Harold Gustave Dick
Private Harold G. “Harry” Dick served with Dog Company, First Battalion, 7th Marines.
He was killed in action at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 27 September 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 360129
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
History
Harold Dick was born in Lakewood, New Jersey, on 18 July 1924. His father Charles, an Austrian-born immigrant and veteran of the Great War, died when Harold was only three years old. Two years later, the widowed Rose Hadinger Dick married Abraham Snedcof, and Harold gained a stepfather, a stepbrother, and three older stepsisters. After spending several years in Linden and Red Bank, New Jersey, the entire clan moved to Tiffany Street in the Bronx, where Harold attended James Monroe high school.
Harold was in the middle of his senior year at James Monroe when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Patriotic posters sprang up almost overnight, and young men from the Bronx were filling recruiting stations for the Army, Navy, and Marines. Harold badly wanted to join up, but at seventeen years of age was still months below the minimum age requirement. There was one loophole – parental permission – but Rose put her foot down; she was not ready to send her only son off to war. At least he could finish high school, she argued – surely that would improve his options in the service?
Angry at his mother’s decision, Harold took matters into his own hands. A few days after Christmas 1941, Rose found Harold’s bedroom empty – save for a melodramatic farewell note.
“I am going somewhere I won’t need a suitcase.”
The next word the family received was not from a proud serviceman, but from a worried daughter living in Florida. She had custody of a tired and sullen Harold, she said, who was still bent on enlisting and refused to return to the Bronx where he belonged. Rose finally acquiesced and filled out the required paperwork – and Harold joined the United States Marine Corps on 27 January 1942.
With their son serving Uncle Sam, the Snedcofs decided it was time to do their bit as well. They moved to Rome, New York, where Abraham found work as a maintenance man at the local air force base; Rose volunteered with the Red Cross, knitting woolen goods and wrapping bandages for the boys overseas.
After completing his boot training at Parris Island, Private Harold Dick was posted to Company D, First Battalion, 7th Marines. His company was the battalion’s weapons outfit; Dick was assigned to a heavy machine gun crew as the “number four man” – an ammo carrier. He palled around with squadmates Elmer “Nemo” Anderson, Vincent Agidi, and Ed Poppendick, answered the orders of Lieutenant Richard P. Richards, and jumped when Platoon Sergeant Rufus “Bucky” Stowers so desired. In all, the determined young lad from New York fit right in with his new vocation.
Private Dick spent the next few months training at New River before shipping overseas – not for combat, as anticipated, but for defense duty in Samoa. As 1942 continued and the threat of Japanese invasion diminished, defense duty became garrison duty – and while the scenery was beautiful and the Samoan natives friendly, the men of the 7th couldn’t help but feel overlooked as their comrades in the First and Fifth Marines invaded Guadalcanal.
The 7th Marines finally arrived in the Solomon Islands on 18 September 1942. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis “Chesty” Puller, the “Old Man” of 1/7 and a hard-charger who believed in aggressive action, began dispatching combat patrols the following morning. The heavy weapons of Dog Company were hard to carry through the dense jungle; a few were attached for patrol duty, but the balance of them maintained defensive positions along the perimeter. They were glad of the comparative safety, especially after one patrol resulted in a heavy firefight out in the boondocks. Puller dispatched two companies back to the perimeter as escorts for the casualties – dozens of wounded, with bloody bandages and stretchers creating an indelible impression on Dog Company. Survivors told of ten Marines killed in action or dead of wounds, buried in the field.
On 27 September 1942, orders arrived for Able and Baker Companies to saddle up and prepare for action. Battalion executive officer Major Otho L. Rogers – in charge while Chesty Puller operated elsewhere – added a heavy mortar squad and machine gunners from Dog Company to the mission; Lieutenant Richards’ platoon was tapped. Harold Dick was soon loaded with his equipment, personal weapon, and ammunition boxes for the .30 caliber Browning. He marched from bivouac to the boat pool near Kukum, heard a inspirational speech from Major Rogers (“I hope every many gets the Navy Cross!”) and boarded a Higgins boat for an ampibious assault in miniature.
The battalion was put ashore a few hundred yards beyond Point Cruz – in decidedly the wrong place. A lack of Japanese resistance was a welcome surprise, particularly as the machine gunners debarked in deep water; Ed Poppendick nearly drowned before getting ashore. The gunners watched as Company B formed a quick skirmish line and disappeared into the trees; since their heavy weapons were all but useless in an assault, they were to cover the landing of Company A and then advance with that unit.
Everything went according to plan until Captain Tom Cross’s Company A came ashore. Almost simultaneously, mortar bursts could be heard in the vicinity of Hill 84, and the rifle company took off at the trot to help out Company B. Dutifully, the machine gunners covered the movement, then packed up to follow.
They had gone only a few yards into the trees when one of the gunners looked over his shoulder. “I think the Raiders are in back of us,” he piped up hopefully. He could not have been more wrong.
The number one and number two men were both shot; one was Anderson and the other Adigi.... The corporal in charge, Giles, had his head blown off... And then the other kid got shot maybe two or three times. I don't know if he was killed or not.... Seven guys in the squad, and I was the only one left....
With the gun out of action, Lieutenant Richards called his men back towards the beach. Wounded men were evacuated, but the dead had to be left where they fell. Japanese troops threatened to envelop the Marines, who conducted a fighting withdrawal back to their landing site. Coast Guardsmen finally returned to pick up the battalion; the entire fiasco became known as “the Dead Man’s Patrol,” or “Little Dunkirk.”
Newspapers in New York and New Jersey carried the news of Private Dick’s death. Rose Snedcof “plunged deeper than ever into Red Cross activities” after receiving the Western Union telegram; she was presented with her son’s Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. In 1947, she wrote to the Quartermaster General seeking an application to have Harold’s body returned from overseas. It would never happen in her lifetime.
Post-war searches investigated a report of a mass grave of seventeen Marines “on the west bank at the mouth of the Matanikau River” in which the dead of 1/7 were supposedly included, but could find no clues about the site. Civilian shopkeepers living along the Matanikau told of years of flooding, and even veterans of the battle had difficulty orienting themselves in the changed terrain. Other teams combed the ground between the river and Point Cruz. A handful of remains were found, but none could be identified as members of 1/7.
Harold Dick’s body has never been identified. He is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death in action, 27 September 1942.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Rose Snedcof.
The Snedcofs moved to Rome, New York, in 1942.
Location Of Loss
Private Dick was last seen in the vicinity of Hill 84, Guadalcanal.
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Harold was my uncle and I never got to meet him. So sad