Steven Alexander Custer
First Sergeant Steven A. Custer was the senior NCO of the division intelligence (D-2) section, 1st Marine Division.
He was reported missing in action from the “Goettge Patrol” at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 13 August 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 177949
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
History
Young Steven grew up surrounded by tales of familial military exploits. Three of his older relatives, including his paternal grandfather, fought for the South during the Civil War; his uncle Marion Custer, an Army private, died on active duty in the Philippines.[3] It was even said that George Armstrong Custer, of Little Bighorn infamy, was a distant cousin.[4] Anxious to fill such impressive shoes, Steven boldly entered an Army recruiting station in 1919, claimed to be eighteen years old, and was accepted for service in the Signal Corps. He kept up the ruse for a year and a half before getting caught and discharged.[5] Undaunted, Custer – now sixteen years old – found a Marine Corps recruiter in San Francisco. “Alexander Steven Custer” enlisted on 6 October 1921, and within a few months was riding the rails as a guard for the United States Postal Service.
Over the next ten years, Custer ticked all the boxes on an old salt’s checklist: sea duty aboard USS Arizona, liberty calls in Hawaii and Cavite, duty on Guam, and a litany of stripes earned and lost as he moved from station to station (and, occasionally, from brig to brig).[6] He developed into an exceptional marksman, scoring “Expert” on the rifle range and earning a spot on the 1932 Marine Corps pistol team, for which he was awarded a medal and a letter of commendation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation enlisted his services, and Custer spent several years teaching agents the finer points of sharpshooting. He also may have been involved in the Corps of Intelligence Police – abruptly leaving home for a day or two at a time, with an immaculate tweed suit in his luggage. [7] He never disclosed his activities to his family – for now he had a family: Mrs. Mady Pauline Custer, and two children.[8]
By 1940, Sgt. Custer estimated that he had visited some thirty-eight countries and was quite content to settle in the South as a recruiting sergeant. He even had the distinction of “enlisting” the country’s youngest Marine—his own son Carl, whom he “swore in” at birth.[9] He had built a distinguished career from humble beginnings – especially when compared to his older brother, Robert Lee, a career criminal. After spending years working with law enforcement, Steven had no patience for his brother’s misdeeds – and helped throw the book at him when Lee used Steven’s identity to fraudulently purchase gasoline.[10] He was in line for promotion to staff sergeant and had every intention of serving out his time as a “thirty-year man” in relative peace.
Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor and a sudden reassignment to the 1st Marine Division at New River, North Carolina. Custer’s unique skill set led to an assignment with the “D-2” section – Division Intelligence – as a staff NCO, serving under TSGT. John Waddick and Lt. Col. Frank B. Goettge. The section was cobbled together from an amalgam of Marines – old salts with years of service, and young recruits with specialized civilian skills – and firm leadership was a must. 1Lt. Karl Thayer Soule, a newly minted photographic officer, described Custer as “rough and ready.”[11] Enlisted men, however, adored him. “Goettge was a conscientious and considerate, but remote, commanding officer,” wrote a veteran of the D-2 section. “Custer was a father to us. None was more personally fearless, yet more conscious of possible apprehension among his men.… He considered it his mission to mold our character and our competence.… Young and restless in spirit, he at once commanded our respect, for implicitly we recognized his greater knowledge and authority, and [this] inspired our affection.”[12]
Custer’s job was complicated by a multitude of factors: the newness of his subordinates, the inexperience of his boss Colonel Goettge, the abbreviated time available for training, and the desperate need for information as the 1st Marine Division prepared for the invasion of Guadalcanal.[13] He mentored his men with unceasing patience, “quietly observing all our reactions, helping us along … it was he who indoctrinated us in intelligence procedure, in scouting, and in warfare in general.”[14] By the time the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Custer was a first sergeant – the senior NCO of the section, effectively running day-to-day operations while Colonel Goettge valiantly pursued any source that might expand their understanding of the developing situation in the Solomon Islands.
On 12 August 1942, a patrol from the 5th Marines captured a Japanese warrant officer. Under interrogation by language officer 1Lt. Ralph Cory, the Japanese sailor described a broken, defeated, and starving group of his comrades somewhere to the west of Point Cruz. Custer was already planning a combat patrol to investigate reports of a white flag hanging over some huts on the other side of the Matanikau River when this news broke. He must have been chagrined when Colonel Goettge commandeered the patrol and began changing the lineup. Before long, Custer’s well-armed group was dispersed and in their place were two dozen intelligence specialists – the best men in D-2, with the balance from the 5th Marines intelligence section. Goettge assembled his picked group at Kukum that evening and loaded them into a Higgins boat. Once underway, the Marines were told of their mission: to land beyond Point Cruz in the darkness and march back over the next day or two, capturing prisoners and sketching maps as they went. It would be a major intelligence coup if all went according to plan.
Unfortunately, absolutely nothing worked out. The coxswain became disoriented in the darkness and Goettge decided to land – over the protests of the Japanese prisoner, who had been brought along as a reluctant guide. Next, the boat noisily grounded on a sandbar and the patrol had to wade ashore. Utterly lost, Colonel Goettge decided to reconnoiter the nearby treeline and find a place for his men to camp for the night. He strode up the beach, followed by Captain Wilfred H. Ringer, Jr. and First Sergeant Custer.
Shots rang out and Goettge dropped to the ground, instantly killed. Ringer fired off two clips from his Reising gun and headed back for the beach. Custer felt the sting of bullets striking home; drawing his pistol, he called out “I’m going to make a break for it,” and stumbled out of the underbrush. “He was wounded in the left side of the face and in the right hand,” recalled Platoon Sergeant Frank Few. “Doctor Pratt [LTCDR Malcolm L. Pratt] fixed him up.”[15] As the Reising guns failed one by one, pistols were at a premium; Custer handed his sidearm over to Sergeant Charles C. Arndt.[16]
Frank Few and Monk Arndt were two of only three members of the patrol to survive; their recollections are the only remaining picture of Custer’s final moments. He might have died of his wounds during the night, or easily might have been shot again as the Japanese pinned the patrol to the beach for hours. Or he might have been killed at dawn, when bayonet- and sabre-wielding Japanese troops overran the remnants of Goettge’s force.
Officially, First Sergeant Custer and the rest of the patrol were reported as “missing in action” when they failed to return. For many years after the war, the story ran that no trace of the patrol was ever found – a story repeated in histories to this day. However, this is a myth – and certainly the result of wanting to spare the families of the dead, as well as the general public, from a horribly gruesome truth.
The fate of the Goettge Patrol was known only too well to the Marines on Guadalcanal – especially members of the 5th Marines, who made numerous patrols and fought a battle over the same area. Dismembered body parts were seen strewn about the riverbanks, and a burial trench was later found near Horahi itself. However, due to the conditions of battle, none of the remains could be recovered – and later campaigning and construction eventually obliterated all physical traces of the Goettge Patrol.
[A patrol from K/3/5th Marines] found Goettge’s men on the east bank of the river.
The smell came first, “a scent that those of us who were there can recall in an instant,” said Sergeant Thurman Miller. “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.”[17]
James McEnery specifically recalled seeing “a First Sergeant’s shirt, with his torso still inside. No head or arms.” If his memory is accurate, he was looking at the remains of 1Sgt. Custer.
The Goettge Patrol has been the object of multiple expeditions and digs over the decades, but so far none have been successful. The remains of Steven Alexander Custer and 21 of his comrades still lie on Guadalcanal.
First Sergeant Steven A. Custer is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
[1] According to family lore, Custer’s birth name was “Alexander Steven,” but he was universally called by his middle name.
[2] “Killed By Train,” The Oregon Daily Journal (Portland, OR) 22 August 1911.
[3] According to a family tree compiled by Kevin Custer, Marion died of smallpox on 27 April 1904.
[4] This assertion was widely reported by Custer’s contemporaries, though his exact relationship to the general is not clear.
[5] Custer still received an “Excellent” character award for his Army service.
[6] The Marine Corps either never discovered (or never prosecuted) Custer’s fraudulent enlistment. At some point in the 1920s he changed his name back to “Steven A. Custer” and had his date of birth adjusted back to 1905.
[7] Carl Steven Custer (son of Sgt. Custer), email to the author, 7 February 2017. The tweed suit was the de facto uniform of the CIP.
[8] The children were Carl Custer (born 1940) and Pauline’s daughter from an earlier marriage, name unknown. Mady Custer went by “Pauline” or “Polly.”
[9] “Uncle Sam’s Youngest Marine Has Situation Under Control,” The Tennessean, 25 November 1940.
[10] Lee Custer was in and out of prison since 1932 on charges ranging from impersonation to armed robbery. He was indirectly responsible for the death of a young Custer nephew when a dispute with a neighbor led to shots being fired. In a 1941 letter, Steven referred to Lee as “paroled convict and brother of the writer” and recommended prosecution for his crimes.
[11] Thayer Soule, Shooting the Pacific War: Marine Corps Combat Photography in WWII (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 36.
[12] Jason Abady, Battle at the Overland Trail: One Night of Combat on Guadalcanal (Lynchburg: Warwick House Publishers, 2013), 101-102.
[13] Colonel Goettge was a long-serving and well-regarded officer, but had little background in combat intelligence. In fact, the function of “2-sections” at every level was poorly outlined and often misunderstood.
[14] Abady, 101.
[15] Statement of Platoon Sergeant Frank L. Few.
[16] George McMillan, The Old Breed: A History of the First Marine Division in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1949. Reprint, Nashville: The Battery Press, 2001), 53.
[17] Geoffrey W. Roecker, Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal (Stroud, UK: Fonthill, 2019).
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 13 August 1942.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of wife, Mrs. Mady Pauline Custer.
Location Of Loss
The Goettge Patrol was ambushed near the western bank of the Matanikau.