Audrey Galen Winn, Jr.

On 20 July 1943, after fifteen days of traversing New Georgia’s Dragons Peninsula, struggling through mangrove swamps, skirmishing with Japanese forces, and fighting a pitched battle for a base at Enogai, elements of the 1st Marine Raider Regiment – the First and Fourth Raider Battalions – set out to attack the enemy garrison at Barioko Harbor. The Marines, advancing along the Enogai-Bairoko Trail, would form the northern wing of the assault, with 3/148th Infantry supporting along the Triri-Bairoko trail to the south. “Between the two trails was tangled jungle and vile swampland, which we all knew meant there would be no opportunity for fancy maneuvering,” recalled Raider Marlin Groft. “When we attacked Bairoko it would be a desperate, head-on frontal assault.”

Groft was correct – and, to make matters worse, the Japanese garrison used the ten days after Enogai to reinforce and fortify their positions. A planned airstrike never materialized, and the Army’s support was lackluster. At 1015, the Raiders hit the first Japanese outposts and pushed through with grenades and bayonets – only to run headlong into an impassible main line of resistance. “A wall of lead came at us from Nambus firmly placed in nests chiseled into the hard coral,” Groft continued. “Our advance was brought to a halt…. If combat men ever experienced a Hell on Earth, this was it.”

Private First Class Audrey Winn, a machine gun ammunition carrier with Baker Company, distinguished himself throughout the day by keeping his weapon well supplied with belted rounds. He ran through heavy fire multiple times, delivering his heavy boxes to the gunners even when the squad was pinned down. Winn’s luck eventually ran out; he was shot multiple times in both legs with severe wounds to his left thigh, and was carried to the rear to join an ever-growing host of bloodied Raiders waiting for medical attention.

By 1700 hours, high casualties and fading daylight forced the Raiders to withdraw back to Enogai. The “screwed up affair” of Bairoko was the worst defeat ever suffered by any Raider unit, and nearly two hundred men wounded in action. Many of these could not walk, and any Marine capable of carrying a stretcher was pressed into duty. The column moved too slowly to cover the two miles to Enogai before night, so they set up a perimeter around the wounded men and anxiously awaited the Japanese. Except for a brief skirmish, the night was quiet and at 0600 on 21 July the Raiders resumed their wearisome journey. Breaks were called every 200 yards to rest the exhausted stretcher bearers, and the last Raiders reached Enogai at 1700 hours – a full day after the withdrawal began.

Audrey Winn probably died during this withdrawal to Enogai; his official date of death is 21 July 1943. He received a posthumous Silver Star for gallantry in action at Bairoko.