Howard Greig
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Howard Greig served in World War II in the Pacific Theater.
He served in the 77th Infantry Division, Tenth Army. He participated in the Battle of Okinawa, where he was wounded, and he was sent to a hospital in the Marianas.
Source: “Howard Greig Is Wounded In Okinawa,” newspaper from Sandstone, Pine County, Minnesota, circa June 5, 1945 (see below)
“Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan Greig received the following letter for their son, Howard who is with the 77th Division Infantry in the Okinawa battle. He was wounded and is now in a hospital in the Marianas:
“No doubt the War Department has sent you a notice of my misfortune. I was wounded May 11th at 10 o’clock at night on Okinawa and was evacuated by air and am now in the Marianas again in a nice hospital.
“We were up on the front lines and well dug in. There were three of us in the same fox hole. I went on guard at 9, while the others slept. At 10 I saw a Jap come crawling toward our fox hole and all at once he made a run for me with is rifle and bayonet. I fired on him and he fired back and as he came charging toward me I emptied my rifle into him and he fell dead three feet from our fox hole.
“I felt a sharp pain in my neck and jaw and on reaching up there I felt the warm blood running down my back and chest. The other men awoke by the gun fire and stood guard the rest of the night while I bandaged myself and took my wound tablets. It was an awful night, between stopping the flow of blood and fighting Japs that kept crawling up on us all night. The next morning there were six dead Japs lying around our fox hole.
“Then the aid man came and I was drawn from the lines at seven that morning and taken by plane to a hospital. The bullet entered the left side of my jaw and came out the back of my neck. I have a fractured lower jaw, but I am coming along fine. There is nothing to worry about as they have wonderful doctors here and they have done so much of this, they should know how.
“Okinawa is a mountainous Island with many caves and in these caves the Japs have good protection and are hard to run out. One cave, which held up our drive for nearly a week, was five stories straight down in the mountain with enormous rooms full of ammunition and food. So you see its pretty rough going.
“Hope everything is O.K. at home.
"Howard A. Greig,
37775613
Co. E 307th Inf.
APO—77
Care Postmaster
San Francisco, California"
