How an American sniper’s “chewing gum technique” killed 38 Japanese in a single day

At 5:45 a.m. on November 20, 1943, the atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands was gripped by a stifling anticipation. Corporal William “Billy” Hayes unwrapped his seventh stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum that morning. Positioned in his hiding place overlooking Red Beach 2 on Betio Island, he scanned the horizon with chilling intensity. Around him, the Marines of the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion were preparing for what intelligence predicted would be one of the bloodiest assaults of the Pacific War.

They carried the best weapons the United States could supply: M1 Garand rifles, Browning automatic rifles, and Thompson submachine guns. Hayes, however, carried a Springfield 1903 equipped with an Unertl 8x scope, and a habit that had made him the laughingstock of his platoon for the past six months. He chewed gum constantly, not out of nervousness or casually, but with metronomic precision. His rate was exactly 60 chews per minute, or one per second.

The chewing was so constant that his observer could calibrate his watch to the movements of his jaw. His company commander wondered if this incessant chewing might compromise operational safety through noise or movement. His platoon sergeant suggested the gum was a crutch for fragile nerves. His fellow snipers openly mocked what they called his “candy habit,” arguing that a professional didn’t need accessories to shoot straight.

What none of them understood was that Hayes had discovered something no military manual had ever documented. Rhythmic chewing created a biomechanical synchronization between his breathing, his heartbeat, and his trigger control. This transformed a good shot into superhuman accuracy. The gum chewing wasn’t a nervous tic; it was a component of his weapon system, as critical as his scope.

During the 14 hours of sustained fighting at the Battle of Tarawa, this particular chewing rhythm would neutralize 38 Japanese soldiers at ranges of 200 to 900 yards. The Japanese defenders at Betio had no idea they were about to face a marksman whose unconventional technique would statistically make him the most effective single-day marksman in the history of the Marine Corps. The mockery would end with the first Japanese officer Hayes took down at 630 yards.

William Hayes was born on July 3, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest of four children in an Irish-American family. Unlike most Marine snipers who came from rural, hunting backgrounds, Hayes grew up in dense urban environments. His path to marksmanship excellence was unusual from the start. At the age of 14, he developed chronic bruxism, a grinding of the teeth caused by stress and anxiety, which was most pronounced during sleep or periods of intense concentration.

At 16, his molars were visibly worn and he suffered from headaches. A dentist recommended he chew gum throughout the day to consciously satisfy this urge to clench his teeth. Hayes began chewing it constantly. Initially therapeutic, this practice revealed an unexpected effect: when he chewed while studying, his concentration improved. During his boxing training, his timing and rhythm were better.

When he tried shooting at an indoor range while chewing, his shot groups became noticeably tighter. Years later, military doctors would explain that rhythmic chewing reduced muscle tension in the face, neck, and shoulders. Tense muscles caused tremors, while relaxed muscles allowed for fluid movements. Furthermore, the rhythm served as a temporal anchor to which other bodily rhythms naturally aligned.

Hayes enlisted in the Marine Corps in August 1941. His instructors at Parris Island immediately recognized his potential, despite his urban background. At the sniper school at Camp Lejeune, he drew attention to himself with his habit. He was initially ordered to stop, deemed unprofessional. But the tests proved conclusive: with eraser, Hayes achieved expert scores; without it, his performance plummeted. His instructor eventually accepted this eccentricity as long as the results continued to improve.

Assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, his first mission was Guadalcanal in March 1943. The mockery began as soon as he arrived. Sergeant James Mitchell questioned him about this habit of “a kid at a baseball game.” Hayes tried to explain that the rhythm synchronized his breathing, but the traditional Marines remained skeptical. At Guadalcanal, he racked up eight confirmed kills, but the true test of his technique would come at Tarawa in November 1943.

Betio Island was a fortress defended by 4,800 elite Japanese troops. Hayes’s team infiltrated 12 hours before the main assault. He meticulously prepared his Springfield, selected 100 rounds of .30-06 ammunition, and carried 20 sticks of Wrigley’s Spearmint. His spotter, Ali, shook his head at this, but Hayes calmly replied that he consumed about one and a half sticks per hour, and that 20 sticks would cover the 14 hours of daylight.

At 5:45 a.m., as dawn broke, Hayes began his ritual. He chewed at his established rate of 60 times per minute. This oral metronome now dictated his physiology. He exhaled on chews 1 through 3, and inhaled on chews 4 through 6. This six-second cycle corresponded to his natural breathing and stabilized his heart rate at 60 beats per minute, creating the absolute calm required for precision shooting.

At precisely 6:00 a.m., as the first waves of landing troops became visible, Hayes took his first shot at 530 yards. The target was a Japanese officer observing the American approach. Between the third and fourth chews, at the precise moment his breathing stopped and his heart was between beats, he squeezed the trigger. The rifle cracked, and the officer collapsed. The shot was perfectly executed.

Hayes reloaded his rifle and resumed his aim without ever breaking his rhythm. By 6:15 a.m., he had already taken down eight confirmed targets. The pace of his fire never wavered. The consistency was mechanical, almost inhuman. The Japanese forces were beginning to realize they were under sniper fire, but they couldn’t pinpoint the source because Hayes synchronized his shots with the sound of American naval artillery.

At 6:25 a.m., he changed his gumball stick, the first having lost its flavor. The Japanese defenders were now on high alert, but Hayes was systematically eliminating their leaders. He shot down a machine gunner at 380 yards, then his assistant who was trying to retake the weapon. Between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m., he fired 22 more rounds, achieving 20 confirmed kills. His 91% success rate was extraordinary under such conditions.

At 9:15 a.m., his jaw began to ache from the continuous movement, but he refused to stop. Breaking the rhythm would have shattered his concentration. Ali was now completely impressed: “You’re at 31 confirmed kills, Billy. That rhythm thing really works.” Hayes didn’t respond, as speaking would have interrupted his pace. He simply gave a slight nod before neutralizing an enemy sniper at 690 yards.

By noon, he had fired 53 shots for 48 hits. His performance was beginning to circulate on the division’s radio networks. At 1:00 p.m., he engaged his farthest target: an observer on a concrete building 870 yards away. The wind was tricky, but Hayes waited until his rhythm was perfectly aligned. Between bites of chewing, he fired. The observer fell. It was a feat few marksmen could have accomplished.

Around 2:00 PM, a Japanese counterattack was organized to dislodge the Marines from the beach. Approximately 100 soldiers assembled for a Banzai charge. Hayes began firing as fast as his bolt-action rifle and his chewing rhythm allowed. The charge disintegrated before it even began. Seventeen soldiers fell to his bullets within minutes. An operation that could have threatened the American positions was shattered by a single man.

By 3:00 PM, he had reached 70 confirmed eliminations. But the physical toll was mounting. His facial muscles were cramping, and inflammation was spreading to his temporomandibular joints. By 4:00 PM, he was on his 13th stick of gum. The taste of the spearmint masked the taste of blood from his irritated gums, but his nervous system was now so deeply synchronized that he couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to.

At 5:30 p.m., with darkness approaching, Hayes received orders to leave his position. He had remained in his hiding place for 16 hours, engaging the enemy for 14 consecutive hours. He had fired 93 rounds. The final official tally, after analysis, credited him with 38 confirmed kills for that single day. At the time, this was the highest single-day kill record for a sniper in the history of the Marine Corps.

When he emerged from his hiding place, he finally stopped chewing. His jaw briefly locked with the effort. Ali apologized: “I thought your thing was weird, but it’s brilliant.” Hayes, regaining his speech, simply replied: “The gum creates the rhythm, the rhythm creates the timing, the timing creates the shots. It’s all connected.” His captain, initially incredulous at such a high score, was convinced by Ali’s detailed reports.

Hayes’s story spread quickly. The gum-chewing shooter was no longer a joke, but a legend. Officers even requested that gum be requisitioned as official equipment. Later, the Marine Corps Medical Corps studied his technique and confirmed that rhythmic chewing improved fine motor skills in about 30% of individuals, although it could be distracting for others.

Hayes continued to serve throughout the Pacific campaign, including at Saipan and Okinawa. By the end of the war, his total had reached 117 enemy kills. His record of 38 in a single day at Tarawa remained unmatched throughout the conflict. He was discharged with honors in 1945, decorated with the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. Back in Brooklyn, he became a mechanic and occasional gunnery instructor.

William Hayes died in April 1989 at the age of 66. His Springfield rifle was bequeathed to the National Marine Corps Museum. Even today, next to the rifle and its Unertl scope, a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum is on display. The explanatory plaque details how this unconventional technique led to legendary accuracy, reminding visitors that excellence sometimes arises from the most unexpected places.

Hayes’ legacy lies in the triumph of innovation over tradition. He proved that effectiveness doesn’t always require a conventional appearance. The chewing gum his peers scorned as a childish treat became the tool that synchronized a warrior’s mind, body, and weapon. His story remains a testament to the human capacity to transform a perceived weakness into a formidable strength.

The echo of that day at Tarawa didn’t stop at the blood-soaked sands of Betio’s beaches. For William Hayes, the silence that followed the stopping of his jaw was almost more deafening than the blasts of his Springfield 1903. In the days that followed, as the 2nd Marine Division licked its wounds, Hayes became a living curiosity. Intelligence officers, baffled by reports of shots fired at ranges exceeding 800 yards amidst utter chaos, came to question him at his makeshift camp. They expected to meet a giant or a mystic, but instead found a young man from Brooklyn, his face drawn with exhaustion, simply asking if the ration pack still contained mint gum.

Captain Morrison, who had initially doubted the figures put forward by Hayes’s observer, Ali, spent long hours examining the firing records. He observed that the regularity of the impacts did not follow a typical fatigue curve. Normally, a sniper’s accuracy declines after four or five hours of intense concentration. In Hayes’s case, the curve was flat, almost artificial. It was as if the man had transformed into a biological extension of his rifle’s mechanism. Morrison realized that what he had taken for a childish distraction was actually a highly precise stress regulator, a discovery that challenged all standard training at the time.

On Saipan, a few months later, the legend of “Gum-man” had already spread among the front-line troops. Conditions, however, were radically different from Tarawa. The dense jungle and rugged terrain offered fewer clear lines of sight, forcing Hayes to adapt his method. He discovered that his rhythm of 60 chews per minute also helped him filter out the background noise of the rainforest. By focusing on his own internal metronome, he was able to detect the slightest creak of a branch or the scrape of a Japanese uniform in the undergrowth. The gum was no longer just a fire stabilizer; it had become his sensory interface with a hostile environment.

During a reconnaissance patrol near Mount Tapochau, Hayes and Ali were cut off from their unit by a nighttime enemy infiltration. Crouched in a foxhole, surrounded by darkness and the shouts of Imperial soldiers trying to provoke a reaction, Ali felt panic rising. He looked at Hayes in the flares. The corporal was chewing. The movement was slow, steady, almost hypnotic. “How can you still do that now?” Ali whispered, his voice trembling. Hayes didn’t answer right away; he waited until he had finished his breath. “If I stop, the fear comes back. As long as I’m chewing, time is mine,” he finally said before repositioning himself for a night shot.

This ability to compartmentalize terror through rhythm became his defining characteristic. War correspondents, seeking heroic stories from the home front, tried to interview him. They wanted tales of bravery, patriotic quotations. Hayes consistently disappointed them. He spoke of ballistics, wind speed, humidity, and, inevitably, the texture of the rubber. He explained that Wrigley’s brand rubber had the ideal resistance: not too soft, which would have increased his rate of fire, nor too hard, which would have prematurely fatigued his jaw. For journalists, it was overly technical, almost absurd, but for marksmanship experts, it was a revelation about fine motor control under adrenaline.

As the Pacific campaign advanced toward Tinian, the Marine command began sending medical observers to monitor Hayes. They wanted to understand if this method could be taught on a large scale. They discovered that Hayes had unwittingly exploited a phenomenon of neural synchronization. By coupling a simple repetitive motor action (chewing) with a complex task (precision shooting), he created a neurological “background noise” that occupied the parts of his brain responsible for anxiety. This left his motor cortex free to operate without interference. However, the doctors also noted that this required a mental discipline that few recruits possessed naturally.

During the Battle of Okinawa, the last and fiercest leg of the advance before reaching Japan, Hayes faced extremely well-camouflaged Japanese snipers hidden in limestone caves. It was here that he reached his total of 117 kills. One particular duel lasted nearly three days against a Japanese officer who had sworn to kill him. Hayes lay motionless in the mud and torrential rain for 48 hours. He had almost no rations left, but he still had three sticks of gum. He broke them into small pieces to prolong the rhythm. When he finally located the enemy by the reflection of a scope through the mist, he felt no emotion. The shot rang out at the 30-second mark of his minute of chewing.

The end of the war in 1945 brought immense relief, but for Hayes, returning to civilian life was a challenge of a different kind. In Brooklyn, the city’s rhythm was chaotic, no longer in sync with his inner cadence. He found himself walking the streets of New York, counting his steps to align them with his breathing, desperately seeking the stability he had found in the hell of the islands. He worked as a machinist, a job where the precision and repetitiveness of the machines reminded him of the familiarity of his Springfield. His colleagues found him quiet, a little odd, always with a pack of Wrigley’s in his work shirt pocket, but they respected his absolute discipline.

He never became a media celebrity, preferring the anonymity of the local shooting clubs where he taught as a volunteer. He never told his students, “Do as I do.” He told them, “Find your own heartbeat.” He explained that the human being is a rhythmic machine and that the secret to success, in shooting as in life, lay in accepting this rhythm rather than fighting against it. Several of his students, veterans of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, later reported that his advice on the shooter’s “internal music” had saved their lives in situations of extreme stress.

His death in 1989 marked the end of an era. When his belongings were sorted, entire boxes of shooting logs were found, filled with meticulous calculations where each shot was recorded, noting the brand of rubber used and the day’s shooting tempo. These documents were sent to the Marine Corps Museum along with his rifle. Today, modern snipers, equipped with laser technology and advanced ballistic computers, often pause before his display case. They no longer laugh at the rubber. They see in William Hayes the pioneer of sports psychology applied to combat, the man who understood that the greatest technology of warfare is not made of steel or optics, but of the absolute mastery of one’s own inner workings.

Hayes’s story perfectly illustrates that innovation doesn’t always come from laboratories or design offices, but from the organic need to survive. By transforming a nervous disorder into a precision tool, he redefined the very notion of military professionalism. He was no longer judged on his appearance, but on the emptiness of the enemy ranks before him. His 1903 Springfield, on display at the museum, still seems to bear the imprint of this infernal pace. And if you listen to the stories of the elders of Tarawa, you can almost hear, between gusts of wind, the dry, rhythmic sound of a jaw chewing, second by second, the fate of a battle that seemed lost from the start.

Hayes’s eraser wasn’t an escape; it was an anchor. In a world crumbling under the bombs, he had found a way to remain still at the center of the storm. It is this lesson in rhythmic stoicism that remains his greatest legacy today. The 38 Japanese soldiers at Tarawa were merely silent witnesses to a greater truth: he who masters his inner rhythm can dominate any external chaos. William Hayes is gone, but in every shooting range where a young Marine takes a breath before pulling the trigger, a part of that Brooklyn rhythm continues to resonate, a reminder that victory belongs to those who know how to stay in step, even when the whole world has lost its beat.