Noel Oker Castle
Captain Noel O. Castle served with Dog Company, First Battalion, 4th Marines.
He was killed in action at Corregidor on 6 May 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number O-5323
Current Status
Remains not recovered.
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
History
Captain Noel Oker Castle was the best shot on Corregidor – and had the swagger and medals to prove it.
The future Marine officer had a military bent since his early days. Born in Washington, DC on 19 November 1911, he grew up in Brookfield, Maryland and attended the University of Maryland, College Park. While studying for his degree in engineering, Castle participated in Scabbard & Blade, was an ROTC major, and an outstanding member of the school’s rifle team. He was a natural pick for the Marine Corps and was offered a commission immediately after graduation in 1936. After instruction at The Basic School in Philadelphia, he was assigned to Quantico as an officer of the rifle range detachment.
Castle was an expert shot – so much so that he was chosen for the Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team no less than three times. He shot well in competitions in 1937 and 1938, but 1939 proved the old adage “the third time’s the charm.” The Marine Corps team shot a perfect score in the National Herrick Trophy Match – 800 of 800 – setting a new world record. Castle was awarded a gold Distinguished Rifleman Badge and a promotion to First Lieutenant.
While earning these awards, Noel Castle was also on active duty. He served with the 5th Marines in Virginia and Puerto Rico, tried his hand at being a battery officer with the 15th Marines at Quantico, and trained with the 1st Engineer Company for a brief period. In March of 1940, he was assigned to the 4th Marines and traveled to Shanghai for overseas duty, arriving on 1 May. Overseas duty did not prevent Castle from showing off his marksmanship skills: he was invited to participate in the Asiatic Division Rifle and Pistol Competition and came away with the accolades of Distinguished Pistol Shot. Castle cultivated a bit of a swashbuckling image, and was known to wear a pair of pearl-handled .45s as his personal armament.
Lieutenant Castle spent much of his China duty as executive officer of D/1/4th Marines. In the fall of 1941, he replaced Lt. Robert Moore as the company commander, and led his men out of Shanghai and into the Philippines shortly before the war broke out. A month after Pearl Harbor, Castle accepted his promotion to captain; however, he had much bigger issues on his mind than his career advancement. He would fight through the defense of Bataan and onto Corregidor, where his men occupied beach defense positions. Once Bataan fell, the defenders faced nearly a month of bombing, shelling, and the occasional attempted landing by Japanese raiding parties.
On the night of 5 May 1942, Captain Castle was directing the repair of some damaged emplacements when a Japanese bombardment came rolling in. The incoming fire was heavier than usual, so Castle urged vigilance – and when landing craft were spotted, gave the order for his men to open fire. Realizing his men would be overwhelmed without help, Castle took off for Topside to find reinforcements. By the time he gathered a fighting force, the Japanese were ashore and about to occupy Battery Denver. Castle made quick dispositions for a counterattack, as described by J. Michael Miller in “From Shanghai to Corregidor.”
Castle dispatched Sergeant Matthew Monk with 15 drivers and cooks to occupy an abandoned beach defense position and secure his left flank. “Do the best you can,” he ordered Monk, “Keep the Japanese out of the tunnel.” Castle also scouted the reserve stations at critical road junctions, and cautioned the men, “Maintain positions.” He then gathered his men for the counterattack to Denver Battery, declaring, “Let’s go up there and run the bastards off.” Ferrell warned Castle from leading the attack himself, but the captain replied, “I’m going to take these people up there and shoot those people’s eyes out” and led his men to the hill.
Castle’s group – fifty to sixty men from a mixture of units and branches of service – hurried off in the direction of Battery Denver.
Corporal E. L. R. Clark and PFC Edward G. Free were crouched behind a machine gun, covering Road Junction #21 on the Malinta Point Trail. The sounds of heavy firing were drawing gradually closer, but that worried them less than the occasional zip of a rifle bullet overhead. A zealous Japanese sniper, out ahead of his comrades, had a fix on their position; every now and then, he’d loose a shot up the road. Clark was watching for the rest of the Japanese forces when he spotted a lone figure crossing the road. He recognized Captain Castle and shouted “Go back! There is a sniper shooting this way!” Castle ignored the warning.
“About a yard from the embankment on the north side of the road he was hit by what I believe to be rifle or machine gun bullets,” remembered Clark. “I saw him fall forward and disappear from sight over the edge of the road.” Just then, the Japanese artillery opened fire on the road junction. Clark jumped for cover while Free – who was a member of Castle’s D/1/4 – scurried across the road to check on the fallen officer. The two regrouped at the gun when the artillery stopped. “Free then told me that Captain Castle was hit in the chest and abdomen and was in a bad way,” said Clark. “He told me that the Captain could not move and that he had loosened his pistol belt and other equipment.”
Clark and Free may have debated helping Castle, but in combat their primary responsibility was to their machine gun. They packed up and moved to a new position; neither saw the captain again. Both men were captured when Corregidor fell the following day; Clark survived, but Free would die in a Japanese POW camp in November 1942.
Noel Castle was awarded a posthumous Silver Star for his actions on Corregidor. No report of his burial was ever made, and no surviving American recalled seeing his body after the battle. He was never recovered or identified, and remains on the list of the missing to this day.
Noel Oker Castle is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 6 May 1942.
Distinguished Marksman
Awarded in 1939
Distinguished Pistol Shot
Awarded in 1940
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Annie Castle.
Location Of Loss
Captain Castle was last seen in the vicinity of Battery Denver, Corregidor.
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