John Charlton Holladay
Sergeant John C. Holladay served with Baker Company, First Marine Raider Battalion.
He was killed in action at Bairoko Harbor, New Georgia, on 20 July 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number 349821
Current Status
Accounted For
as of 24 February 2016
Recovery Organization
Remains given to DPAA.
Read DPAA press release.
History
John Holladay was born in Paxon, South Carolina, on 4 April 1912. His parents, John Henry and Elizabeth Leona (Corbett) Holladay, owned a farm in Clarendon County, and it was here that “Charlton” and his younger brothers Robert and Daniel spent their early lives. The family relocated to Florence during the 1920s, and young John finished his education at the local high school. A 1930 yearbook noted his “good humor, slow drawling voice, and his unusual tales about hunting and fishing.”
Handsome young “Sank” had a reputation as a ladies man, but his true love was the great outdoors. He was known to take off for months at a time, carrying a bow and quiver, and live off the land quite comfortably. Charlton hoped to become a forest ranger, but such jobs were few and far between even for the most avid outdoorsman. Instead, he worked with more domestic plants at Palmetto Nursery and the Dorothy Green Shop – a Florence florist business that he helped build and open. He turned archery from a hobby to a craft, making his own longbows and earning distinction as one of the top archers in South Carolina.
In November 1941, Charlton and a buddy packed a boat with supplies and pushed off into the Great Pee Dee River for a weeks-long, off-the-grid adventure. By design, they had little contact with civilization until reaching Georgetown where the Pee Dee empties into Winyah Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. To their surprise, they learned they had missed one of the great historical moments of the century: Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States was at war. Charlton immediately went back to Florence, put his affairs in order, and said goodbye to friends and family. On 9 January 1942, he joined the Marine Corps from Savannah, Georgia.
Private Holladay was sent to Parris Island shortly after enlisting, but the massive influx of enthusiastic young “boots” pushed the depot past capacity. After a few weeks of initial training, recruit platoons were shipped off to Quantico, Virginia to complete their range training and qualify with the M1903 Springfield rifle. Many of the range coaches belonged to a new, specialized unit – the First Marine Raider Battalion – and they kept a sharp eye for promising marksmen. Private Holladay might have caught their attention: he was nearly as good with a rifle as a bow, and although somewhat older than the average recruit, he was fit and able to handle himself in rough conditions. With boot training complete, Holladay put in his name as a volunteer, survived a personal interview with Colonel Merritt Edson, and was accepted into Baker Company.
After several weeks of specialized training in Virginia, including long conditioning hikes, combat tactics, camouflage, and the use of rubber boats, Baker Company boarded train cars for a long voyage to California. From there, they sailed to Tutulia, Samoa, for more training in tropical conditions. Colonel Edson “ran [our] asses ragged with training and mountain climbing” recalled Raider Marlin Groft, “working from 5 AM to 10 PM or even midnight, handling rubber boats and practicing such skills as judo, stalking, bayonet and knife fighting, demolition, first aid, and communication.” In July, they traveled father west to New Caledonia and Camp St. Louis for more “hard training and long hours,” in Groft’s recollection. “But we toughed it out and our unit pride grew with every exercise.”
The first test of all this training came on 7 August 1942 with a combat landing on Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. Baker Company drew a tough assignment sweeping along a coastal road to the worker’s village of Chinatown. Japanese machine guns opened fire from concealed positions, killing and wounding several Raiders before PFC Vince Cassidy climbed a cliff to grenade the emplacement. Sniper fire kept American heads down – the Japanese garrison on Tulagi had exceptionally good marksmen – and this gave Holladay a chance to shine.
“PFC John Holladay was taking shelter behind a fallen tree with First Sergeant Brice Maddox,” related Marlin Groft. “Holladay loved to strum his guitar and often regaled us with songs, his favorite being ‘John Henry.’ Hell, he knew all twenty-seven verses…. Johnny Holladay was about the best marksman I ever knew, and he had loving named his trusty Springfield ‘Old Lucifer.’
As the sniper fire pinned men down, Holladay took careful aim on a nearby tree and squeezed off a round. Nothing seemed to happen.
"You missed," Maddox informed him. "Bettery try again."
Holladay lowered Old Lucifer and glanced at Maddox.
"Top," he replied, "Old Lucifer don't lie. He'll fall in a minute." Sure enough, moments later, the sniper's body plunged from amid the palm fronds and crashed to the ground. Holladay grinned to his friend.
This feat of marksmanship, combined with coolness under fire, must have contributed to Holladay’s promotion to corporal on 12 August 1942.
After Tulagi, Holladay was temporarily transferred to the Raider Battalion’s headquarters company. He went on to fight on Guadalcanal and was present for the infamous battle of “Edson’s Ridge” in mid-September 1942. A few days later, however, Holladay reported to sick bay and was deemed too ill to stay on the front lines. On 22 September, he was evacuated to Base “Roses” – Efate – for treatment, and was absent for just over a month. By the time he returned to duty, the First Raider Battalion was back on Noumea, their role in the Guadalcanal campaign over at last.
Following a welcome but all too short spell of holiday rest and recreation in New Zealand, “Edson’s Raiders” started a new training regimen, reorganized their companies and leadership, and accepted new volunteers to fill the gaps in their ranks. Corporal Holladay returned to Baker Company and joined 1 Platoon under First Lieutenant Robert C. “Ploughjocks” Kennedy. The young officer, a new arrival without any combat experience, wisely listened to experienced NCOs – including one old-time sergeant who gruffly declared “keep yourself healthy; I’ll run the platoon.” Kennedy and Holladay took a shine to each other at New Caledonia, and when the latter’s promotion to sergeant came through, Kennedy managed to make Holladay his right hand man. “I was as close to him as an officer can be to an enlisted man,” Kennedy later wrote. “John was my platoon sergeant. If anything were to happen to me, John would have taken over command of the platoon. So, naturally, we had to work very close together, and out of this relationship grew a very fine and understanding friendship.”
Marlin Groft was also reassigned to Kennedy’s platoon. During the spring of 1943, “we had no idea what we were gearing up for,” he said, “but if the training was any indication, it was going to be a bitch.”
In June 1943, Edson’s Raiders – now combined with the new 4th Raider Battalion and called the “First Marine Raider Regiment” – boarded transports for Guadalcanal, now a major supply hub and jumping-off point for invasions in the northern Solomon Islands. They spent several weeks ashore touring their old battlefields, watching Japanese air raids, and wondering about their next objective. Rumor placed New Georgia at the top of the list; on 4 July 1943, these suspicions were confirmed. The Raiders would land at Rice Anchorage in rubber boats and immediately proceed to the “Dragons Peninsula,” where they would capture Japanese bases at Enogai Inlet and Bairoko Harbor, taking the enemy by surprise and cutting off a major supply route to an airfield at Munda. The march from Rice to Enogai was anticipated to take three days.
The landings took place at 0130 on 5 July, a night “blacker than Satan’s heart” with a violent storm for good measure. Japanese shore defenses opened fire on American ships but overshot the men in the rubber boats. The landing force of Raiders and two Army battalions lost only one man during the landing – PFC George R. McGraw of Baker Company, who drowned in the anchorage. The march was exhausting – “terrain difficult, humidity high, men heavily loaded” in the words of the battalion war diary – and made more difficult by incessant rains and overflowing waterways like the Tamoko River, a nine-foot-deep torrent that could only be crossed via a fallen log. A vast swamp awaited on the other site. “With weapons held high, we sloshed through knee-deep, and even waist-deep, pools of stagnant water,” recalled Marlin Groft. “By this time our feet, trapped inside socks and boots that had been saturated for days, were turning purple.” They fought a skirmish for the village of Triri on 7 July, defended their position from a Japanese counterattack on 8 July, and assaulted Enogai on 9-10 July.
The 1st Raiders had landed with supplies for three days; by the end of the fifth they were ravenous, exhausted, and low on ammunition. They dug defensive positions around Enogai and spent ten days resting, resupplying, and gaining reinforcements from the 4th Raider Battalion. Bairoko Harbor, the ultimate objective, was two miles away, but only reachable by two narrow trails. The attack plan called for a two-pronged assault: the Marines, advancing along the Enogai-Bairoko Trail, would form the northern wing, with 3/148th Infantry supporting along the Triri-Bairoko trail to the south. “Between the two trails was tangled jungle and vile swampland, which we all knew meant there would be no opportunity for fancy maneuvering,” recalled Raider Marlin Groft. “When we attacked Bairoko it would be a desperate, head-on frontal assault.” The Marines also knew that their adversaries – tough combat veterans from the 6th Kure Special Naval Landing Force – were strengthening the defensive lines around Bairoko.
At 0800 on 20 July 1943, Baker Company moved out towards Bairoko with all three platoons abreast. They moved easily at first, but as jungle grew thicker platoons and squads lost sight of one another. The first rifle fire cracked out at 1015; the Raiders hit the first Japanese outposts and pushed through with grenades and bayonets – only to run headlong into an impassible main line of resistance. “A wall of lead came at us from Nambus firmly placed in nests chiseled into the hard coral,” Groft continued. “Our advance was brought to a halt…. If combat men ever experienced a Hell on Earth, this was it.”
Baker Company managed to get through two bands of defensive positions and was working on a third when Sergeant Holladay was hit. The 1 Platoon leader, Lieutenant Kennedy, witnessed the final moments.
I went out with one of my men to get him. As we reached down to pick him up, John looked at me, shook his head a little, gave me a smile and died. He had been shot directly in the heart at died easily and quickly. While carrying his body to cover, the sniper fired to more shots at us and although he didn't hit us he disclosed his position and my men avenged John's death by sending that Jap to his ancestors.
By 1700 hours, high casualties and fading daylight forced the Raiders to withdraw back to Enogai. The “screwed up affair” of Bairoko was the worst defeat ever suffered by any Raider unit. Seven Baker Company Marines, including Sergeant Holladay, were among the dead.
Most of the Raiders killed in action at Bairoko were left in the
field; evacuating the wounded took priority. More than a month would
pass before the remains were recovered. Photographs of this process show
Marines carrying blanket-wrapped bundles, suggesting an advanced state
of decomposition. Individually identifying the dead would have been
challenging, but was accomplished in most cases before burial in the
Enogai cemetery.
Sergeant Holladay was reportedly buried at Enogai, but without a specific grave or row. And although Lieutenant Kennedy wrote of a moving sermon performed at the cemetery, he had long since been evacuated with severe wounds and was not present for the main burial. (Both Kennedy and Lieutenant William Christie wrote that Holladay received “a Christian burial” overseen by a chaplain – but, as they were writing to the sergeant’s family, this may have been more comforting than accurate.)
The dead Raiders were later moved from Enogai to the New Georgia Cemetery, and finally to the Finschaffen cemetery complex in New Guinea. Sergeant Holladay was not among them. Period records cease with “Buried in U. S. Gov’t Cemetery at Enogai, New Georgial Island, Solomon Islands.” Attempts to identify Holladay from unknown remains retrieved from Enogai proved fruitless, and he was ultimately declared non-recoverable in 1949.
"The last string is broken, the melody died.
He is dead at Bairoko, and with him lies John Henry."
from an elegy by Holladay's friend Vince Cassidy
Many decades passed. The Dragons Peninsula remained as sparsely populated as it had been during the war, but the area did have one abundant natural resource: lumber. According to an article by Deborah Swearingen, retired dentist Dr. Ronald Ziru purchased much of the peninsula and leased the logging rights in the early 2000s. Clearing the land uncovered old foxholes and fighting positions – as well as World War II-era military equipment and human remains. Timothy Faiani of Bairoko Village, retrieved some bones and teeth from a swamp near Leland Lagoon, and in February 2015 turned his find over to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Fortunately, Charlton Holladay’s nephews were exploring their uncle’s military service, and readily agreed to submit a DNA sample for analysis. The match was positive: Holladay was identified in November 2015, and officially accounted for on 24 February 2016.
Holladay was brought home and buried in Florence, South Carolina, on 4 April 2016 – his 104th birthday.
Memorials
Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (cenotaph)
Paxville Baptist Church Cemetery, Paxville, South Carolina (cenotaph, with memorial pine grove)
Florence National Cemetery, Florence, South Carolina (final burial)