“I’m no hero. I’m a survivor.” Those were the words of Dwight Hellums standing in front of Shady Grove UMC Church in Northwest Calhoun County Monday afternoon.
Hellums, 94, speaking to a gathering of more than two dozen for the Loosa Schoona DAR chapter’s monthly meeting, shared his experiences in four major battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Hellums described himself as a farm boy in the Shady Grove Community when his oldest brother Judge Clayton Hellums was called into service by the U.S. Army.
“I tried to get in the same outfit he was, but they wouldn’t let me,” Hellums said. “So I enlisted in the Marines.”
He went to Jackson where he was sworn in and put on a train to San Diego. During training there, he got leave one day and with a friend hitched a ride to another base farther north where his brother was stationed.
“We got there about 3 a.m. and got to eat breakfast with my brother,” Hellums said.
It was the last time he would ever see him.
Judge Clayton Hellums was sent to Europe as a tank commander and was ultimately killed in France when the Germans bombed his tank. His official dog tag and remains wouldn’t be discovered until 2003 by Frenchman Gerard Louis (a story shared in the April 20, 2006 edition of The Journal).
Dwight Hellums returned to San Diego after that breakfast and was soon assigned to a ship delivering ammunition to the First Marines Division.
They sailed for two months before finally landing on the island of Tonga. They landed just in time for a hurricane to hit.
“Our captain would have to crank up and back the ship up because the 110-mile per hour winds kept pushing it into shore,” Hellums said. “I was assigned a watch and had to tie myself to the rail to keep from getting blown off.”
They survived the hurricane and continued their mission to Guadalcanal – one of the key early campaigns in the Pacific Theater attempting to halt the Japanese’ attacks on Allied supply routes.
It was their second morning there when 28 Japanese torpedo planes flew over the ammunition convoy including Hellums’ ship. An all-out assault began.
“We got credit for shooting down three of those planes,” Hellums said.
They continued on to New Zealand where they trained for the invasion of Tarawa. Hellums’ role was driving an “amphibious tractor” onto the beach in the first wave. The ships would drop them off 10 miles from shore where they would begin their approach under heavy fire.
“We got hit hard,” he said. “Four of my Marines were killed before we got to the beach.”
Everybody else on board, including Hellums, was wounded. They would spend the next 36 hours pinned down by enemy fire, but were ultimately rescued.
“They put me on a merchant marine ship, laid me on a table, cut my clothes off and began pulling scrap metal out of my back side and legs. I still have some of that metal in my legs.”
He was then shipped back to “Hospital 128” at Pearl Harbor for more surgery.
“We had one of the best doctors I’ve ever seen there,” Hellums said. He described how the doctor worked around the clock caring for the wounded.
“He had a small cot and a bottle of whiskey in his operating room,” Hellums said. “He’d pour him a shot and lay down for as long as he could between surgeries.”
Part of the shrapnel cut a nerve in Hellums’ right arm, making it immovable. With the doctor’s help and a tough recovery, Hellums regained use of the arm, and months later returned to his unit. This time they were headed to Saipan where the approach to the beach was once again deadly.
“I got unloaded on the beach and was about 200 yards back out when we got shot up with nine holes in my amphibious tractor,” he said. “We were taking on a lot of water, but made it back to the ship.”
They had another close scare delivering ammunition to Tinian, where they were bombarded with heavy mortar fire.
“We got close to being annihilated,” Hellums said.
He was then shipped back to California where he was soon after recruited to be part of the “Victory War Bond Drive.”
“They sent me to Washington, D.C. and then we got on a train and went all the way to Pueblo, Colorado and back,” Hellums said. “The tour covered 59 cities in eight weeks.”
Hellums, standing Monday in the front of the small country church, his face scarred from a battle with cancer, reiterated his position to those at Shady Grove that he is not a hero, but a survivor.
“The heroes are those that didn’t come back,” Hellums said. “All I did was my duty. I think about all those that weren’t as fortunate as I was.”