b8c31a63-9289-4d5d-95d3-f66ed0556eb2

O'Bannon, Wilcie_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

Wilcie A. O’Bannon was born May 18th, 1920 in Red River County, Texas. He was raised in the panhandle of Texas, west of Lubbock. Wilcie joined the service out of high school, at the age of 20, in July 1940 in Emerald, Texas. His intention was to join the Navy, but most of the places where there was recruiting stations were in the basement of a post office, especially in the Midwest. So he went downstairs and the first room he came to was the US Marine Corps and then Navy office was just beyond. So he turned into the Marine Corps room and the recruiting sergeant got him. After boot camp, Wilcie was assigned to the 6th regiment which was dispatched to Iceland in July of ’41. There were eight or ten different military groups from different countries on Iceland at the time. Pearl Harbor occurred December 7th, 1941 and by February the 5th, Wilcie’s unit was back in the States with the government was trying to assemble and organize a fighting force. Men were coming into the Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, real fast and the 6th regiment was broken up and Wilcie along with numerous other members of the group, were assigned to the 9th regiment, which was a new regiment being formed and officially became a part of the 3rd Marine division. The 9th regiment was formed in San Diego area. The 21st was one of the other regiments that made up the division along with the 3rd regiment. The division did not get together as a division until they all ended up in Guadalcanal. Wilcie got married in June 19th, 1942. He and his wife lived in an apartment in San Diego about five and a half months before he went overseas to the Pacific. Captain Bone recommended that he go to OCS school out there on the West Coast. A place called Greens Farm near Camp Elliot. Wilcie became a second lieutenant. After he was commissioned, he went aboard ship and went to New Zealand and was assigned to G Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th. Fraser West was his CO. Wilcie recalls quite a nice experience in New Zealand. Some of the best chow, in his experience with the service, was in New Zealand. However they also went through hard training, with 75-80 mile hikes, a lot of physical drills, and physical exercise in the morning. They stayed in New Zealand from the latter part of February and then we went up to Guadalcanal in July. They had a little activity in Guadalcanal. Wilcie did not recall that they met any resistance, but they did experience Washing Machine Charlie a couple times a week to wake them up with fragmentary bombs. The next stop was Bougainville. Wilcie recalls the purpose of the Bougainville operation was to establish a beach head – secure an area for an airfield to be developed. After Bougainville, they went back into camp for Guadalcanal and began to train for the campaign to follow. Wilcie was transferred from G Company, where he was a platoon leader, to F Company as company exec. The company exec’s duties would be to follow the command of the company commander first, whatever his wishes might be. In combat or in training, would take charge of a certain element of the command post. He had personnel and a CP, first sergeant, communications people, corpsman, medical staff and so forth and oversees that that particular group of people function properly and always at the right elbow of the company commander. Also to take care of the supply. The unit was scheduled to go Guam and first did about 51 or 52 days being aboard ship as a floating reserve for Saipan. They got time off at Enewetak for about a half a day to play ball and exercise. The boat Wilcie was on was the President Jackson. They landed on Guam in a LCVP in the second wave. Wilcie’s regiment consisted of three battalion of troops and the first battalion was in the first wave, his second battalion was in the second wave. The platoon leaders had a platoon that consisted of 55-60 men and they were instructed to advance forward and then scatter out in a skirmish line and take cover if you are receiving enemy fire. Wilcie gave instructions to communication people – runners, telephone people, so forth. On the combat maps they had, there were lines drawn, indicating an objective and the first day they reached their objective and dug in for the night. The next morning they went into attack and advanced further. Wilcie describes how they went through an area of coconut trees and picked up coconuts and broke them open and drank the coconut juice. They were deployed in the afternoon, as he recalls. Later than they should have been, because as the battle progressed, darkness over took the fighting force and was hindering their advance and in some cases we were unable to supply ammunition or even evacuate wounded as darkness caught them. They ran into stiff resistance coming from Fonte Ridge. They were getting ready to go on up the ridge and control the high ground. Colonel Cushman, the battalion commander had requested artillery fire to precede the attack up the ridge. In the end, they were successful in getting across the open ground and advance as directed. Wilcie describes a command post. It consisted of Wilcie or the first sergeant of the company, and his runner. That is an enlisted man that can take messages and be dispatched at various times. You had medical people, communications people, around ten people. Command post could be anything – you could occupy an enemy emplacement. It could be a shell hole or in the brush. That night, a lot of those casualties were laying right out on top of the ground, did not have any shell hole or foxhole to be placed in. Wilcie thinks the number of bonzai charges that the CP experienced that night, was four or five. That night he helped get the gunnery sergeant, “Pee Wee” who had been hit in both legs by machine gun fire to the battalion aid station. Captain West brought tanks up to help with the assaults. The next morning they continued the attack and were successful enough to drive the enemy from the high ground and by the next night, they still had some high ground to take, but set up a CP further on up the ridge, but still not at the top, because in the next day is when they took the high ground, including Bundschu Hill. Wilcie gives his opinion of the Japanese soldier. He said they had the elite group as well as their average fighting man, but overall they were fighting machines. He also saw some proof of how barbaric they were during the war with the Chamorro people. As far as Wilcie is concerned, the Guam campaign went off as planned. The anniversary is his first time back in those 50 years. The two days so far that he had been there, he met wonderful people. Everyone said to him, welcome back. He enjoyed seeing the artifacts in the museum.

U.S. National Park Service, War in the Pacific National Historical Park

This digital asset is in the public domain. This digital version was made possible through the National Park Service by a grant from the National Park Foundation through generous support from the Mellon Foundation. When using this asset for any purpose, including online, credit 'Courtesy U.S. National Parks'.

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War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Code: WAPA

Guam , Guam
War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Guam , Guam
Latitude: 13.3905000686646, Longitude: 144.654006958008

ICMS (Interior Collection Managment System) : WAPA-00246
NPS Museum Number Catalog : WAPA 4170

War in the Pacific Oral Histories

2025/03/07

T. Stell Newman Visitor Center, Collections room, Safe and Shelf SLF D-01

Public Can View

Rose Manibusan, Jennifer Craig

Organization: American Memorial Park
Role: Chief Interpretation
Address: Micro Beach Road, Garapan, Mp 96950
Email: wapa_interpretation@nps.gov

Saturday, April 5, 2025 12:02:14 AM

Saturday, April 5, 2025 12:02:14 AM

O'Bannon, Wilcie_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

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2047.3 MB

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