Charles Donald Miller

Charles was born on 5 October 1924, the son of Donald “Don” Miller and Lucille (Brown) Miller, lifelong residents of Delaware County, Indiana. He grew up in Albany with his older sister, Nola Kathryn, and from a young age was active in sports – particularly basketball and baseball. At thirteen, he joined the Albany Doodlesockers baseball club as a batboy and quickly became one of the team’s greatest boosters. He earned the nickname “Satch” or “Satchy” around this time; while there might be a reference to baseballer Satchel Paige, the true origins of Miller’s moniker are not clear.

Miller attended Albany High School, where he was a notable player on the school basketball team along with his buddies Ernie Bishop and James Haisley. In his junior year of 1941, “Satchy” led the Wildcat team for points scored in varsity games. He also made the Doodlesockers starting lineup as a shortstop, and was regarded as a powerhouse at the plate and in the field. In the 1942 season, his last with the club, Miller “committed only one error in 223 fielding chances and batted .337” – and the Doodlesockers notched a 35-game winning streak.

Satchy’s young life was not all good times on the baseball diamond. His parents split up; Lucille remarried to Frank Wojcik and moved to New Castle, while Don remained in Albany and remarried to Abigail Beall. When he graduated from Albany High School in 1942, Satchy was adjusting to life in a blended family with three new step siblings.

With high school behind him and his eighteenth birthday quickly approaching, Satchy’s thoughts turned from baseball to military service. Perhaps inspired by the enlistment of his buddy James Haisley in the wake of Pearl Harbor, Miller decided to enter the Marine Corps on 19 November 1942. The news of Guadalcanal was in all the local papers, and if Satchy picked up a copy of the Muncie Evening Press he might have seen Haisley’s photo with a notice that he was serving overseas.

Private Miller’s own journey to combat began with boot training in San Diego and assignment to the 11th Replacement Battalion. He arrived in New Zealand in April 1943 – too late to take part in the Guadalcanal campaign – and was temporarily stationed with the headquarters battalion of the Second Marine Division. Satchy was probably pleased to be in the same division as Haisley, but if he hoped to serve directly with his former teammate in action, he was disappointed. In the summer of 1943, Private Miller was assigned to Company A, First Battalion, 6th Marines; shortly thereafter, he was promoted to private first class.

The following months were spent in training for the next operation, which turned out to be the invasion of Betio in the Tarawa atoll. It would be Satchy Miller’s first and last experience in combat.

When he landed on Betio in a little rubber boat on the evening of 21 November 1943, he had been in the service for just over a year. With his buddies in A/1/6, he fought through innumerable Japanese fortifications in unbelievable heat; some of those buddies fell wounded, others fell dead.

That night, 1/6 dug in and prepared to resist any counterattacks that might come their way. No less than three hit their lines, climaxing in an all-out attack by several hundred Japanese troops in the early morning of the last day of the battle. At some point during the action, bullets hit PFC Charles Miller in the chest and head. He was just nineteen years old.

The news of Satchy’s death reached the Albany area just before Christmas, 1943 – and just one day after the Haisley family received word that Sergeant James Haisley was also killed in action on Betio.

“Satchy” was buried in a long trench alongside some thirty other Marines later that day. The temporary markers put up by 1/6 did not last long; construction of a Navy base ultimately destroyed the scrap wood crosses, and the location of the grave was lost.

Satchy’s burial place would remain undiscovered until 2019, when a History Flight expedition uncovered “Row D” and brought the remains back to the United States for laboratory analysis.

Charles Miller was identified on 19 May 2020 and has now been officially accounted for.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing
Strong Cemetery, Albany, IN

FINAL BURIAL
Arlington National Cemetery