Seventy-six years after the battle, an old soldier gets a thank-you from Guam

Johnny Cepeda Gogo was not yet born when U.S. Marines liberated his native island of Guam from Japanese occupation during World War II.

But Gogo, now 52 and a Superior Court Judge in Santa Clara, Calif. has made it a personal mission to contact all of the surviving U.S. soldiers and Marines who took part and thank them personally.

Last week in Gig Harbor, he did just that, chatting with Marine veteran Chuck Meacham, 95, and inviting him to sign his Guamanian flag.

Gogo said Guamanians use the word “liberators” when describing the soldiers, marines and sailors who fought in this battle, which began July 21, 1944.

“Without that initial liberation of Guam, I don’t know if I would have gone to law school, graduated from UC San Diego and ultimately get appointed as a judge,” Gogo said. “Who knows how my life, my career path, my brothers and sisters and everybody’s lives might have turned out? Chuck is a hero and all those who helped serve and liberate Guam are heroes, and the people of Guam will always be grateful.”

A Marine at 17

Meacham joined the Marines in 1943 at the age of 17. He was in the Marine Corps for three years, fighting in multiple battles, including the invasion of Bougainville, Guam, and later, Okinawa.

Although flattered to be called a hero, Meacham said “the heroes, they are still over there in the ground. They didn’t come home.”

Meacham now lives at Peninsula, a retirement community at 3445 50th Street Court Northwest. He was married to his high school sweetheart for 73 years before she passed away, has two sons, three grandsons, and three great grandsons.

Meacham vividly remembers arriving at Marine boot camp in San Diego to have his head shaved and hearing the good-natured jeers of “You’ll by sorry!” from older Marines.

At boot camp, he was asked his skills. At 17, he had to admit he had none. Then he was told about the Marine Raiders, an elite special operations force trained especially for amphibious light infantry warfare. With his history in sports, small team units were something he could comprehend.

“Sign me up,” he said.

On November 1, 1943, having turned 18, Meacham participated in the invasion of Bougainville. His unit’s mission was to take out artillery and automatic weapons to allow safer passage for landings on Bougainville beaches and to secure land.

“My first combat was spent lying in a fox hole, not able to see my hand in front of my face, while a fierce tropical storm passed over,” Meacham said. “A guy next to me was shot in the helmet, but he survived.”

Then it was on to Guam.

The Battle of Guam

A U.S. outpost in the Mariana Islands, Guam was captured by Japanese troops on Dec. 10, 1941, just three days after Pearl Harbor. It remained under Japanese occupation for three years, and native Guamanians were treated harshly.

U.S forces had been island-hopping through the Marianas in a series of bloody battles — Saipan, Tinian and others. They reached Guam in July of 1944. The island ringed by reefs, cliffs, and heavy surf, presented a formidable challenge for any attacker, according to an account by historian Gordon L. Rottman. The 3rd Marine Division, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade and the Army’s 77th Infantry division stormed ashore against heavy artillery fire from Japanese defenders entrenched in caves.

Meacham’s battalion was attached to the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, which did some of the hardest fighting.

In a series of fierce attacks and counter-attacks that lasted nearly three weeks, American forces pushed the Japanese down the length of the teardrop-shaped island. In the end, the Japanese commander, Hideyoshi Obata, committed ritual suicide.

During his time in war, Meacham said his faith was everything to him. He recalled John 15:13, which reads, “The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them.”

“The marine on my left and right were willing to give their life for me, and they knew I would do the same,” Meacham wrote in a 200-page memoir he intends to leave for his family.

On to Okinawa

The assault on the highly-fortified Japanese home island of Okinawa was the last and largest amphibious operation of WWII, consisting of nearly 1,500 vessels and a half a million men.

Meacham wrote that 36 days into the Okinawa campaign he was having difficulty due to a severe cold.

“Laying on the ground in a foxhole with no blankets or covering of any type made things quickly get worse,” he wrote. “I had a fever of 103 degrees for two or three days it shot up to 105 degrees.”

How they got him off the hillside, Meacham does not remember. His first recollection came days later, the roar of an airplane and the glimpse of a nurse. Meacham was diagnosed with a serious lung infection and was evacuated from the war zone.

Meacham was awarded a plethora of medals and honors. He pointed out the Navy Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon, saying “You can’t have that unless you’ve been in the shooting war.”

In retirement, Meacham became president of the Marine Raider Association, and founded the Marine Raider Foundation, which is a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

At the age of 95, he is walking 95 miles in 95 days in the name of WWII Raiders, with the goal to raise $95,000 for those who can no longer walk.

“It’s the 46th day and I have over 50 miles,” Meacham said. “I do a few extra for my rainy-day bank.”

Judge Gogo said he was honored to meet Meacham and hear his stories.

Gogo was able to sit down with Meacham and discuss the war in great length. His own father, he explained, was only six years old when the island was liberated, but he went on to join the U.S. Army and traveled the world, retiring as a chief warrant officer.

So far, Gogo has tracked down about 16 veterans of the Battle of Guam, and met with six of them. He’d like to meet more.

“Tracking down these veterans is honestly a blessing, as each day we lose more and more WWII veterans,” Gogo said. “To find the ones who served in Guam is even a smaller pool, so I am very honored to meet these individuals.”

Judge Johnny Cepeda Gogo can be reached at ddagogo@hotmail.com

To contribute to Meacham’s 95 Mile Walk in the Name of WWII Raiders fundraiser, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/95-mile-walk-in-the-name-of-wwii-raiders.

This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 5:30 AM.