Frank Bryan Goettge
Colonel Frank B. Goettge served as the intelligence officer (D-2) for the 1st Marine Division.
He was killed in action while leading a patrol at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 12 August 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number O-333
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
History
Duty with the Army of Occupation in Germany was somewhat less than exciting, and Lieutenant Goettge soon found a way to turn his attention back to sports. He was soon wowing crowds of cheering servicemen who came to watch him play baseball and football as a member of the AEF All-Star Team. An injury received “in the line of duty” – most likely during a spirited game – hastened the end of his overseas career, and by September 1919 Goettge was back in the United States.
Rather than return to college, Lt. Goettge decided to stay in uniform. He served in Haiti as a “scouting and intelligence officer” and company commander, then applied for flight training. A medical condition led to his rejection from Pensacola, but another opportunity quickly appeared: the Marine Corps football team. His rise to fame was meteoric, first as a fullback, then as an all-around player. Sports writers loved to cover the massive, pile-driving Marine. “The peerless Goettge,” he was called, or “superman,” “the Marine Battering Ram,” or “The Human Locomotive.”[7]Army footballers adopted a new chant: “Stop Goettge!” Walter Campbell wrote of “Goettge the Great.… He is easily the greatest football player of the present day. He is, indeed, the nearest approach to Jim Thorpe of all time.”[8] Fittingly, Goettge’s most common nickname became “The Great.”
When a four-year service ruling forced Goettge off the gridiron in 1925, he had amassed an unprecedented record of thirty-eight wins, two ties, and two losses. The New York Giants offered him the chance to go pro, but Goettge preferred to stay at Quantico and coach Marine footballers.[9]
Scenes from Goettge's football career, 1923 – 1925.
In July 1941, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Goettge was reassigned to the 1st Marine Division as the senior intelligence officer (D-2). Aside from his brief stint in Haiti – now two decades in the past – he had little experience in the realm of combat intelligence, and was at times as ignorant of the work as the junior officers he was expected to lead. Second Lieutenant Karl Thayer Soule, a newly-minted photographic officer, recalled his first meeting with Goettge:
“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.” The voice fitted the man, firm and heavy, but friendly and warm.
We shook hands with a tight, firm grip.
“Now,” said the colonel, motioning me to a chair, “you can clear something up for me. What the hell is a photographic officer?”[10]
Goettge was willing to learn what he did not know, and his affable nature endeared him to his contemporaries. “Frank had a great personality,” wrote one, “and while under the surface he was as hard as the traditional Marine, he had a heart of gold and was a well-polished and refined type of person.”[11] Cpl. Joseph Spaulding, a New Yorker assigned to Goettge as a runner, remembered his boss as “an imposing man. His physical stature commanded your attention, and there was a note of authority in his voice.… Goettge gave an order, and people tended to be prompt in carrying it out.” Marine Gunner Edward “Bill” Rust felt that “you couldn’t doubt he was able to do anything … you’d have followed him anywhere.”[12] Goette’s appeal was not universal – he was “a conscientious and considerate, but remote” commanding officer to some, while others felt Goettge was more celebrity than substance, a “rah-rah football hero.”
Goettge’s challenges were legion. In addition to learning his craft, training his section, and organizing the activities of smaller “2-sections” across the Division, he also had to develop and digest information about the Marines’ intended target – Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Almost everything about the island, from terrain to climate to population, was completely alien to most Americans, let alone combat troops planning a complicated amphibious invasion. After arriving in New Zealand, Goettge had only a matter of weeks to assemble enough information to guide the operation. Despite around-the-clock work, the Marines managed only “a stab in the dark” at “the fog of blank ignorance and some misinformation” that shrouded the Solomon Islands.[13]In the end, there was no choice but to forge ahead. “It is incredible that the Division was committed on such slim intelligence,” remarked Lieutenant Soule.[14]
As hostile contacts increased, a clearer picture of the situation emerged. The Japanese, however many of them there were, had withdrawn across the Matanikau River to the west. They did not intend to let the Marines follow: every patrol that approached the western bank met a “hornet’s nest” of gunfire. The intelligence section took note, and 1Sgt. Custer began planning a heavily-armed combat patrol to scout enemy positions. However, when the 5th Marines captured a Japanese sailor, Colonel Goettge got involved. The prisoner mentioned a starving and dispirited group of his comrades camped out near Point Cruz – any or all of whom might be inclined to surrender.
Col. Goettge seized on this new information. He saw a chance to reconnoiter the area west of the Matanikau with minimal risk, to scout the troublesome defensive positions and get a better fix on enemy strength. Americans could prove they were not afraid of the jungle or the Japanese while extending the proverbial olive branch to the non-combatant labor troops caught between the warring parties. The stock of the intelligence section would rise immeasurably. All of this could be accomplished by a single patrol, thought Goettge – a patrol he would lead himself. His plan to take a group around the front lines by boat met with little enthusiasm from his staff colleagues and from General Vandegrift. The generally finally offered a tepid endorsement: “Well, Frank, I’m not going to order you to stay here….”[16]
This was good enough for Goettge. He took charge of Custer’s patrol and replaced the combat troops with hand-picked intelligence specialists from his own section and the 5th Marines. The men had little idea what they were about to undertake; many thought it a great adventure and a chance for medals. Goettge brought no heavy weapons, no radio, and no medical personnel aside from LtCdr. Malcolm L. Pratt, the 52-year-old senior surgeon of the 5th Marines. Some of the more experienced NCOs were disgusted at the lack of organization – especially as the day dragged on and night began to fall. Finally, Goettge loaded his two dozen Marines and the recalcitrant POW into a Higgins boat and set off from Kukum.
Instead of a great intelligence coup, the “Goettge Patrol” became “an Intelligence comedy of errors.”[17] The men were briefed after leaving Kukum. Goettge decided to sail back to the dock to report a suspicious fire, then head out again. The night was pitch black, and the coxswain got disoriented. Goettge decided to land too soon – over the loud protests of the prisoner – and then the boat grounded on a sandbar. Unfortunately, the patrol was nowhere near where it should have been – they were right in the middle of the “hornet’s nest” they had been explicitly warned to avoid.
Goettge led his men ashore and, after a brief conference with the senior members of the patrol, decided to find a suitable spot to bivouac for the night. He disappeared into the treeline, followed by 1Sgt. Custer and Captain Wilfred H. Ringer, Jr.
The Marines on the beach heard a single shot, immediately identifiable as a Japanese weapon. The rattle of Captain Ringer’s Reising gun replied, and a smattering of gunfire broke out. Ringer came rushing back through the trees, followed a few minutes later by a wounded 1Sgt. Custer. Colonel Goettge did not reappear.
Ringer thought the colonel had been hit and wanted to move up to investigate. Platoon Sergeant Frank Few argued with his skipper; if Goettge were incapacitated, Ringer would have to take command, and there was no point in risking another officer. Instead, Few volunteered to go. Sergeant Charles “Monk” Arndt and Corporal Joseph Spaulding, Goettge’s runner, joined him. “This is really Errol Flynn stuff,” Spaulding muttered as they low-crawled through the underbrush. They had gone only a few yards when they found Goettge sprawled on the ground. Few reached out to shake the colonel and felt blood all over Goettge’s face and shoulders. “My God,” he gasped, “he’s been shot through the head.” There was no pulse, no heartbeat, and no breath.[18] Moments later, Japanese troops jumped on Frank Few and after a few minutes of close fighting, the Marines managed to reach the beach.
Because the three survivors all saw Frank Goettge’s body, the colonel was officially reported as dead as of 12 August 1942. The other members of the patrol were reported as “missing,” and the story repeated in many military records and early histories was that they vanished without a trace. However, numerous patrols from the 5th Marines found the butchered remains of the men strewn along the banks of the river. Thurman Miller of I/3/5 remembered “a scent that those of us who were there can recall in an instant. What lay beneath the foliage was no longer human.… Sticking out of the sand was a boot, containing the foot of its owner. I scraped in the sand and uncovered another legging with the leg still in it.”
“The first thing I saw was the severed head of a Marine,” recalled Sergeant Jim McEnery. “I almost let out a yell because the head was moving back and forth in the water and looked like it was alive. Then I realized it was just bobbing in the small waves lapping at the shore. They would wash it up onto the sand a few inches, then it would float back out again when the waves receded.” Their shocked eyes beheld parts strewn in every direction as they slowly worked across the sandspit. The ragged stump of a leg sporting a neatly laced boondocker. A headless, armless torso still clad in a first sergeant’s shirt. Less identifiable pieces floated in the water or lay fly-covered and rotting in the sand. Some men began to retch, but most stood stock still in horrified silence. “No one spoke,” recalled Miller. “Not a word. Some things are better left unsaid.”[19]
To this day, none of the Goettge Patrol casualties has ever been recovered. Colonel Goettge himself most likely lies in that shallow grave on Guadalcanal, somewhere under the city of Honiara.
Colonel Frank B. Goettge is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, and Standing Rock Cemetery, Kent, Ohio.
[1] The 1900 Census shows the Goettge family living at 299 Carrollton Street in Magnolia; Adam’s occupation is given as “saloon keeper.” They moved to Barberton prior to the 1910 Census.
[2] Phil Dietrich, “Goettge’s Glory Rivaled Thorpe,” The Akron Beacon-Journal, 25 October 1963.
[3] “Former County Boy Starring On Akron Nine,” The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH) 29 June 1914.
[4] “Goettge Will Be In Game,” The Akron Beacon-Journal, 3 November 1916.
[5] “The Voice From The Grandstand,” The Akron Beacon-Journal, 15 March 1963.
[6] The modern designation for this unit is Company G, Second Battalion, 5th Marines.
[7] “Goettge Crosses Goal,” Leatherneck Magazine, December 1923, p. 5.
[8] Dietrich, “Goettge’s Glory.”
[9] Zene Tuttler, “Gridiron Nonpareil,” Leatherneck Magazine, October 1952, p. 39.
[10] Thayer Soule, Shooting the Pacific War: Marine Corps Combat Photography in WWII (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 27.
[11] Kerr, H. B., “Marines Fought Savagely To Avenge Death Of Colonel Goettge on Guadalcanal,” The Akron Beacon-Journal, March 28, 1943, 5D.
[12] Shapiro, A., and Robards, J., The Unknown Soldier, directed by Carol L. Fleischer, PBS, aired 11 November 1985, DVD; Carl Custer, email to the author, February 7, 2017.
[13] John L. Zimmerman, The Guadalcanal Campaign (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1949), 14.
[14] Soule, 45.
[15] Ibid., 69.
[16] Ibid.
[17] A. B. Waters, “The Price of Intelligence,” Marine Corps Gazette vol. 38, no. 7 (July 1954), 35. Waters continued: “… the humor of which is nullified by the vast toll of lives it occasioned.”
[18] Geoffrey W. Roecker, Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal (Stroud, UK: Fonthill, 2019).
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ore J. Marion, Thomas Cuddihy and Edward Cuddihy, On The Canal: The Marines of L-3-5 on Guadalcanal, 1942 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004), 94.
Decorations
Legion of Merit
Foe exceptionally meritorious conduct, 26 June to 12 August 1942.
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 12 August 1942.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of wife, Mrs. Florence Goettge.
Location Of Loss
The Goettge Patrol was ambushed near the western bank of the Matanikau.
Goettge Patrol Casualties
Missing in action 12-13 August 1942.
Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal
Frank Few lay in his foxhole, wishing the daylight away. Warm seawater swirled into his foxhole, turning pinkish as it mingled with the blood seeping from his chest and arm. Sand was everywhere—stuck to the Japanese blood on his clothes, in his eyes, in the Reising gun he borrowed from Monk and which would only fire single shots. Few counted out his remaining rounds and stuffed them into his mouth to keep the sand and salt water away. Occasionally, a bullet snapped
overhead, as if he needed a reminder to keep his head down.
Trapped in a flooding foxhole, wounded, almost out of ammunition, with the sun coming up. It could not get much worse: “The hell with this for a lark,” he thought.
Read more about the Goettge Patrol in "Leaving Mac Behind."
Click the cover for details.
link of interest http://www.nettally.com/jrube/indx2.html
From the late Don Lager of “I” 5th Marines
# 7
http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/9233/Page5usmc.html&date=2009-10-25+07:35:29
See also http://www.pacificwrecks.com/people/visitors/innes/the_village/map-native-village.html#axzz2ZvHqz7R9
Don Langer also saw remains of the Patrol at http://www.nettally.com/jrube/dlanger.htm
See footnotes at 2 to 6 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Goettge
I wonder if he served with my uncle Denzil Caltrider?
Hi Bonnie – Colonel Goettge led the patrol on which Platoon Sergeant Caltrider was killed. While Goettge was on the 1st Marine Division staff and Caltrider was with the 5th Marines (Regiment), they likely knew each other at least a little bit before the patrol – combat intelligence was a very small community back then.
My Grandfather Pltn. Sgt. Frank L. Few was the last one to make it out alive during this Goettge battle, i still remember him telling me the story when i was 8yo. The History Channel did a 10 minute film on this particular battle titled Shootout – Guadalcanal.
Mr. Few
Did your grandfather ever mention that terrific but unorthodox holster I’ve seen him wearing in a photo?
I’m curious where he bought that. It was almost certainly civilian.
Thanks, and deepest respects to him.
Bob
rvbunting@yahoo.com