Thomas Edwin Whitney

On 20 July 1943, after fifteen days of traversing New Georgia’s Dragons Peninsula, struggling through mangrove swamps, skirmishing with Japanese forces, and fighting a pitched battle for a base at Enogai, elements of the 1st Marine Raider Regiment – the First and Fourth Raider Battalions – set out to attack the enemy garrison at Barioko Harbor. The Marines, advancing along the Enogai-Bairoko Trail, would form the northern wing of the assault, 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.”

Groft was correct – and, to make matters worse, the Japanese garrison used the ten days after Enogai to reinforce and fortify their positions. A planned airstrike never materialized, and the Army’s support was lackluster. 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.”

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.

PFC Thomas Whitney was one of six Baker Company Raiders killed during the day’s action. Gunshot wounds to the left shoulder and abdomen were noted as the cause of death. No further specifics about his final moments are currently known.