Community Heroes Series
From the December 2004 issue of Alabama Living magazine

Throughout the annals of warfare, there have been tales of honor, valor, and courage. Stories of struggle and chaos, laughter and tears abound in each era of war. Because we have in our culture a deep respect and protection for human life, many of these tales recollect how even our war-seasoned soldiers strive to preserve life when at all possible. As such, there are occasional stories that go beyond the expected: stories that shed a keen light on what makes Americans unique and what makes us strive to make the world a better place. One such tale comes from local Lamar Countian, Travis Nethery, of Millport.

Nethery began his military service in 1942 at the age of twenty. He was a member of a portable, surgical hospital unit which was attached to the Army’s 81st “Wildcat” Infantry Division. His story begins September 1944 in Oceania, in the Palau Islands of the South Pacific. See map below:

Palau is a landform, known as an archipelago, which consists of an open sea cluster or chain of islands. This chain was comprised of more than 200 islands, of which only eight were inhabited. War raged in the South Pacific for control of this island chain because an assault on Peleliu was viewed as a potential threat to General Douglas MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines. Three marine regiments, already doing battle here, pushed forward in Peleliu at the Battle of Bloody Nose Ridge, giving the green light for the 81st to begin its operations on the islands of Anguar and Ulithi. According to Richard Wheeler, author of A Special Valor: The US Marines and the Pacific War, the 81st Infantry Division was made up of the 321st, 322nd and 323rd Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs) and was to assault both Angaur and Ulithi when released by the 1st Marine Division commander. The 81st had been reactivated at Camp Rucker, Alabama in June 1942. It was filled out with newly commissioned reserve officers and conscripted troops. The 81st received extensive desert training, participated in exercises stressing the attack of fortified defensive positions, and amphibious training. It was transported to Guadalcanal where it received jungle training, acclimatization and training in rugged terrain. Angaur and Peleliu would be its first combat action. The battles in Palau resulted in some of the highest casualty rates of any amphibious invasion in the entire war in the Pacific.

With the marines in place and fighting on neighboring islands, the 81st “Wildcats” landed to take the island back from the Japanese, and Nethery’s medical attachment was along for the ride. “There was only thirty-seven enlisted men and four surgeons in our attachment. It was our duty to care for the wounded from the 81st,” Nethery explained. “The commanding officer was David S. Ascher, a Major and a surgeon. I was his assistant in combat, and I administered the anesthesia and assisted him in whatever had to be done for the troops,” he said.

The island terrain was bare and black. It was an abrupt spine of jagged cliffs and jungle which was proliferated with countless caves - all which had to be explored in search of hidden Japanese troops. The landscape made for a horrible place to fight and the island temperature was scorching. “It was hot,” recalled Nethery, “real hot, but our job was to go there and take that island, and to hunt for the Japanese that wouldn't give up,” he said. “We went in at zero-seven-hundred hours on a 3-4-prong landing. An amphibious barge took us up as far as it could toward the beach. In taking the beach, we'd have to wade to the island in water up over our heads and hope we wouldn’t get hit. A short distance up onto the beach was thick jungle, and the island was covered with caves.” he said.

For the first two or three days, of what would become a month-long campaign, the 81st advanced onto the island. “Our mission was to secure Angaur and Ulithi, then move forward and over-take the Paluan islands,” said Nethery. “Three miles away was Peleliu, and the Marines hit that island while we hit Angaur,” he said.
“The third day at Angaur we were deep in the jungle and we came upon another large series of caves. We went into one cave to scout out any enemies and then heard what sounded like a baby crying. We continued deeper into the cave about quarter of a mile. The crying became louder, and then high upon a ledge we spotted several babies. It was an incredible sight!” he said.

The soldiers found four babies that day in the cave. Three boys, and one girl. All were about one month old. They rescued the infants and took them back to the beach where their commanding officer, Major Ascher, quickly assigned surrogate dads for the babies from his medical corp. “The Major was a tough guy. He knew we didn’t know what to do with these little babies, but that didn’t stop him from issuing them to our care! Of course, you know you had to have cooperation, and when the old man told us to deal with it we had to make the best of the situation at hand. I had never in my life tried to take care of a baby, and neither had the other four guys who got this assignment. Heck, we were all in our early twenties, and gosh, look here, we never expected to have that duty in the Army!” Nethery chuckled. “Major Ascher handed me the little boy to take care of and said, ‘Travis, this is your baby. Now, I don't give a damn what happens to you, but you'd better take care of this baby!’... and I did too,” he laughed.

The babies presented quite a problem for the soldiers. First of all, they were still right in the middle of a war with fighting going on all around them. The Marines in Peleliu called for additional help, but the 81st had not yet secured their islands, and they could not leave to fight elsewhere with four young babies in tow - it was quite the dilemma. With no women at all on the island, it was assumed that the babies mothers had either been killed, or taken prisoner by the Japanese. The idea was that the Japanese had either left the babies there to die, or the mothers had hidden their children in the caves in the chance that they might be saved from harm. While the war raged on, Major Ascher contacted the nearest allies in New Zealand who sent a special envoy to retrieve the babies. But it would take them almost a month to reach Anguar, and until then Nethery and the other surrogates had to feed and care for the orphaned infants.
“Coming up with something to feed those babies was something else," Nethery recalled, and what they did was nothing short of ingenious.
“We had rations, of course, and our C-Rations included items like high-nutrition chocolate bars,” he explained. “To feed those babies we took the chocolate bars and made a powder from it. Then we’d boil water and put it in a plasma bottle, add the chocolate powder, and stir until it was mixed. We put the thumb part of a surgical glove over the neck of the bottle and cut off the tip end of the thumb to make a nipple, and then the babies could drink the liquid. I can tell you, a bottle of that stuff wouldn't last too long because they were so hungry,” he said. “Of course that would make another problem... a big problem… they'd have to use the bathroom! We'd tear up our shirts and boxers, and tie it on them with strings. We also have to wash the make-shift diapers. We’d clean them up every hour or so in between trying to help our own guys who were injured in the fighting,” he said.
The “dads” not only cleaned and fed the babies, but they became attached to them and gave them names. “My middle name is Rickmon, so I called mine Rick,” he said. But even though we felt connected to these babies, not one of us did not at some point ask, “What the heck do we need with a baby out here!”

During their time on the island, the 81st lost over 250 men in what was one of the bloodiest campaigns in the South Pacific. Asked what his most memorable war experience was Nethery was quick to say, “finding those little babies.” He noted that, “Although all of us who cared for those babies were glad when it was over, it was sad to see them go without knowing whether they'd be cared for or not. It was also sad that the four guys who shared that experience eventually moved in different directions after the war.
I think that our story relates to the American instinct to take care of something that can not take care of itself. We were on those islands to either take a life or save a life... that's what it all boils down to.”

Kay Marshall is the Internet Projects Coordinator and Editor for TEC

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