ARTICLE
Little Dunkirk
A daring flanking maneuver during the Second Battle of the Matanikau became one of the worst American debacles at the battle of Guadalcanal.
Above: "Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal." by Bernard D'Andrea
In late September 1942, a series of skirmishes and counterattacks took place on the northern coast of Guadalcanal. This fighting, later referred to as the Second Battle of the Matanikau (or, with later events in October, simply “Actions along the Matanikau”) pitted the First Marine Division against the Japanese Fourth Infantry Regiment, plus scattered units retreating from the recent battles on Bloody Ridge. The Marines believed they faced only 400 disorganized and demoralized enemy; through aggressive action they would “mop up” the Matanikau region to secure and expand their western perimeter. As they quickly discovered, the Japanese were stronger and far better organized than anticipated – and few units realized this better than the First Battalion, Seventh Marines.
The leader of this battalion was Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Puller. A notable figure in the Old Corps, “Chesty” Puller was regarded as “a marine’s Marine,” the archetypal hard-charger. He was finally finding an outlet for his legendary aggressiveness, having languished with his regiment in the defense of Samoa while the First and Fifth Marines took the fight to the Japanese. Now, Chesty was making up for lost time. On September 23, 1/7 left the Henderson Field perimeter for a combat patrol that would take them across the Matanikau at a point far upriver; they would follow the river back to the coast, eliminating any Japanese in their path, and meet up with the First Raider Battalion at the village of Kokumbona to establish a permanent patrol base.[1]
The battalion was brought up short at a Japanese bivouac, where a sharp firefight scattered the enemy but cost Puller thirty-five casualties. Among the fallen were First Lieutenant Alvin C. Cockrell, Jr., the promising young skipper of Company B, and PFC Richard J. Wehr, Puller’s runner. Seven Marines were killed outright, and three more succumbed to wounds.
While his men dug lonely graves, Puller contemplated his next move.[2] His wounded men were far from medical help; evacuating them was a necessity, but would require almost an entire company to carry stretchers and provide security. The Second Battalion, 5th Marines was dispatched to assist, and Puller was told to continue the mission at his discretion. Chesty decided to send his Able and Baker Companies, which had taken the lion’s share of the casualties, back to the Lunga perimeter with the wounded. He then attached Charlie Company and his headquarters detachment to 2/5 and pressed on westward.
Major Otho Larkin Rogers, Puller’s executive officer, led the group escorting the wounded. Forty-one-year-old “Buck” Rogers was a ten-year reservist, a “mild-mannered, soft-spoken, sociable, politically-oriented Southerner” with a good government job approving stamps for the postal service.[3] He was the perfect foil for aggressive Chesty, a “good gent” who handled the administration of the battalion while his boss chafed for action. Rogers was well liked and a fatherly figure to his young Marines, even though he had no more combat experience than the greenest teenage private in the battalion.[4]
It took the diminished battalion until evening on 26 September to reach the perimeter. They received no word from Colonel Puller, but 1/7 had plenty to handle on their own. “We were dug in by the airport and all night long,” recalled Sergeant Joseph Goble. “Japs were yelling at us. We slept with fixed bayonets. Someone moved out of his foxhole near me, and a frightened Marine promptly ran a bayonet through him. Two Marines were bayoneted that night by other Marines. One died immediately, and the other died on a hospital ship.”[5]
Meanwhile, Colonel Merritt “Red Mike” Edson’s 5th Marines were trying to force their way across the Matanikau River. When Puller and 2/5 emerged from the jungle (still on the American side of the river) Edson assigned them the task of leading the assault. Puller sent 2/5 across an exposed sandbar at the river’s mouth: platoon after platoon entered a buzz saw of Japanese fire and were cut to ribbons. These attacks on 26 September gained no yardage, and Puller’s refusal to change the plan or listen to junior officers soured the battalion against him. Kokumbona remained in Japanese hands – temptingly close, but entirely out of reach.
Edson and Puller put their heads together and concocted a scheme to envelop the Japanese. The plan required troops to board landing craft, sail around the enemy positions at Point Cruz, and make a landing in the enemy’s rear. They would attack east, back towards the Matanikau, trapping the defenders against the riverbank. Naturally, Puller volunteered his own battalion (less Company C, which was already dug in along the riverbanks) for the mission. Edson set an aggressive timeline: he wanted to be in Kokumbona by the next evening. “It was a hastily contrived plan, the largest mounted by the Marines to date,” notes historian Eric Hammel. “The result of a chance encounter, it was not a carefully plotted concept.”[6]
From there, they would advance east (left) and trap Japanese troops along the Matanikau river bank.
Buck Rogers and his men were envisioning a quiet Sunday. “When the sun rose the next morning [September 27] it was hot and steamy.But we felt good because we could rest and wash our clothes in the Lunga River,” remembered Sergeant Goble.[7] In the wake of the ambush, religious services saw a larger turnout than usual. Major Rogers made a point to turned up in a clean, starched uniform – his Sunday best, even in the muddy jungles of Guadalcanal. The pleasant mood was interrupted by the arrival of a messenger reporting the “critical” situation at the Matanikau and summoning Major Rogers to Division headquarters. The famous philatelist was placed in charge of an independent amphibious assault-the execution of which would have tested the abilities of the most experienced combat commander.
While Rogers received his briefing, the 1/7 bivouac teemed with shouting NCOs. Marines scrambled to finish breakfast, gather their laundry, and arm themselves for… something. Nobody seemed quite sure what the objective was. “As usual, we had very little information as to what our mission was to be,” said PFC W. Ray Thomas, a communications man for the battalion.[8] A quartet of captains – Charles W. Kelly (acting executive officer), Thomas J. Cross (Able), Zach D. Cox (Baker) and Robert J. Rodgers (Dog) – got the men on the road in good order, but were scarcely better informed; for reasons of security or inexperience, Rogers did not share the details of the plan with his officers.[9]
Soon, the men were mustered on the beach Kukum. Companies A and B, plus a few crew-serviced weapons from Company D and a handful of communications specialists listened as Buck Rogers – still in his Sunday uniform – gave a short speech. They were, he said, “the the finest body of fighting men in the world,” and in the action ahead he hoped “every man gets the Navy Cross.”[10] Then, the 398 Marines boarded their Higgins boats and puttered away from shore.
It was “Tojo Time” at Henderson Field; the daily air raid from Rabaul arrived like clockwork every day at noon. The destroyer USS Monssen, assigned to provide fire support for Rogers’ landing, took evasive action which left her unable to bring guns to bear on the beach. Several bombs hit the near the division CP, disrupting communications to the front lines.[11] It was the first flaw in the day’s plan. As the Higgins boats turned to head for the beach, the men in the boats worried about the landing – their first in combat. Captains Kelly and Cox wondered about the plan, hoping Major Rogers would give more instruction after landing. Some men may have wondered why the battalion was landing without any radiomen; others that the mortar gunners carried so little extra ammunition.
The boats roared up and deposited the men in two waves, on schedule and as planned, on an open beach about 2,000 yards west of the Matanikau. Captain Cox’s Company B was first ashore, and spread out into a skirmish line as they were trained to do. Major Rogers’ headquarters element followed right behind, as did the crew serviced weapons. Private Ed Poppendick, a heavy machine gunner, admitted “I didn’t do so great on the landing. I stepped off the boat and sank like a stone. The other guys were stepping over me, and then someone pulled me up by my pack straps. I almost drowned.”
As he took his bearings Rogers exclaimed, half to himself, “Lord! We’ve landed in the wrong place! We landed too soon!”[12] For the time, this error did not seem to matter. “We disembarked and started inland,” said Ray Thomas, “surprised that there was little or no resistance.”[13] Sergeant Goble, who was on the right flank of Baker Company’s skirmish line, saw signs of Japanese activity almost at once.
The question now facing 1/7 was plain: where were all the Japanese? “As we made our way inland, we encountered some sporadic bursts of machine gun fire,” continues PFC Thomas.
A grassy ridge approximately 500 yards inland – Hill 84 on Marine maps, so named for its elevation in feet – was Rogers’ first objective, and he paused to take stock of his situation. The open crest provided an excellent view; the Matanikau river snaked through the valley below, and American warships were visible offshore. The Marines fanned out in a loose defensive position, but did not dig in as they anticipated moving on shortly. They paid little heed to the small amount of incoming headed their way. “We soon began getting both Jap mortar fire and machine gun fire,” noted Sergeant Gobkle. “We were in tall grass and they did little damage at that time.”[16]
Company B cast hopeful eyes back the way they came, expecting to see Captain Cross and Able Company following up the hill. Horrified, they saw large column of Japanese troops bearing down on them. “They told me the Jap strength here was no more than two or three hundred,” exclaimed Rogers.[17] He sent word for all officers and non-coms to converge on the CP. “I was running toward [Major Rogers] when a shell landed near his feet — it blew him in half,” said Sergeant Goble. “Captain Cox standing nearby had one of his arms mangled pretty badly. Sergeant John Bennett and I were blown backwards, but not injured.”[18] The sky fell in on Company B. “All hell broke loose, mortar and artillery fire seemed to be coming from everywhere,” said PFC Thomas.
With Rogers dead and Cox incapacitated, the junior officers of the company were left in charge. Nobody had briefed them on their objectives, and they had no idea what to do. “I heard one say we should dig in for the night and I was glad they didn’t put that plan into effect,” continued Thomas. “I really believed that if we tried to dig in we had better dig deep because we’d be there forever.”[20] Fortunately, at around this time Company A broke through the closing Japanese noose. “Unflappable” Captain Charlie Kelly took over the situation and established a defensive perimeter.[21]
Before his abortive trip to the command post, Sergeant Goble had contemplated what he would do if surrounded. He thought he’d have a better chance of survival if he struck out towards Mount Austin with a buddy or two; there seemed to be fewer Japanese in that direction. Now, he was wondering if he would have even that slim chance.
The Japanese defenders not only stopped Edson’s renewed attack across the Matanikau river, but were able to send some of their defenders in a three-abreast column to deal with 1/7. Once again, the Marines had underestimated the Japanese strength. Instead of a motley collection of battered units, they faced the relatively fresh Fourth Infantry Regiment – and the Imperial soldiers had their blood up. Ed Poppendick’s machine gun crew was preparing to move up the hill when the Japanese appeared.
The number one and number two men were both shot; one was [PFC Elmer] Anderson and the other [PFC Vincent] Adigi, I think they were called. The corporal in charge, Giles, had his head blown off. Somebody said he got hit with an exploding shell, like a dum-dum bullet or something. And then the other kid was shot, he was from Ohio, Steubenville. He got shot maybe two or three times. I don't know if he was killed or not.... Seven guys in the squad, and I was the only one left.... I just hugged the ground, figuring my turn was next, so I decided to play dead and stayed that way.[22.5]
The trapped Marines on Hill 84 had only a single 81mm mortar with fifty rounds of ammunition – but luckily Master Gunnery Sergeant Roy Fowel, a legendary mortarman, was in command. He began dropping seven pound shells with deadly accuracy and at such close range that the tube was nearly vertical. The mortar helped, but not enough. Captain Kelly could not even call for help; Rogers had not thought to bring a radioman along.[23] Communications back at the perimeter were so badly disrupted that nobody knew the location of the stranded companies. Totally encircled, the Marines fought back as best they could.
Japanese air activity had ended for the day, and now American planes were buzzing off from Henderson Field on their daily sweeps and scouting missions. 1st Lieutenant Dale Leslie, a dive-bomber pilot from VMSB-231, was assigned to a late afternoon patrol. Neither he nor his gunner, PFC Reed T. Ramsey, noticed anything unusual until the return leg of their journey brought them over Hill 84. Motion below caught Leslie’s eye, and then something else that he couldn’t quite believe. Swinging low over the hilltop, he saw four white letters on the ground. Guadalcanal veterans knew to dye white underclothes a less conspicuous color; the 7th Marines, being newer, had yet to learn that lesson. Today it would help save their lives as they stripped off their skivvies to spell “H E L P.”
Ramsey transmitted the news back to Henderson Field, and the word worked its way down to Chesty Puller himself. Puller knew exactly which unit was in danger, and in typical fashion, exploded into rage-fueled action. “You’re not going to throw these men away!” he snarled at Colonel Edson, and stomped off to the beach, signaled a nearby boat, and in short order had virtually commandeered the destroyer USS Monssen for a personal rescue mission.[24]
“Someone noticed a destroyer off the coastline flashing light signals in Morse Code,” remembers PFC Thomas. Fortunately, although there were no radiomen present, the Marines had brought a communications expert in the person of Sergeant Danny Raysbrook. “Raysbrook could read the code and we were told to signal and give yardage so the ship could lay down a barrage to keep the enemy busy as we made our way back to the beach,” continues Thomas. “Sgt. Raysbrook was signaling to the ship with semaphore flags.”[25] When Raysbrook flagged “Engaged. Cannot return,” Puller fired back with “Fight your way. Only hope.”[26] The Monssen’s gunners opened fire. “I looked out on the bay and saw a four-stacker destroyer belching smoke and heading towards us,” remarked Joe Goble. “Then I saw fire from the destroyer’s 5-inch guns and I hit the ground fast! The destroyer fired salvo after salvo, hitting the coconut grove below us. We all cheered! Trees were falling, Japs were screaming.”[27] As Sergeant Raysbrook semaphored corrections, the officers began passing word to prepare to withdraw.
The Japanese, so close to wiping out the trapped Marines, redoubled their efforts. This fighting withdrawal was the toughest fighting of the day, as the Marines tried to make their way back down the hill and through the shattered, enemy-infested coconut grove to the beach. There was no time to gather the dead, but Marines risked their lives to bring out the wounded. Private Jack Ellenberger helped carry a stricken Marine down the hill; somebody slipped and the entire party tumbled to the bottom of the ridge.[28] Ray Thomas heard a wounded man calling his name. “I looked at his face and didn’t recognize him,” Thomas admitted. When I looked at [his] tag I recognized the name as a man who had been with us for a few months. His face was so twisted and distorted from pain and the severity of his wounds that I was unable to recognize him immediately. All he said to me at first was, “Don’t leave me.” I assured him that would not happen.”[29]
A heroic rear guard stand helped stave off the charging Japanese. Sergeant Goble “was ordered to bring down the rear guard with my platoon…. I remember setting up the defense, and letting men move through us to the beach. As I watched the men pass through our defense line I felt my heel sting. Looking down at it, I observed that half my shoe heel had been shot away. Finally, all the Marines had passed through us, except for John Giles on the machine gun to our right.”[30]
Private Ed Poppendick was still lying flat beside the body of his friend, Harold Dick. Anderson and Agiri were toted away by corpsmen (both would rejoin the company in a few days), as was the nameless boy from Steubenville, Ohio. Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice calling him – his platoon leader, 2Lt. Richard P. Richards. “Do you think you can make it back here?” shouted Richards. “I’ll try it!” replied Poppendick, and “I tossed the ammunition this way, the spare parts that way, grabbed my rifle and throom, I must have looked like Jesse Owens running. I hit that log and went over and all I could hear was a machine gun going, the leaves coming down, and Lieutenant Richards shouting ‘Oh boy, this is it!’ After I recovered for a while, Lieutenant Richards told me, ‘Okay, from now on you’re my runner.’ I didn’t think being a runner was any worse than being a gunner. The thing is that you were scared all the time anyway.” The naval shelling “came in a pattern that created a corridor we could use to get to the beach.”
A clearing near the beach was the final obstacle to overcome; PFC Thomas wrote that “The clearing we passed on the way up was the most dangerous to cross safely. Two or three Marines would position themselves on each side of the clearing and lay down a rifle cross-fire, enabling others to cross. By changing places as each group made it across we were able to reach the beach while still carrying our wounded.”[31] As Lieutenant Regan Fuller’s platoon of Company A neared this clearing, with the Japanese were hot on their heels, one man stopped and turned around. Platoon Sergeant Anthony Malanowski called to Fuller, “Take Doc [Lt. Lawrence] Schuster and the wounded on down! I’ll handle the rear and be with you in a few minutes.” One of Malanowski’s buddies, Platoon Sergeant Stan McLeod, saw him settle in behind a coconut log. “You okay, Ski?” asked McLeod. “Yes, Mac, you go on down,” said Malanowski as he loaded an abandoned BAR. “I’ll just be a few minutes.” As Company A reached the beach, they heard the deep staccato of “Ski’s” BAR stop abruptly.
Corporal Jacobs did not like Malanowski, but declared “I would follow him into hell because he was a good soldier, so I figure I got a better chance of living. He was shooting that [BAR], fighting the Japanese and he got hit in the chest kind of hard. Before he fell down he gave the BAR to somebody else.” Jacobs also witnessed “another kid we called Tex-Mex, he was one of these dark skinned guys, probably Indian descent, real nice guy, good looking guy, good kid, nice boy, had a lot of fun. He got shot in the legs. He got beat up pretty badly. He said, ‘Give me a BAR and give me some ammo and I’ll hold them back.’ And I guess he did because we got out. I never saw this guy again.” This may have been Private Michael J. Beddla, a Mexican-American Marine from Illinois. Nineteen-year-old Beddla was last seen alive at the edge of the clearing; he never made it to the beach.
It took forty-five minutes for Captain Kelly’s men to cross the few hundred yards to the beach. “We were laying low in the water because we thought the Japs would come back and kill us,” recalled Ed Poppendick. “Eventually the Japs started firing with a large gun. What a noise it made; it scared the hell out of you.” Even more terrifying was the sight of the rescuing landing craft speeding away from the beach. Japanese machine guns had found the range, and the boat crews refused to come any closer. Captain Tom Cross, wounded in the wrist, ran into the surf and hollered at the wavering coxswains. Jacobs recalled one of his friends, PFC Hugh Hinnant, stripping naked and swimming out to the boats, where he threatened to brain a coxswain with a wrench. Overhead, Lieutenant Leslie made repeated passes over the boats, firing his machine gun into the trees. The Japanese pressed closer; the Marines clung to the beach, stories of the ill-fated Goettge Patrol flashing through the minds of many. It took thirty more minutes for the boats to drum up the courage to return.[32]
The wounded were evacuated first. True to his word, W. Ray Thomas safeguarded his buddy all the way to the beach; now it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. “Once again I asked a couple more men to help me. We carried him several yards out into the water to the nearest Higgins boat. Looking inside I saw the bottom of the boat was already filled with badly wounded Marines. With no more room inside the boat, we put my buddy on the boat’s edge in as comfortable a position as possible. I climbed up and held him on as we made our way back to where we could get medical attention.”[33] Also scrambling aboard was Sergeant Goble; he had rescued “Buck” Rogers’ valuable binoculars.[34]
“Most of our guys stayed with the injured, carrying them out as far as they could without drowning,” said Ed Poppendick. “We were up to our necks with the wounded, trying to hold them up and get them into the boats. When we were ordered, ‘You go,’ they’d take every third or fourth guy into the landing craft. When it was your turn, you went; until then you laid in the water facing the jungle. Finally, my turn came, and I waded out to get into the boat. One of the sailors in it remarked to me, ‘I never saw so many beat up guys as you.'”
One by one, the loaded boats backed away and turned to make the run back to Kukum. The final craft, commanded by Signalman First Class Douglas Munro of the U. S. Coast Guard, was placed as a cover for the last retreating Marines. Munro, the leader of the Higgins boat group, was determined to save as many men as possible. “Munro and I carried a Lewis machine gun from one boat to another as we sent boats to the restricted beach,” recalled fellow Coast Guardsman Ray Evans. “As we passed the end of the point, we saw another LCT loaded with Marines stranded on the beach and unable to back off. Murno directed the LCT with us to go in, pass a towline and get them off, which it did…. I saw a line of waterspouts coming across the water where the LCT had been grounded and realized it was machine gun fire.”[35] Munro, who was busily shooting up the beach, did not hear his friend’s shouted warning, and a bullet caught him in the back of the skull. His last words, as the boat pulled away, were “Did they get off?”[36]
Monroe’s boat almost didn’t make it. The steering failed, and the boat roared through three full circles as the crew (several of whom were wounded themselves) struggled to correct the problem. One lone Marine, whose name has not survived, owed his life to this accident. He “burst out of the trees by the beach and ran through the surf, screaming for the boat to wait for him. Breathless and fearful, the man lurched through the waves, his hands extended in front of him. As he grabbed the plywood gunwale, he was lifted aboard, and the boat picked up speed to join the pack headed for Kukum.”[37] He was the luckiest man in the Battalion; no American left ashore survived.
Nor did all of those who made it to the boats. Jack Ellenberger’s charge, seventeen-year-old Private Albert Hoffman, had been struck down by the mortar blast that killed Major Rogers. He survived all afternoon with a gut full of shrapnel. Now, safe at last, Hoffman asked for a cigarette. His first drag was his last breath; Ellenberger watched in horror as the smoke rose from the holes in Hoffman’s abdomen.[38] PFC Thomas held onto his buddy for the “long 10-12 miles” back to Kukum and medical attention. “After getting help with my buddy I was holding him and I said, “Well, buddy, we made it, you’re going to be alright now.” There was no answer. He had died in my arms. His name was Joe Kuzma.”[39]
The Seventh Marines’ “Little Dunkirk” was over. The final butcher’s bill stood at 23 wounded, and 24 known or presumed to be dead, for an abortive operation that lasted less than twelve hours. The division’s assistant operations officer, Lt. Col. Merrill Twining, summarized it as “a sound and sensible reconnaissance operation” that devolved into “an improvised, complex, jury-rigged attack for which we had made no preparations.” For the Japanese, it was “the first good news to come from Guadalcanal.”[40] They reported finding thirty-two Marine bodies, one water-cooled machine gun (with the body of Corporal Giles), one BAR (with the body of Platoon Sergeant Malanowski), fifteen rifles, and fifteen boxes of ammunition.[41]
A handful of decorations were given out following the disaster; a distressing number were posthumous. Douglas Munro’s family received his Medal of Honor; Platoon Sergeant Malanowski and Sergeant Robert Raysbrook were both nominated for the award, but received Navy Crosses instead. Lt. Colonel Puller (one of the most decorated men in Marine Corps history) was awarded the Bronze Star for his fire support work aboard the USS Monssen. Lieutenant Dale Leslie, the pilot who spotted the call for help, also received a Navy Cross but had to wait a while to wear it; he was shot down over Guadalcanal the following day and spent five weeks struggling back to friendly lines. His gunner, PFC Reed Ramsey, went down with the plane.
The Seventh Marines would come to call the Matanikau attack “the Dead Man’s Patrol.” When the ground was eventually retaken, a handful of bodies were recovered; John Giles, for example, was found beside his empty machine gun.[42] Casualty cards for other Marines indicate a mass burial on an unspecified date, “in common grave with 16 others on west bank, mouth of Matanikau River.” Two of these men were found in 1943: Ralph Harless (X-61) in June, and Kenneth Quist in September. No other evidence of a mass grave has been found, and today the battlefield is a heavily built-up section of Honiara.
Sixteen Marines are still listed as non-recovered from the action of 27 September 1942.
[1] Lieutenant Colonel Frank O. Hough, Major Verle E. Ludwig, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Volume I: Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal (Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps), 314-315.
[2] The ten confirmed dead: 1Lt. Alvin Cockrell; Corporals John E. Edwinson, Jr. and Manuel J. Pimentel; PFCs Morris E. Canady, Erwin S. King, James R. Walters and Richard Wehr; Privates Randolph R. Edwards, Joseph P. Karnaghon, and Charmning W. Rowe. None were recovered after the battle.
[3] Eric Hammel, Guadalcanal: Starvation Island (Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Military History, 1987), 279.
[4] W. Ray Thomas (HQ-1-7) recalls that “Major Rogers was in command of approximately 400 of us left in reserve” during Chesty’s expedition to the Matanikau. W. Ray Thomas, A Journey Back In Time.
[5] Joseph Goble, The Lower Deck memoir. Goble may be mistaken here, as casualty records do not report any fatalities.
[6] Hammel, 278.
[7] Goble.
[8] Thomas.
[9] Jon T. Hoffman, Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC (Random House, 2001), 163-164.
[10] Ibid. Charles M. Jacobs of A/1/7 later said “In my mind, [Rogers] wasn’t too bright, because when he went into combat he had his Major’s insignia on; he had shiny boots and a clean uniform.”
[11] Hammel, 279.
[12] Ibid. This is an uncanny echo of Colonel Frank Goettge’s reaction to his own botched amphibious landing.
[13] Thomas.
[14] Goble.
[15] Thomas.
[16] Goble.
[17] Richard Wheeler, A Special Valor: The US Marines and the Pacific War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 86.
[18] Goble.
[19] Thomas.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Hammel, 281.
[22] Goble.
22.5 Michael Green and James D. Brown, War Stories of the Infantry: Americans in Combat, 1918 to Today (Zenith Press, 2009) 42-45.
[23] Hammel, 282.
[24] Hoffman, 185. Several histories claim alternately that this ship was the USS Ballard, the original fire support vessel for the mission. In researching for his definitive biography of Puller, Hoffman states “Marine records routinely cited Ballard as the ship assisting throughout the Matanikau operation of September 26–27. However, it definitely was Monssen that fired in support of Puller on the 26th and again late in the afternoon of the 27th. Monssen’s logs also show a shore bombardment mission “in support of Marine operations on Matanikau River” at 1245 on the 27th, followed by antiaircraft fire against Japanese planes at 1353. In all probability, division had [originally] arranged for support from Monssen, not Ballard, but in the absence of conclusive proof, I have followed the previously accepted version of events surrounding the landing of 1/7.” (ibid., 581-582.) Interestingly, the deck log of the Ballard (AVD-10) makes no mention of any action on September 27; she evidently weighed anchor for Espiritu Santo on this date. Monssen (DD-436) was commended by Puller, but did not long survive to enjoy her plaudits; she was sunk on November 13, 1942, losing 60% of her crew.
[25] Thomas.
[26] Wheeler, 87.
[27] Goble.
[28] Hammel, 282.
[29] Thomas.
[30] Goble.
[31] Thomas.
[32] Hammel, 283-284.
[33] Thomas.
[34] Goble.
[35] Stanley Coleman Jersey, Hell’s Islands: The Untold Story of Guadalcanal (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 244.
[36] Douglas Munro was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions this day; he remains the only Coast Guardsman to be so decorated.
[37] Hammel, 285.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Thomas.
[40] Joseph H. Alexander, Edson’s Raiders: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 209.
[41] Jersey, 244.
[42] Joe Goble recalled “The Raider Battalion went in the next day and found Giles. He had died beside his gun with only four rounds of ammo left. John was never mentioned in any books or records as a hero – only killed in action. To my thinking, he should have gotten the Medal of Honor.” Marine Corps casualty records seem to contradict this, noting that Giles died on 28 September “of wounds received in action on 27.” If Goble is correct, this is the date Giles was confirmed as KIA. It is extremely unusual that the Raiders retrieved Giles’ body and carried it back to the cemetery for burial, especially as the area was still under Japanese control – and that records for other Marines indicate a mass burial in the field.
Author’s Note: Quotations from Ed Poppendick were added in a revision of this post. All are sourced from:
Michael Green and James D. Brown, War Stories of the Infantry: Americans in Combat, 1918 to Today (Zenith Press, 2009) 42-45.