Myron Lane Abbott

Myron Lane Abbott served as a heavy machine gun NCO in D/1/2nd Marines. He had the unfortunate distinction of being one of the company’s first casualties of the war during operations in the Solomon Islands. After a successful landing on Florida Island, B/1/2nd Marines was detailed to attack nearby Tanambogo under cover of darkness. Then-Corporal Abbott’s machine gunners were attached to the assault force.

“We were making a sneak landing at night,” he explained in a letter to his family. “An ammunition dump exploded on shore revealing our position perfectly. The boat I was in got stuck on a coral reef and we made a perfect target for the enemy. Almost everyone in our boat was wounded or killed.” Six Marines lost their lives, and six others were wounded before ever getting ashore. Lane Abbott got off lucky with a bullet through the shoulder, and was evacuated to New Caledonia for treatment. He returned to his company in January, 1943 in time for the very end of the Guadalcanal campaign.

In New Zealand, Abbott received the Purple Heart and a promotion to sergeant, but was sent back to the hospital when a fellow Marine dropped a box of ammunition on his foot. Perhaps feeling dogged by bad luck, Abbott declared that “he wouldn’t be coming back” from the next battle, “but if it was necessary he wasn’t afraid to die.”

Sergeant Abbott’s premonition came true on 21 November 1943, during the battle of Tarawa. He was leading the survivors of his machine gun section when, according to eyewitnesses, he “walked right into an enemy machine gun nest.” Abbott died of multiple gunshot wounds in the abdomen at the age of twenty five.