drew bazooka duty. “We used it against Japanese tanks. When you fired it, you could see the bullet going. We always fired in front of it, about 15-20 feet in front of the tank and then you would hit it right in the middle and knock the track off. That’s what you’re trying to do, knock the track off and put it out of action. I got all three I shot at.”

At Mindanao, on the way to Davao City, the Japanese had blown up a bridge trying to delay the Infantry’s progress. “If the Japs were smart, they would have waited till the bridge was packed with tanks and stuff to blow it. We had to wade across that river. Ohh, was we ever under fire. I guarantee you we were running. A guy asked me, ‘How do you carry that B.A.R. with all that ammunition?’ I said, ‘I run with this boy’. I carried every bit of 75 pounds. That B.A.R. alone weighed 21 pounds without the sling. I had a big cartridge of ammunition, I had six on this side with two clips in each one and a bandolier come across here,” he motions to his chest. “And then you have two hand grenades down in your cartridge belt, and two canteens of water. The river was about this deep,” he motions to just below the knee, and filled with crocodiles. “It wasn’t very far across, but then you came to a big embankment, I guarantee I was scrambling up. You could hear the hand grenades hitting the Japanese. When they would attack they’d yell, ‘Banzai, Banzai, Banzai’ and just keep coming.”

“I got malaria, jungle rot and screw worms, spent 31 days in a hospital. Got out, went back to the front lines, stayed three days and the war was over. Though it was intense those last three days. We had a Cagle get killed on the last day.”

While proud of his service to his country, and the medals he’s earned, Cagle has only one honor hanging on his wall. It’s from the First Baptist Church of Celeste honoring him for 15 years of service as church maintenance man. “I’m proud of that, that’s what I want to be remembered for,” he says holding the plaque. “I’m proud of my country, I’ve been proud of it every day of my life. Like I said, anything worth having is worth fighting for.”



On this Fourth of July, the Herald-Banner salutes all of our veterans who have served and insured our Independence