The Man Who Survived a Japanese Machine Gun Point Blank
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- The bitter smell of gunpowder hung heavy in the air as First Lieutenant John V. Power clutched his bleeding stomach, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The din of battle raged around him - the rhythmic beats of machine gun fire, the thunderous explosions of mortars, and the desperate shouts of his fellow Marines. On this hellish February day in 1944, the fate of Namur Island hung in the balance.
This tiny island stood as a daunting obstacle in America's island-hopping strategy. Its capture would shatter Japanese defenses in the Marshall Islands and open the path to the enemy's doorstep. But first, the Marines had to survive this crucible of fire and steel.
Power's platoon was pinned down, caught in the crossfire of a Japanese pillbox that seemed impenetrable. Men were falling left and right, and the assault was stalling. Despite the searing pain from his stomach wound, Power knew what he had to do. He rose to his feet, his left hand pressed against his injury while his right gripped his M1 carbine.
Time seemed to slow as Power fixed his gaze on the pillbox. The 25-yard stretch before him might as well have been a mile, littered with debris and crisscrossed by enemy fire. His men watched in awe and horror as their lieutenant began his charge.
Bullets whizzed past him, kicking up sand and fragments of coral. Power's world narrowed to the muzzle flashes ahead, his carbine blazing as he advanced. Platoon Sergeant Mangum would later recall the incredible scene: (QUOTE) "He was like a one-man army. It seemed that he wanted to win the whole war by himself, right then and there."
Power was a man possessed, driven by duty, and had an indomitable will to save his men and complete the mission. But as he neared the pillbox, the enemy fire intensified. The fate of Namur - and perhaps the entire campaign - now rested on the shoulders of this wounded Marine lieutenant charging headlong into the heart of danger.
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As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Docs sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. I do my best to keep it as visually accurate as possible. All content on Dark Docs is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas. -
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Thank you Dark Docs for keeping the legacy of Lieutenant Power alive.
This why the US armed forces are unbeatable. It has nothing to do with our technologies but rather, the courage and grit that our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen have and always will show. It is something no other military or country has or ever will have. Every country has its heroes, but there is just something every man in the US military has. When the bullets are flying and bombs bursting all around, there is one thing we have above anyone else in the world. We fight for each other and we know we can depend on each other. We know that we will never leave anyone behind. We are all individuals and yet we are one. We are taught these values as we grow up and we are taught initiative, which is what separates us from all other militaries. I know these things because I am a Vietnam combat vet, and I've spoken with numerous WWII, Korean War, Iraq, and Afghanistan veterans. They have all told me the very same things. May God continue to watch over our troops wherever they may be around the world.
We WERE unbeatable but not now. The politicians make sure of that!
i fear those days, as many of our fallen, have been left behind.
*cough* ( Vietnam 🇻🇳) *cough*
I worked on both of these islands for two years. The bunkers are still there, and some of the gun emplacements still stand to this day. As a retired Marine, it was humbling walk where these heros had foight so hard.
Did those heros grant us more freedoms or less?
Are we more free today due to them or are we enslaved by the military industrial complex they created?
@dr.floridaman4805 heros are defined differently by each person. What matters they answered a call to serve. All gave some, some gave all.
@@oogrunt03 the japanese answered the call as well. Are they your heros?
To serve who?
Elite interest
Banking interest
Big oil interest
@dr.floridaman4805 again, everyone views heros in their own perspective. I never said that the Japanese, the Germans, or anyone else wasn't. Not sure what point you are trying to make here, but the only point is that everyone answered the call, regardless of what country they came from. Heros are just that, regardless of politics, views, or personal opinions. You are entitled your options, views, and speech, just as I am. Question for you sir, have you ever served or just have a different view than everyone else and like to stir the pot?
@@dr.floridaman4805 The military-industrial complex exists for sure but heroes like John Power didn't create it, that's just ignorant. The MIC exists because war requires tons of expendable military hardware that makes defense contractors a crap load of $$$$ they aren't willing to give up when the fighting is over. For now..
Rest in Peace Lt. John V. Power. Thank you for your sacrifice to our nation.
For what?
The bad guys won.
@@dr.floridaman4805 shut your hole.
That's a jackass statement @@dr.floridaman4805
My biggest regret not serving in the military, 6 knee surgeries now at 42 I would have been a liability. I can not undo time but have an always will have an unplayable debt to those the have and will do
I really respect your realization. Your heart was there, though, and that matters.
There is always service to do my brother. Helping Veterans, animal shelters, orphanages, human rights. I have confidence in ya 🤙
@@ArlingtonK.Springfield940 my wife and I make and bring dinners to the veterans house down the street from time to time and play games etc. it is our way of serving and giving our respect and portion.
Hey, I’m right there with you on the knee surgeries. I’ve had six on my left knee so far and I haven’t even had a replacement yet. I’m putting off the replacement for as long as possible because those six really didn’t fix the pain.
i fear that there may come a time when you might yet have an opportunity to serve, all enemies foreign and domestic. choose a side. dark clouds loom.
Semper Fidelis and Godspeed Brother!!!!
Marines like you are why Marines like me joined and fought for this great country!! Thank you and all the Marines before me!!
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
These men gave me my freedom I will not let a communist take it from my children
What about a wannabe dictator?
What's the difference between a dictator and the leader of a communist state?
@@leighz1962 -- some dictators are communist, china, and some are elected like Putin. Some dictators come to power legally like Hitler and some like Sadam.
We need Trump to get our country back from the traitors running our future into the ground right now
Vote blue then and stop Putin's best buddy from destroying America and world order.
80% of the boys of the Depression era. 2% of men today.
People who bitch and whine about how hard life is today and “gas is so expensive” “groceries” don’t know jack shit about real hardship. Depression era Americans were real tough. Not this pansey shit of gen X and millennials
😢😢😢😢😢
Oh shove it. You don't have a clue.
@@L_Train.02 he had the decimal in the wrong place .
@@L_Train he is right military recruiting suck now because of woke bullshit
Brilliant video.😊
🎖️🏆⭐🙏
Thank you for sharing this
It wasn't "his call" to go with the demo team. The PL moves with the assault element when knocking out a bunker. That's just tactical SOP. What he did after that was definitely Medal of Honor worthy though.
Freedom isnt free..
Vigilance is the price. Sometimes blood.
When men were men
Oh, boo hoo you fruity pebble
Why didn’t they pass their manliness on.
@@Charles-k9g5y The social degradation came from too many Baby-Boomers following the advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock's book "Baby and Childcare." The great spirit of America was diluted by his leftist social activism through his child-rearing advice. With only brief interludes it has been all downhill from there.
@@Charles-k9g5yyou don’t think our current soldiers are manly? I am grateful for our current soldiers who have served bravely in the last many years in several wars.
@@lhopi -- you misunderstood. Anyone in any country that signs up for the military, fire or police are good by me.
Another awesome video. God bless our fighting men and women.
Thank You all for Your Service and sacrifice
This Marine ; wanted to save his men , his brother MARINES . Amazing stories of bravery in the face of insane odds. Leutenant Power : Go with God. 💪🏻🇺🇸
The Navy thought Tarawa would be a cakewalk because it was tiny and totally flat. Little did they know it was riddled with dug in bunkers with just the gun slit above ground-barely! Hollander Smith, who made a lot of mistakes in the Pacific campaign-was right about one thing, they should have bypassed Taeawa!
It's dusty in here.. RIP.
👍👍👍
My mother’s only sibling was 17, when he died at Tarawa 😢
His name lived on in the middle of my brother’s name. My name is my father’s cousin’s name… Bastogne…
This is your family? Powers? The hero up top? Very cool and thank you for your great uncle I guess.
2%...?
Thats being generous..
First
Rah!
You take point.
That Morphine was working good he hee
@ 17:34 The Marine officer with the sunglasses looks like he could be James Roosevelt, FDR's son. I'm sure this us just stock footage but it makes me wonder if this is some footage from the 2nd or 4th Raider Btns. from another battle. But, then again it may not be him at all.
thats just what you do when they touch your boats...
Over dramatic and hard to watch because of it.
I wonder if the Democrats have destroyed his statue yet? Brave and a patriot, that’s two strikes as far as they are concerned.
I love your content and always will but it seems you've also been bit by the "over 20 minute video" to stay relevant overlords. So many channels have gone to 20 minute plus drivel for 2 minutes of what you're there to actually see. Even 2 months ago your videos were 10-13mins at most. What changed??
Bay back come your gut not from someone else's writing!
What does this comment mean? Gibberish from an illiterate?
@@Dragonbear13-k2r Way back when your guts didn't come from someone else's writing.
地獄のタワラ。破壊された輸送船に密かに潜み米上陸部隊を海と陸から挟撃する日本軍機銃小隊。あれは効いたろう。
That would only have resulted in Japanese dying on a destroyed transport ship, like all the rest of the Japs that died for their Emperor God. After the initial successes nothing the Japanese did were successes. The Japs died, and died, and died, in the tens of thousands until they surrendered UNCONDITIONALLY! The evil men of the government, like Tojo, were tried in court and executed for the beasts they were! The Japanese made a very great error in beginning the Second World War in the Pacific and suffered a very great price for it. No, nothing Japan did as a belligerent nation “worked.” Japan almost succeeded in getting itself erased from the face of the Earth.
I lived on Kwajalein for five and a half years. During that time I worked every day on Roi-Namur. With an account of the battle in my hand, I walked the battle fields of both islands. I entered a pill box like the one in this story, if not the actual one. It makes history come alive and my appreciation and respect for what our troops did in that battle cannot be measured. God rest the souls of all who have had to give their lives to protect our freedom.
Must have been a DOD guy. My buddy worked as a contractor there 20 years ago. He said it was one of the hottest climates he's ever been in.
@@toddwheeler1526 employed by a private company that had a contract to supply engineering services.
My grandfather fought at Roi-Namur. I don't know anything about his experience there because he never spoke about it. But I've always wanted to go to see where he fought along with Saipan.
I was out there a few years ago. The diving in the lagoon was amazing.
No kidding. Especially if the pillbox hasn't been turned into a tourist attraction like the Alamo. I lived in former nazi senior enlisted housing in germany in the 80s and It felt kind of the same - Not as intense, but the history is there. The feeling of living in the former homes of the enemy. In some places around base there were old bas relief nazi sculptures on walls. It was kind of erie. I think all the swastikas were chipped off by then, but the rest of it remained. I was just a kid, but the sense of... relevance, I guess? was palpable. It was like you were living on almost hallowed ground at times. And then other times it was just decrepit old buildings that should have been torn down long ago.
When was it that a lot of America n men lost their spine . Because By GOD we need to get back to it . I have a feeling we will need it in the not to distance future.. GOD bless them and AMERICA
The pendulum will be swinging back as we are about to enter hard times, indeed.
@@danielbrown8431 wake up and live in the real world. You're in a world of delusion
Every man of a certain age makes this comment. Plato wrote it in The Republic.
@@blackbird5634 I bet the ww2 generation's parents said it about their kids before the war
Today, the enemy is not a foreign nation. Danger comes from within. And is insidious.
Slow hand salute 🫡. SemperFi Marine.
One of the Marines at Kwajalein Island was a young Scout-Sniper by the name of Lee Marvin. Kwajalein is now the “Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site”. I landed at Kwajalein but we had to put our window shades down and not allowed off the plane because the island was classified.
If it was 'classified' , why/how did they let your plane land there?
Lee Marvin always struck me as utterly authentic in all those roles he played in movies focused on the war.
@@terry_willis There are local islanders that live there and civilian and military that work there. Continental Micronesia served Hawaii, Guam, and other Micronesian islands. I had an active Top Secret clearance and sold equipment to the Pacific Missile Range. You have make prearrangements to be allow off the plane. I had no reason the deplane so I wouldn’t be allowed.
I was at an army nco academy in Germany in the 60s there was a picture of general Patton on the wall below it was an inscription by him if you can’t get these young men to wear the uniform of their military how will you get them to die for their country. I never forgot that
Hearing stories like this of the Marines that came before me make me swell with pride. Oorah Marines
Thank you for your service devil dog.
US Army
Amen to that, Semper Fidelis.
although the island-hopping strategy in the pacific war was ultimately successful I wonder if it would have been less costly to try to use some sort of "leapfrog " tactic to get closer to japan as generals like macarthur suggested⚛
That’s what the navy wanted to do but the idiot MacArther opposed it.
Yeah, he was obsessed about returning to the Philippines. He was the worst general in the Pacific! So many American lives were needlessly lost in taking back the Philippines!
@@marnold2791 - also the deaths caused by his poor defence to start with. Then he turn and ran away.
To say I have been critical of some of the episodes on the "Dark" series of channels would be an understatement. Some episodes even challenging one's "bullshit meter." However... this episode is fantastic. A great tribute to a great Marine. Thank you!
Same. I concur!
God created the U.S. Marines!🇺🇸
RIP Devil Dog 🫡🇺🇲
Powers ,GOOD NAME !
Thanks for telling there stories. Less we forget
Thank you for sharing this mans incredible story. Thank you for keeping his memory alive. We owe a great deal to this man and countless men like him.
I’m surprised the Massachusetts democrats haven’t tried to take the statue down as being offensive.
I was wondering the same thing! They took down Civil War statues!
God bless the Marines who came before me.
I have to take a lot of medication; it makes me numb, but, sometimes, stories like this cut right through. My grandfather was on a baby flat-top, out there. My uncle humped a radio in the Dominican Republic and Viet Nam, and my father humped one in Okinawa. My last M-16A2 Service Rifle serial number was 602-8666. I only carried an M-203 for a month; I was the only LCpl Fire Team leader in the company, because we'd run out of Corporals, seemingly victims of the RIF. P.J. O'Rourke said something to the effect of, "1% of Ben & Jerry's ice cream profits go to promote world peace, but the U.S. Marines have done more to promote world peace than all the Ben & Jerry's ever sold." Semper Fi.
A LOT of repeated dialogue that i did not notice in your other videos.
Going through Officer Training Corps in the Army, we studied 1LT Power as a role model. Yes, the Army does learn from the Marines from time to time. He was a model that every future officer strides to be like him.
What a great story!
Semper Fi Marines, from an old Army Ranger
The marine/soldier in the thumbnail isn't related to the video. Could have just put a picture of the actual person...
Exactly!!!!
Or the EGA
Tears in my eyes.
Western Massachusetts born and raised
Central Massachusetts born and raised. I know the city of Worcester, MA well. Power was a true American hero. He gave his life for what he believed. Many did during WWII.
Semper fi!!!!!
Thanks to all of our brothers and sisters in arms way. That sever our country, and even gave there lives, for it, and us. I will not stand, to see our forefathers die in VIEN 😡😡💪💪
It's pronounced TARawa not taRAwa
ah k'mon, taRAwa? really? you dishonor them when you mispronounce where they sacrificed. TEARawa and btw AEtall, not agTOHL sheesh, get it right, PLEASE as he closed the distance to the pill bos, you show a GERMAN soldier running, fer chry-yaiy! but with all that oohrah!
Few men are the embodiment of bravery. Even fewer are capable of inspiring such courage among a platoon of Marines, in such a dire situation.. This man did both without even being asked to. Simply because that’s the person he was!.
🫡🫵🏼
People were just built different back then.. Love it or hate it, ya certainly gotta respect it!!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🙌🏼💯
@ 4:30 , it's strange but true that the finest most successful Admiral of WW2 was a German...Admiral Chester Nimitz standing to the left if that other guy...
They have more combat film of Normandy and The Pacific islands. Then KOREA . Hardly any film ??
Great story! My Grandfather was in WW1. He told me some stuff he probably shouldn't have. As a 8yr old it did wonders. My dad was in Korea. My older brother in Nam . Myself the gulf. Funny how older generations inspired thier youth. My sons has been in. Im afraid most kids dont feel the same. LT Powers inspired millions of young men. I saw my frail old Grandfather fight off a black bear while we were picking black berries for jam . Gave me a pocket knife when i was 5. Toughest man i ever knew. Olny shead a tear when my father died. God bless all these vets. They won't be hear much longer!
Lt. John D. Powers epitomizes the saying: “They gave their today for our tomorrows”. Long live his memory!
Question: Weren’t rifle grenades invented back then? Seems better to send the demo team only after getting one through the pillbox slit and before they can reman the machine gun.
Inspire his men dudes 19 yrs old
Badass!
Have to watch a video on Reverend winning medal of honor next
Tar-uh-wuh
I thought he called it Ta-rah-wah. The pronunciation on these channels is all over the place.
So they did stop him and he wasn't unstoppable. It just took more than normal
One man cut out of very special cloth, oh for more like that.
“ The body struggle for, “ what? What did you call it?
Lt. Power, is still well thought of in Worcester, Mass.
RIP SunshinE!
👍👍
Truly a great Marine who lead his men by his example. Even though First Lieutenant Power fell short of his goal as he succumbed to his wounds. John Powers men charged forward to vanquish the Japanese pillbox. Truly an incredible Marine well deserving of the MOH. 💪👃✨
(Kwai-huh-line) by the way.
Damnit… my eyes welled up on this one. That’s a hero.
Everyone in the English speaking world calls it Tár-uh-wu. Who are you trying to impress w your fancy pronunciation. You beclown yourself.
Beclown?? ok wys.
@@before120 oh absolutely.
What do the Huey have to do with a WW2 story?
😊❤😊❤😊❤😊
😊
why did he retire?
Probably tired
The war made him tired and going back home made him retired.
Retired? He was killed!
❤😊❤😊❤
😊😊😊😊
Wow!