Francis John Monick
PFC Francis J. Monick served with Baker Company, First Battalion, 8th Marines.
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 20 November 1943.
*This is an official date of death. Monick's battalion did not land until 21 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 378943
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
History
Francis was born in the hamlet of Brasher Falls, New York, on 19 September 1921. He was the oldest child of Joseph and Margaret “Maggie” Monick, Quebec-descendant members of a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) tribe. In the early 1920s, the Monicks moved to Jefferson County and settled in Theresa. Joseph and Maggie wove baskets and did housework to support their growing family – which included Mary, Annie Rose, and Kathleen by 1930. “Indian Joe Minnick” as he was called around town, was a well-known contestant in the “go-as-you-please” races popular in the era.
The Monicks lived in a building known as “the Thresher House” on Lafargeville Road, about a mile outside of Theresa. This multi-family dwelling seemed almost cursed at times, with multiple fires reported by the local news. (In one tragic event, four-year-old Florence Sprauge got close to a box stove and “ran from the house a living torch.” Maggie Monick managed to rip off the child’s burning clothing, but the girl died within hours of the accident.)[1] A regional outbreak of scarlet fever reached Thresher House in 1933; Mary Frances Monick was hospitalized with pneumonia, and some of her siblings fell ill with measles, but all recovered. And then tragedy struck the Monicks. On 1 May 1934, Joe Monick was stricken with pneumonia; although admitted to Theresa Hospital, he died within hours of the onset of symptoms. Three days later, Maggie Monick succumbed to the same disease.
Without any close local family, the four Monick children became wards of the state. They were taken in by St. Patrick’s Orphanage in Watertown, New York, to be raised under the strict guidance of the Sisters of Saint Patrick. Francis, who was thirteen when his parents died, was soon taken in by James and Nellie Bishop of Three Mile Creek. The Bishops offered a home to a number of displaced or orphaned children, and Francis would spend nearly seven years with the Healers, Murdies, and Dunbars who came to live on the farmstead on St. Lawrence Road. He briefly attended Liberty Pole School in Depauville, but most of his education revolved around caring for horses, cattle, sheep, and chickens.
Life was not always easy on the farm. An awful fire destroyed the cattle barn in 1938, causing thousands of dollars in damage and killing many of the animals. Two years later, Francis was almost trapped in a second barn fire while feeding the horses – his lantern, kicked over by a Murdie boy at play, ignited loose hay on the floor, and the fire departments of Clinton and Depauville had to be summoned.[2] In spite of this bad luck, the Bishops provided a stable home for their charges, and Francis learned enough about farming to hire out professionally. By 1941, he was working on the John Wheeler farm, situated on Three Mile Point overlooking Chaumont Bay.
In February 1942, Francis registered for Selective Service with Local Board 421 in Adams, New York. This may have inspired the desire for a major change in his life, for he enlisted in the Marine Corps on 23 March 1942. After a swearing-in ceremony in Syracuse, Francis was shipped down to South Carolina for boot training at Parris Island.
Private Monick successfully completed boot camp in the spring of 1942, and was briefly assigned to the headquarters detachment at Parris Island itself. From there, he was sent to New River, North Carolina for duty with Company L of the 3rd Marines. This regiment, part of the Second Marine Brigade, shipped out for garrison duty in American Samoa on 1 September 1942. Shortly after arriving at Tutuila, approximately half of the company – including Private Monick – transferred to the First Battalion, 8th Marines. Monick landed in Baker Company on 22 September; he would spend the rest of his life as a member of that organization.
In October, the 8th Marines boarded the USS President Hayes and sailed for the Solomon Islands. They arrived at Guadalcanal on 4 November 1942, and began combat patrols within days. The learning curve was steep, and they soon suffered their first battle casualties. Francis Monick was among them: while attempting to carry a wounded buddy out of the line of fire on 19 November, Monick was shot in the left leg, just above the knee. He would spend a terrifying night trapped between opposing lines with a handful of lost soldiers and fellow Baker Company Marines – including Barney Ross, who later told the hair-raising tale in a syndicated newspaper feature.
Bullets cut into our log and bounced up from it. The machine guns seemed all around us.... One mortar hit within five yards and fragments punctured my right forearm.... Finally, it got light. At about 7AM a big shell hit in front of our hole and I told Monak "I'm going back to get some help."[3]
Ross managed to find a friendly patrol and led a rescue party back to the stranded men. While the wounded Marines were carried back to their own company, Monick was taken to an Army aid station for treatment. His wound, while not debilitating, was serious enough to warrant evacuation to Australia. Monick recovered quickly in the hospital, but was not permitted to rejoin his unit on the battlefield. He felt a bit shortchanged at being knocked out of the fight so early, and “expressed hope he would ‘soon get back to business'” in a letter to the Bishops.[4] He finally rejoined Baker Company in the spring of 1943, and spent the next several months undergoing intense field training at Camp Paekakariki. On fortunate weekends, Monick enjoyed liberty calls in Wellington with his buddies – and probably enjoyed the extra attention that came with his new PFC stripe and the Purple Heart he received for his wounds.
In late October 1943, PFC Monick and his company boarded the USS Sheridan at Wellington harbor for a series of complicated amphibious landing exercises. This time, however, they did not return to Paekakariki, but instead sailed for the open sea. After a short layover at Efate, they proceeded on to their final objective – an assault landing on a tiny island codenamed “Helen.” Operation GALVANIC – the battle of Tarawa – was underway.
The Sheridan arrived in the Gilbert Islands early on the morning of 20 November 1943. Monick’s battalion was designated as regimental reserve; they would follow their sister battalions 2-8 and 3-8 ashore when called. Many in 1-8 believed they would be mopping up a shattered enemy – if, indeed, they were needed at all. Men and officers crowded the rail to watch the bombardment of tiny Betio. “We can even see the shells, red-hot and glowing like meteors, streaking across the sky in shallow trajectories towards the island,” related Lieutenant Dean Ladd, a platoon leader in B/1/8. “On Betio we see explosions, flames leaping up. We’re impressed. ‘Wow, look at that,’ we say. ‘Look at the smoke, look at the fire. Wow.’” They could see the small dots of LVTs carrying the assault waves crawling towards the inferno. “The minutes pass, and we know the assault has begun,” continued Ladd. “Nothing to do now but wait. The warships have ceased firing. We smoke cigarettes, chat, check our weapons and gear, fidget. We can’t hear any sounds of battle…. Maybe there isn’t a battle. Maybe the amphtracs are trundling ashore without incident, depositing the Marines on the beaches, and no one is even getting his feet wet.”[5]
Ladd’s prediction turned out to be wishful thinking. The first waves were slaughtered; reports turned ugly, and at 1140 the Marines of 1-8 were ordered over the sides of the Sheridan and into Higgins boats. They anticipated landing orders at any moment – but instead were kept circling in the rough water, nauseated by swells, diesel fumes, and nerves. One Marine recalled the awful smell of regurgitated Van Camps Pork and Beans sloshing in the troop compartment of his LVT. The misery lasted through the rest of the day and a very long night. “We were afloat for about twenty hours,” continued Ladd. “Our mouths are dry, our muscles are stiff, we feel haggard and cruddy. Some guys are sipping from their canteens or nibbling on their rations, although there’s not much eating because we just aren’t hungry.”[6]
At long last, at 0700 hours on 21 November 1943, the boats carrying BLT 1-8 organized into a line and motored towards Beach Red Two. Caught in the island’s infamous dodging tide, the LCVPs could not pass a coral reef several hundred yards offshore. Coxswains dropped their ramps and Marines piled out into chest deep water. The Japanese were waiting – and, in Ladd’s words, “that’s when the slaughter really begins.”
The full story of Francis Monick’s final moments can never be told with complete accuracy. His battalion was decimated on the long walk to shore; those who managed to reach the beach were stunned, disorganized, and barely able to function. Many lost their weapons in the water, or staggered ashore with wounds. And many others simply disappeared. The situation was so confused that many 1-8 Marines were erroneously reported as killed or missing on 20 November 1943 – a full day before they came ashore. (Monick is one of these, for reasons unknown.)
Monick’s body was found somewhere on Betio and brought to a burial ground near the 1-8 command post on 23 November 1943. The officer in charge – 8th Marines chaplain W. Wyeth Willard – recorded Monick’s serial number and entered his name on a burial roster for “Cemetery 2.” Unfortunately, the overworked chaplain or one of his volunteer assistants made a slight typographical error: Monick’s name appears twice on the roll, in Grave 12 and Grave 39. (A separate casualty report completed by the chaplain suggests that Grave 39 is the correct location.) The cemetery, also known as “8th Marines Cemetery #1” was one of the largest on the island.
Official news of Francis Monick’s death reached Watertown in the form of a telegram delivered to Angie Kellogg at the Jefferson County Building. Miss Kellogg, the county agent for “delinquent and dependent children,” was technically Francis’ legal guardian, but she knew to notify the Bishops and the Monick sisters before local newspapers picked up the story. Mary Monick received a personal letter from her brother’s company commander:
Dear Miss Monick,
It is with sincere regret that I inform you of the death of your brother, Francis, who died on November 21 of wounds inflicted by the enemy in the assault on Betio, Tarawa atoll, Gilbert Islands.
As the commanding officer of Company B, I had the occasion to know your brother. Never have I seen a finer reflection of the true qualities of the soldier. Francis typified the spirit of willing cooperation, genuine friendship, and human understanding which marks the difference between mere man and those more worthy of the name. And now a power greater than ourselves has summoned him. We will miss him and remember him.
The men of my command join with me in this message of condolence. We, too, have lost a friend; but for a time only. And we are proud in the knowledge that he met death gallantly, faithful to the very end, and cheerful in knowing that he, too, had lived to the utmost the motto which the Corps has chosen as its own, "Semper Fidelis."
The common enemy has found its betters in men like Francis, Miss Monick, and the sacrifice that he made will hasten the day when men may once again breath the clean air of freedom.
Watertown’s Memorial Day observations in 1946 – one of the most impressive in the town’s history – included the dedication of a memorial to the town’s three war dead: Wilbur Davis, Theodore Seymour, and Francis Monick.
Monick’s grave, however, was fated to remain a cenotaph. Just two months before the ceremony, on the other side of the world, troops of the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company excavated “Cemetery 25“ – a formal, beautified memorial built on the site of Willard’s original “Cemetery 2.” They found a white cross inscribed with Monick’s name (visible in second row, photo at right) but the markers bore no relation to where the Marines were actually buried. When the original trenches were finally located, most of the remains were unidentifiable by methods available to the Graves Registration troops.
In the years that followed, laboratory analysis successfully identified all but three of the Marines originally reported buried in Cemetery 25. One of these is Francis Monick. His remains may still lie undiscovered on Betio – or he may be among those once buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and now in a DPAA laboratory awaiting further investigation.[7]
PFC Francis John Monick is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing, Honolulu.
[1] “Theresa Girl, 4, Burned To Death,” The Watertown Daily Times (4 January 1934).
[2] “Fire Threatens Barn On Farm,” The Watertown Daily Times (27 December 1940).
[3] Barney Ross and George K. Shaffer, “Barney Ross On Guadalcanal,” King Features Syndicate, March 1943. Ross, already a celebrity when he entered the Marine Corps, received the Silver Star Medal for this event. His retelling of the tale, which painted him as the sole hero, was regarded by fellow veterans as self-aggrandizing boasting – “three parts baloney and one part truth,” according to veteran Dean Ladd. “Ross was certainly brave, and I liked him personally, but [Myron Guarnett and Leo Washvillo] did most of the fighting, and everybody in B Company knew it.”
[4] “Man Is Wounded At Guadalcanal,” The Watertown Daily Times (20 January 1943).
[5] Dean Ladd and Steve Weingartner, Faithful Warriors: A Combat Marine Remembers the Pacific War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009), 19.
[6] Ibid., 23.
[7] The other two Marines are PFC Samuel B. Elliott and PFC Russell L. Carney. There are three unresolved cases (X-211, X-217, and X-227) from Cemetery 25 – whether this is a coincidence or a clue has not been officially determined, and laboratory analysis is still ongoing.
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds received in action on Guadalcanal, 19 November 1942.
Gold Star (in lieu of second Purple Heart)
For wounds resulting in his death in action at Tarawa, 21 November 1943.
Next Of Kin Address
Prior to enlisting, Monick lived and worked at the Wheeler farm on Three Mile Point, Lyme, NY.
His legal guardian, Miss Annie Kellogg, resided in Watertown.
Location Of Loss
PFC Monick’s battalion landed in the vicinity of Beach Red 2, Betio.