Archives: Leatherneck Magazines

The moment the bow doors opened, and the ramp dropped on LSM-44, Company C’s tanks from the 5th Tank Battalion were on the move into the gritty black sand of Iwo Jima’s Red Beach 2. There had been six tanks aboard—a mix of Headquarters’ and 2nd and 3rd Platoons’—and they had been called on at 11:48 a.m. to hit the beach in support of 1st Battalion, 28th Marines. Co C turned right as they dis­embarked, following the beachmaster’s directions to the safest egress point. How­ever, the loose volcanic sand wreaked havoc on the tank tracks, and one of 3rd Plt’s tanks threw a track as they headed up the beach. They were under mortar fire almost immediately, but the rise in the beach protected the crews from direct fire enough to enable them to dismount, drop their tanks’ wading stacks and remove any waterproofing that might hinder them in the fight.

Co C, split evenly between LSM-43, -44 and -46, landed with 14 tanks, one tank dozer, two flame tanks and an M32 Recovery Vehicle. The company broke down into the Head­quarters Plt with two tanks and the dozer, four line platoons with three tanks each, and two attached flame tanks, to be used wherever they were most needed. Second Lieutenant Leonard Blake from Pennsylvania led 3rd Plt. His three tanks, “Jeannie,” “Killer” and “Lucky,” were all brand-new M4A3 Shermans, the Marine Corps’ new standard tank which was making its combat debut on Iwo Jima. Lucky, driven by 19-year-old Corporal Leighton Willhite, would be the first from LSM-44 on the beach.

Issued to the battalion in October 1944, the new tank had better armor protection, better and safer internal ammunition stowage, and a gas-powered Ford V-8 engine that replaced the M4A2’s twin diesel. In addition to these improvements, each company in the 5th Tank Battalion utilized materials on hand in Hawaii to better defend against Japanese magnetic and shaped charge antitank mines that had been encountered in previous cam­paigns. Co C’s report outlines the basic modifications: “2-inch planking with a 2-inch air space between planks and hull were placed on sides of tanks. Drivers hatches had a frame welded to them which was covered with chicken wire. The hatches on the turret and the area around them had 10 penny nails welded to them so that they resembled a ‘bed of nails.’ ”

Wooden planks were also mounted on the suspension, and corrugated sheet metal, cut into jagged patterns, was nailed to the upper edges of the hull-mounted planks, making it difficult and hazardous for enemy infantry to grab or climb onto the tank. The upper surface of the tank’s hull was also covered in sandbags, held in place by chicken wire, to further deter magnetic mines from adhering flush to the hull.

Co C’s mission was to support the 28th Marine Regiment’s drive westward across the island to the western beaches before turning south and heading for the most significant terrain feature on the island: Mount Suribachi, code-named “Hot Rocks.” With the infantry landing almost three hours prior to the tanks’ arrival, they had already gained a foothold, with 1st Battalion, 28th Marines, leading the way and 2nd Bn deployed east of them, oriented to the south and Suribachi. The tanks were a welcome sight as they crested the beach and entered the fray.

The tanks’ 75 mm guns gave the 28th Marines a significant increase in fire­power and a better means for taking out bunkers and machine-gun nests. Each tank carried 100 rounds of ammunition: 60 rounds of high-explosive M48; 30 rounds of armor-piercing, capped-tracer M61; and 10 rounds of white phosphorus. While the armor-piercing round did give Co C’s crews the ability to penetrate con­crete bunkers, it was the M48 high-explo­sive rounds that would see the highest rate of consumption in the assault on Suribachi.

With the whole company ashore, Co C’s commander, Captain Edward Nelson, found the command post and spoke to the first sergeant, who was the senior surviving man. According to Nelson, Marines of the 1/28 had reached their objective “but were pinned down and receiving heavy casualties from pillboxes and block houses bypassed in the attack.”

He and the 1st Sgt agreed that the entire Tank Co would eliminate any enemy positions between the command post and the front lines. However, immediately after moving out, the tank column came under fire from a hidden 47mm antitank gun. Four tanks were hit before the gun was destroyed. Two of those tanks re­ceived penetrations through the front face of the turret on the right side of the gun shield.

In 3rd Plt, Sergeant Donald North’s tank, Killer, took two 47mm antitank rounds through the front of his turret, badly wounding him and his gunner. They were lucky, though, because their tank was still functional, and they drove back to the assembly area where they could be tended to.

Moving the wounded out of harm’s way was critical. Because there was minimal cover anywhere on the island, crews using the tank’s upper hatches were exposed to enemy sniper and artillery fire; climbing onto a tank to get a wounded crew out was almost impossible. It was suicide to leave the tank through the upper hatches. As a result, all ingress and egress on the battalion’s tanks was routed through the bottom hatch for the entire campaign. Wounded crews in an immobilized tank would either have to be taken out through the bottom hatch or wait for a recovery vehicle to move the tank to a safer area.

North and his gunner were on their way to a hospital ship by the next morning, while Killer was repaired by battalion maintenance. Since the tank had not burned, the armor was not compromised and could be repaired. The 47mm shell holes were patched, the fire control was repaired, and Killer returned to the front lines with a new commander and gunner two days later, bringing 3rd Plt back to full strength.

Over the next three days, 3rd Plt would be on Co C’s right flank, supporting land­­ing team 128’s advance on Mount Suri­bachi, firing high explosives at targets on the mountain’s slopes. By noon on D+4, Co C was sent back to the bivouac area for refueling, re-arming and main­tenance. One of 3rd Plt’s most intense actions came on March 1, when they were in support of 1st Bn, 28th Marines during the assault on Hill 362. Blake’s three tanks approached a cave complex on the western side of Iwo Jima and attempted to engage Japanese forces. Platoon Ser­geant Robert McIntire’s tank, Jeannie, was in the lead, with Lucky behind and to the right. Killer and the flamethrower tank “Torch” followed closely behind. As they advanced, McIntire sighted a cave with several Japanese soldiers in it and moved his tank to engage. However, what he didn’t see was the Japanese ma­chine-gun emplacement dug into the ground ahead of his tank. When the tank drove over it, the roof collapsed, trapping the tank and its crew.

As the tank nosed down into the hole, Japanese infantry swarmed out and onto the tank. Blake quickly grabbed the tank commander’s override and slewed his tank’s turret to engage the enemy infan­try. Its coaxial .30-caliber machine gun killed a number of the Japanese soldiers climbing on McIntire’s tank, but he and his crew were still trapped inside. They couldn’t go out the bottom hatch because it would open right into the pillbox of more enemy soldiers. With the potential for Japanese soldiers on top of the tank or waiting just outside, hidden from Blake’s view, McIntire realized his crew had no place to go. Grabbing the radio mike, McIntire called Blake for help.

Blake realized the only way to get McIntire and his crew out was to go over to the tank, climb on top, and let them know it was safe to come out. He turned to his crew and asked for two volunteers to accompany him and attempt the rescue. While initially no one volunteered, Cor­poral Willhite grabbed his .45 and said, “I’ll go with you, Lieutenant.”

The pair cautiously made their way over to the disabled tank, Blake moving left toward the rear of the tank and Willhite covering him. Neither knew how many Japanese soldiers were on the far side of the tank. A burst from Blake’s Thompson killed three soldiers as he rounded the corner. Willhite covered him as Blake then climbed up onto the tank’s hull and banged on the driver’s hatch.
“Two Japanese came out of nowhere with their rifles and bayonets,” Willhite recalled. “I shot them, but I don’t know if I killed them.” McIntire and his four Marines climbed out of the tank and rallied at its rear with Blake’s crew. They removed the gun’s breechblock and the critical radio components before aban­don­ing the tank.

Meanwhile, Torch, their accompanying flame tank, moved up to cover the crew’s extraction. According to Torch’s com­mander, “The [enemy] dived into a shell hole and [that] is where they met their doom with our flame.” McIntire’s crew piled into Killer and Lucky as the pla­toon pulled back to safety. McIntire took over as the commander of Killer, and 3rd Plt operated with two tanks until Jeannie could be recovered. Because of the inten­sity of combat in the area—and the sever­ity of how deeply Jeannie was stuck in the hole—it would be a full three days before the tank was retrieved.

Third Plt and Co C continued to support both the 28th and 26th Marines as they pushed north on Iwo Jima’s west side. Three weeks after rescuing McIntire, Blake’s platoon was called upon to de­stroy an abandoned Co A tank so the Japanese couldn’t get any information from it. As they neared the target, Blake’s tank hit a mine, breaking the track and immobilizing them. His gunner quickly fired upon the abandoned tank, setting it ablaze, while another 3rd Plt tank crew hooked up their tow cables and prepared to pull Lucky to safety. As they were leaving the area, a Japanese infantryman threw a satchel charge under the engine, knocking it out but not stopping the two tanks from making it back to friendly territory.

The battle officially ended five days later. After the battle, the entire 5th Ma­rine Division returned to Hawaii for re­fitting and training for the invasion of Japan. The 5th Tank Battalion turned in their tanks to the depot on Oahu for maintenance and refurbishment. Blake and Willhite received the Silver Star and Bronze Star, respectively, for their heroic actions on Iwo Jima.

The after-action reviews from both 4th and 5th Tank Battalions, which had used the POA-CWS-H1 flame tanks like Torch, were unan­imous in their comments that more flame tanks were required. The 4th and 5th Marine Division comments echoed those sentiments, and as a result, 72 tanks were pulled from existing stocks on Oahu to be converted into the new POA-CWS-H5 flame­thrower tank. This new variant was built on the existing M4A3, but unlike the eight POA-CWS-H1 tanks used on Iwo Jima, the new H5 mounted a flame­thrower coaxially with the main gun. This was intended to give Marine tank crews the ability to engage with both the 75mm cannon and the flame thrower.

Lucky was the 50th tank selected for this con­version, so in August 1945, the ammunition stowage bins under the turret floor were removed and two massive napalm storage tanks were added. The ammunition capacity for the main gun was reduced by 60%, retaining roughly 40 rounds. She would be ready for combat by the end of the month, but fortunately there would be no need for her further combat service.

Lucky—or M4A3 serial number 49617—then returned to the States and made her way to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., where an attempt was made in the 1970s to preserve her. But because of a lack of funding, she was moved off into the woods in one of the 2nd Tank Battalion’s training areas, where she remained until being rediscovered in 2000 and shipped to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., the following year. The tank remained in storage until 2020 when, due to a reduction in storage buildings, it was sent out on loan to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Ariz., where it currently sits. A curatorial visit by museum staff in June of 2023 identified the weld scarring patterns on the turret roof as unique to the 5th Tank Bn on Iwo Jima, and from there, research into the 5th Tank Bn and this tank’s history was underway.

Author’s bio: Jonathan Bernstein is the arms and armor curator for the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Pre­viously he was the director/curator of the Air Defense Artillery Museum. Bernstein began his museum career in 1991 at the USS Intrepid Sea Air & Space Museum and has served in nu­merous museum roles since then. He was an Army aviation officer, flying AH-64A and D Apache attack helicopters with the 1-1-4th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, PA NG from 2006-2012. He has published a number of books and articles on military and aviation history. He is the 2023 winner of the Marine Corps Heri­tage Foundation Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award.

Dusk settled over the hilltop on Feb. 24, 1969. Lance Corporal Patrick “Mac” McWilliams examined the Marines assigned to him for listening post (LP) duty. All of them were green, recently arrived in country and shuttled out for their first stint in the bush. Mac’s four months in Vietnam made him an old salt in their eyes, with experience to help keep them alive. He previously spent time on the hill, and already acquainted himself with the menacing jungle beyond the perimeter. The grunts were exhausted from patrols over the last few days. Some in the company treated LP duty with complacency, despite the inherent danger being isolated outside the wire. Mac resolved to teach the new guys cor­rectly. He passed out grenades and trip flares and performed final checks. The four-man team proceeded down a finger, beyond the final defensive web of wire and into enemy territory.

Mac found a spot 100 yards into the jungle and set up the radio. Private First Class Dennis Gardner moved farther ahead to set up a trip flare across a trail.
“If that thing goes off, we need some­one to throw the first grenade,” Mac said.
“I used to play quarterback,” Gardner told him. “I’ll do it.”

For Mac and numerous other veterans from “Echo” Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, their return to guard duty on the hill 10 days earlier proved appre­hensive and unwelcome. In November 1968, their platoon scaled the mountain­side to carve a remote base out of the Viet­namese jungle. They strung together C4 explosives and blew down trees in the rough shape of a landing zone (LZ). Helicopters lifted in heavy moving equip­ment to finish off the stumps and flatten the crest. Marines dug fighting holes and constructed bunkers out of old ammo boxes while more chop­pers off­loaded a battery of 105mm howitzers into newly constructed gun pits. The position, named LZ Russell, became the newest fire support base in a nexus of interlocking artillery. Multiple hilltops similar to Russell blanketed the jungle, covering infantry operations along the Demilita­rized Zone (DMZ). Since Russell’s estab­lishment, nearly 300 Marines continuous­ly occupied the hill. Mac’s platoon de­parted to fight in other battles along Mutter’s Ridge and near Con Thien short­ly after the artillery pieces arrived. They returned to Russell for their turn on guard duty less than three months later.

Six guns from “Hotel” Battery, 3/12, occupied the crest. They presented an attractive target for North Vietnamese Army (NVA) fire. The base sat in the remote northwestern corner of South Vietnam, a stone’s throw away from the DMZ and within view of the Laotian border. Daily ground operations in the vicinity generated fire missions around the clock. In the month of January 1969, the three 105mm batteries of 3/12 fired nearly 30,000 rounds. Totals from later months that year reached closer to 40,000 rounds.
Three gun pits surrounded the main LZ at the summit. The remaining three stretched out down a long finger protrud­ing east. The entire position lay exposed to enemy view. Enemy soldiers probed the grunt perimeter and fired mortars sporadically around the hill, mapping out Marine positions and registering their fires. By the end of February, platoons from Companies E and F, 2/4, and one platoon from Co K, 3/4, defended Russell’s perimeter around Hotel Battery.

Shortly after midnight on Feb. 25, a fire mission crackled to life from the radio. Fire Support Base (FSB) Neville, located just 5 miles west, called urgently for help. The voice on the other end reported the news most dreaded by Marines on an isolated hill; NVA sappers penetrated the wire and overran the base. Hotel Battery sprang to action. All six guns opened fire on pre-registered targets surrounding Neville. For three hours, the battery pounded Neville’s entire perim­eter, firing over 300 rounds of high ex­plosives or illumination. The artillerymen endured the work, many without even knowing what was happening on the nearby out­post. To them, it was just another midnight fire mission.

The roaring howitzers kept Mac and his Marines awake at the LP. They rotated through radio watch as the hours passed and tried to sleep. Around 4 a.m., the fire mission ceased and the jungle fell quiet. Before their ears adjusted to the silence, without any warning, mortar rounds impacted behind them inside the perimeter at the top of the hill. Mac, Gardner, and the others bolted upright and clinched their rifles. A chorus of small arms fire punctuated the space between explosions. The Marines under­stood, without a doubt, that NVA soldiers broke through the perimeter and were already overrunning LZ Russell, even under their own mortar fire.

Mac tried to raise the command post (CP) but received no reply. He ordered the others to grab their gear and move out. He figured their original position had been spotted and set up again near a large fallen tree. Gardner hit the deck, sheltered behind the uprooted base. The trip flare he placed earlier in the night suddenly ignited down the trail in front of him. A blinding light illuminated numerous NVA moving up the hill. Gardner pulled the pin on his grenade, cocked his arm back, and let it fly. The perfect toss landed on the trail and exploded amongst an enemy group. More unseen NVA opened fire in the LP’s direction. The four Marines fired rapidly at sounds of movement in the surrounding jungle. Heavy impacts from a .50-caliber machine gun threw up dirt in mini explosions all around them. With nowhere to run and no one to help, the LP stayed put and fought for their lives. They were not alone in their plight, as the sounds of battle from the hilltop increased in a terrifying pitch.

Lance Corporal Bruce Brinke stood radio watch in the platoon CP bunker, having checked in with the LP throughout the night. When the howitzers ceased fire, the “Thoomp, thoomp, thoomp,” of mortars in the distance resonated soon after. The first explosion struck right outside the bunker, with a second scoring a direct hit. Brinke and the other Marines inside dove for cover as explosions en­veloped the hill. He landed halfway through the door of another adjacent room inside the bunker. A satchel charge flew through the open bunker door, falling next to Brinke’s platoon commander, Second Lieutenant William Hunt. The bunker erupted in a ball of fire. Shrapnel ripped a large gash through Brinke’s leg, but the wall of the adjacent room pro­tected his upper half. He tried to move as the bunker burned and collapsed around him. In the chaos, he discovered the remains of Hunt, who absorbed much of the blast and died instantly.

Another Marine assisted Brinke outside the burning structure. As they exited, muzzle flashes pierced the darkness within inches of Brinke’s face. An NVA sapper waited outside against the bunker wall within arm’s reach. He unloaded on Brinke and his companion as they walked out. The two Marines fell back, hitting the ground outside the doorway. Miraculously, Brinke suffered only one gunshot in the arm near his shoulder. The other Marine was hit once in his leg. The enemy soldier scampered off to find his next victims, believing the two Marines were dead. Brinke lay bleeding from his wounds, waiting for another enemy to find him and finish the job.

Corporal Alvin Winchell took shelter in a fighting hole with his squad as the mortars impacted. A bunker nearby sud­denly exploded and collapsed, burying six Marines inside. In the flashes of light, Winchell saw NVA sappers advancing up the hill under the fire of their own mortars. Some of the enemy carried no weapons, but cradled explosive satchel charges in their arms and tossed them in each Marine bunker they passed. Winchell’s platoon sergeant ordered him to move his squad down the hill to a breach in the wire where sappers streamed through. Winchell gathered his machine gun team and sprinted toward a bunker near the breach. He set up the gun on the roof and scanned for targets.

“You could only see shadows in the dark until somebody popped up a flare,” Winchell remembered. “You don’t know if it’s a Marine or NVA, but it was just like ants coming up that hill.”

The machine-gun team opened fire on the shadows swarming from the jungle. The rattle of violence filled the air behind Winchell as the NVA overran LZ Russell and the battle devolved into utter chaos. Wounded and dying men screamed for help. American and Vietnamese weapons chattered back and forth. Darkness veiled the horrifying realities of hand-to-hand combat from a broader view. Through this phase of intensely personal killing, every Marine on the hill experienced his own unique version of the battle, and cemented in their minds the memories that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Numerous stories from the savage fighting that night later emerged. The overwhelming volume of simultaneous events, the darkness and the unmitigated confusion shrouded the details. Many of the Marines who inspired their legend are now gone. To many more, Feb. 25, 1969, remains a night too painful to discuss, even 55 years later. The stories that have come to light illuminate the ferocity of the battle, and how the actions of individual Marines across the hill turned the tide against the enemy.

As Brinke lay on the ground, after being blown up and shot outside his bunker, Gunnery Sergeant Pedro Balignasay eventually passed by. By this point in his career, Balignasay earned renown as an old breed legend of the Corps. The Marines affectionately referred to him as, “Gunny Huk,” in honor of his Filipino roots. Born in the Philippines in 1927, Balignasay immigrated to the U.S. and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served in WW II, Korea, and saw three combat deployments in Vietnam before he retired in 1973. He was widely known by the grunts of 2/4 for his weapon of choice, carried at all times; a Filipino bolo knife.

“Hey Gunny Huk! Can you help me?” Brinke cried. “I need to get up!”
Balignasay approached. He held his bolo knife in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He hastily triaged Brinke and saw that he would survive, and he lay in a covered position.

“Sorry Marine, I can’t do anything more for you. I gotta go kill some NVA.”
Balignasay’s Silver Star citation de­scribes multiple times he was wounded that night as he roamed the hill directing uninjured Marines or helping move the wounded to cover. It alludes to his in­strumental role in, “killing numerous enemy and successfully defending their position.” At least five of these enemy reportedly fell victim to Gunny Huk’s beloved bolo.

Captain Albert Hill, the Echo Co Commander, survived the initial barrage of mortars and satchel charges and entered the hand-to-hand clash over the hill. At one point, Hill pulled the pin on a grenade to hurl at an enemy. At that very moment, another NVA sapper rushed him. Hill locked into mortal combat, the live grenade still clutched in his hand. Unable to let go, lest he blow himself up alongside the sapper, Hill prevailed over his foe and used the grenade like a rock in his hand to bludgeon the enemy to death. Like Balignasay, Hill received a Silver Star for his role in defending the hill.

LCpl Rick Davis served as an artillery­man with Hotel Battery. His reinforced bunker withstood multiple direct hits during mortar barrage, and a thick wool blanket hung across the doorway de­flected satchel charges tossed by NVA sappers. The bombs detonated outside, disorienting the Marines, but leaving them unharmed. Davis searched the bunk­er for a rifle as an NVA officer boldly barked out orders from somewhere nearby. Davis and the other Marines pushed through the doorway with rifles ready. They killed several NVA outside their bunker as they moved a short dis­tance over the parapet into their gun pit.

The enemy soldier shouting orders stood on the parapet wall. Davis fired several rounds into him. Another Marine shoot­ing from the opposite direction fired into the soldier at the same time, and he fell dead. The Marines arranged in a small defensive position around the gun. Wounded men called out for help all around them. Amidst the explosions, gun fire, and hand-to-hand combat, Davis set out with the others to rescue them. They recovered several Marines, some lying wounded around their gun pits, others partially buried inside the collapsed bunkers.

When not preoccupied with beating back the NVA sappers, many like Davis undertook the enormous effort of saving the lives of their fellow Marines. Doc Rich Woy, a corpsman assigned to Brinke’s 3rd platoon, found Brinke lying outside the bunker door where he fell. Woy bandaged his wounds before pro­ceed­ing onto other patients.

“I could see Doc Woy working on one guy up by a mortar pit behind us,” said Winchell, recalling a scene from memory as his squad held the line. “Doc had a tube in his throat trying to keep him alive.”

Woy survived the same satchel charge that killed Hunt and wounded Brinke in the CP bunker. He extricated another platoon corpsman from the CP and moved him to safety near Winchell’s squad. From there, he worked his way up and down the hill treating wounded Marines. Eventually, he remained at the LZ triaging and loading critical patients on medevac choppers. For his tireless work, Woy received a Silver Star.

Many of the wounded lay trapped in bunkers, collapsed from the onslaught of satchel charges. Private Michael Harvey, a radio operator with 2/4, discovered two partially buried Marines. He worked feverishly removing the heavy debris. A bullet pierced a nearby fuel drum, lighting it on fire. Without hesitation, Harvey threw himself across the wounded Marines as the drum exploded. His body shielded them from the resulting fireball. He died as a result of the injuries he sustained. For his incredible actions, Harvey was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

Private First Class William Castillo, a mortarman with 2/4, freed several Ma­rines from a bunker destroyed in the initial moments of the attack, then single-handedly returned to firing his mortar. Incoming rounds blew him off the tube twice, but he got up and returned each time to continue firing. When another bunker exploded and started burning, Castillo ran to the entryway and pressed ahead through a thick cloud of black smoke rolling out the door. He discovered five Marines inside, blinded by the smoke and in shock. Castillo led all five outside to safety. He survived the night, and for his heroic actions, received the Navy Cross.

Winchell remained with his squad on the perimeter mowing down sappers as they appeared from the jungle. For his courage and leadership over his squad through the battle, Winchell received a Bronze Star with combat “V.” He heard a scream for help up the hill behind him. He moved toward the voice and found the severely wounded corpsman moved to safety by Doc Woy. In excruciating pain, the corpsman instructed Winchell to grab two morphine syrettes from his bag and inject them into his buttocks. Winchell administered the medication, then rubbed his finger in the Doc’s blood and drew a “M” on his forehead. A new and deafening roar of explosions suddenly split Winchell’s ears and lit up the jungle around him. Friendly artillery fire, similar to the barrage Hotel Battery provided for FSB Neville earlier in the night, began raining down.

“It sounded like a freight train coming in,” Winchell recalled. “They rang the hill all around the perimeter. Some landed inside. I looked at the corpsman and told him, ‘I think we’re f—ked.’ ”

Mac, Gardner and the others on the LP willed their bodies into the dirt through the barrage. Still outside the wire, they lay directly under the intended impact zone.

“It was raining hell fire!” said Gardner. “Arty was landing all around us. The ground shook, the darkness lit up, and shrapnel was flying from the explosions striking the trees. All we could do was hug the ground and hope a round didn’t land on top of us!”

After what seemed an eternity, dawn broke mercifully over the hilltop. The friendly barrage ceased, and the fight for LZ Russell trailed off. The only NVA remaining inside the wire lay dead. The rest vanished back into the jungle. The morning revealed the battle’s horrific aftermath. The enemy successfully dis­abled three of the six howitzers. Bunkers around the hill crumbled in ruins with screaming Marines trapped inside. American and Vietnamese bodies lay intermingled in a grotesque spectacle attesting to the savage combat. Unidentifi­able body parts littered the hill, remnants of the many satchel charges employed by the sappers with devastating effect.

This headline ran in Stars and Stripes within a week after the attack, succinctly describing the horror the Marines faced.

Miraculously, the four Marines on LP duty survived the night unscathed. They remained outside the wire waiting per­mis­sion to reenter friendly lines, lest they be mistaken as enemy and gunned down. Their anxiety soared as they sat in the quiet jungle. The peace was broken by a lone Marine somewhere nearby up the hill, calling out to God for help. Finally, they received the all clear.

The body of an NVA sapper shot through the head greeted them as they passed through the wire. Almost imme­diately, Mac directed the others toward a collapsed bunker to retrieve the body of a Marine buried inside. Gardner dis­covered the bunker was his own, which he shared with three others. They moved sand bags and ammo boxes to create an entrance. Inside, Gardner found the re­mains of another Marine from his squad who was up for LP duty the previous night, but Gardner went in his place. He suffered the initial onslaught of survivor’s guilt as he dug the Marine out and dragged the body up the hill to the LZ for evac­uation. His squad mate was the first dead body Gardner had ever touched. After­wards, Gardner and the others continued from bunker to bunker carrying dead Marines to the top of the hill.

The LZ shrank as bodies collected near the crest. Dead Marines were lined up awaiting their turn for evacuation, with dead NVA stacked nearby. Marines and corpsman triaged the wounded for evacuation as helicopters trickled down through a thick haze that settled over the hill. Twenty-nine Marines and Navy corpsmen were dead. Nearly 80 more were wounded. Those who remained piled the enemy dead high on a cargo net in an unsuccessful attempt to lift them from the hill under the belly of a helicopter. Finally, Marines were forced to toss the bodies over the steepest side of the hill to be burned. The helicopter squadrons stretched thin as they simultaneously evacuated casualties from LZ Russell and the fight at FSB Neville, where 14 died and almost 30 were wounded. In one night between the two hills, the price paid by the Marines and Navy corpsmen defending them amounted to 43 killed, and over 100 wounded.

In the weeks following Feb. 25, the infantry platoons that guarded the hill moved on quickly. In typical grunt fashion, no significant period of rest or reflection could be afforded. The Marines moved on to other hilltops, other jungles, other battles. For many, the experience at LZ Russell stood out as a defining moment of their time in combat and would forever dominate their dreams. In contrast, many artillerymen of Hotel Battery remained at LZ Russell through the spring and summer of 1969, daily reliving the fight they had all survived.
“I never slept after that night,” said Rick Davis, who remained on the hill with Hotel Battery for several months after the attack. “I just never would have put it past the NVA to come back and try to finish off the rest of us. We got resupply of some new guns, new ammo, new people. There was a lot of work to do.”

Some Marines, like LCpl Ken Heins, spent nearly their entire 13-month deployment on the hill. During the battle, Heins was blown up inside his bunker and trapped after he blacked out. He came to after daybreak when Marines entered the ruins and rescued him. Other Marines inside with him reported that NVA soldiers had entered the bunker during the night and stolen items off them as they played dead. Miraculously unwounded, Heins stayed on the hill and helped rebuild some of the bunkers where his friends were killed or maimed. The artillerymen started carrying loaded rifles and grenades to defend themselves at a moment’s notice, rather than relying solely on the grunts for protection. The NVA continued probing the lines and firing sporadically into the perimeter, but another assault like the night of Feb. 25 never materialized.

The battery fired thousands of rounds per month as the year wore on, staying busier than they had ever been. At one point, the work so thoroughly exhausted Heins that he slept uninterrupted through the awe-inspiring and earth-quaking devastation wrought by a nearby B-52 “arc light” bombing run. In September, the fire missions unexpectedly came to an abrupt and definitive halt. The Marines received orders to vacate the hill and destroy the base. Reasoning behind the decision failed to disseminate through the ranks. To a Marine like Heins, after spending his entire deployment on the hill, surviving the February assault, and grieving the friends he’d lost there, the abandonment of LZ Russell made all of it feel like a tragic waste.

Hotel Battery prepared their guns and equipment to be hauled out. Engineers rigged explosives to all the bunkers and piled high the extra powder bags, fuel, ammo, and any other gear condemned to destruction. They drenched everything with gasoline in preparation for the great conflagration that would render the hill­top useless to the NVA. On Sept. 21, Heins loaded the last of his gear onto a helicopter and climbed aboard. LZ Russell shrank beneath him as the chopper ascended. Without warning, a massive explosion detonated on the LZ. Heins felt and heard the “BOOM” over the sound of the heli­copter. A mushroom cloud expanded into the sky.

“Holy shit!” he yelled. “They just blew the hill up! They didn’t leave us much time to get the hell out of the way!”

When the chopper landed, Heins learned the explosion happened pre­maturely, and by accident. Reportedly, a Vietnamese Kit Carson Scout on the LZ flicked a burning cigarette butt into a pile of powder bags. The powder ignited, sparking a monumental chain of explo­sions. Two Marines and two Kit Carson Scouts perished. Numerous others were severely wounded. One Marine, PFC James W. Jackson Jr., was evacuated to a hospital in Quang Tri alongside the other wounded, but somehow mysterious­ly vanished from the emergency room. Investigators never discovered any evi­dence or sign of him, and to this day, Jackson is listed as missing in action, presumed dead. The victims of Sept. 21, 1969, marked the tragic ending to the existence of LZ Russell.

Survivors fought to move on from the battle. Other veterans from Vietnam or later wars who endured similarly horrific events are the only ones who can truly understand the struggle these men en­dured. They fought for a return to normal life. They fought for their families and fought for themselves. Today, even five and a half decades later, they still face the demons of LZ Russell on a daily basis. Tragically, a few of these veterans ended their own lives, becoming the last victims claimed by the long-forgotten hill.

“There are veterans from LZ Russell all around the country, and they are all wounded,” reflected Rick Davis. “They’ve been wounded for a lot of years, and everybody is on a mission to help everybody else. Everyone saw what happened that night in 100 different ways and has been affected differently. There have been divorces, people getting fired and losing everything they have, people getting sick, committing suicide, families left with questions. There was a lot of stuff going on, and it was a mess. Somebody had to pay the price for what happened that night. We’ve been paying it ever since.”

In the late 1990s, a Marine from Hotel Battery named Skip Poindexter published a website in memory of LZ Russell. The site evolved into a repository of photo­graphs and written memories of veterans who spent time on the hill. In August 2000, the LZ Russell Association was officially founded, with Heins as pres­ident. The organization scheduled the first reunion of LZ Russell veterans in Las Vegas. Marines gathered from around the country. For some, the initial excite­ment faded quickly as they sat face to face with other veterans, some of whom they had not seen since Feb. 25, 1969.

For years, they buried memories that they hesitated to unearth. Old animosities between the artillery battery and the infantry units reared. The Marines spent their lives after Vietnam refusing to speak of the events with people who could never understand them, and now suddenly faced the only ones who could. After a time, and with enough alcohol, the tension dissipated. The Marines pieced together the puzzle of the battle, filling in gaps for each other that had bothered them for years. More reunions took place, aiding greatly in the healing process. For numerous veterans of LZ Russell, how­ever, attending the reunions and the pas­sage of time remains inadequate, and they refuse to discuss the battle to this day.

Heins returned to Vietnam on several occasions in the years after the war. On five different trips, he scaled the old hill back to the top where LZ Russell once stood.

“Personally, I feel like half of me died up there.”

In this sentiment, Heins is not alone. On two of his trips to the hill, Heins took with him the ashes of other LZ Russell survivors to spread on the hill. Their final wishes were to be reunited with their brothers lost there, and the part of their youth that never returned home.

“It is with you, my friend,
who died so long ago
with a gasp and eyes rolled back.
So why can’t I feel?
Because my presence is not present.
My presence is with you…
I’m searching, searching for you.
Let me touch ‘The Wall’ where your name is,
and recall the face and the voice with a silly grin.
Let me reach out and touch you,
instead of a black granite slab.
I’m searching for you, and searching for me.”
(Poem by Dennis Gardner).

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-2013. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.

In November 1943, 21-year-old Private First Class Lupe Gasca waded slowly through chest-deep water, toward the small strip of coral clouded by dark gray smoke. Japanese bullets smacked the water to his left and right as he picked his way toward the only structure that looked as though it might offer some protection—a pier jutting out into the lagoon.

Eighty years later, the memories of that afternoon and the rest of his time at Tarawa remain fresh. His eyes fix on a scene that he still sees clearly in his mind. “I remembered two things I forgot to mention last time we talked,” Gasca said one afternoon in his Minnesota living room. “The heat, and the smell. The smell of death … I can still smell it right now. I’ll never forget that.” Now 101 years old, Gasca is one of the very last who remembers the battle for Tarawa.

Gasca joined the Marine Corps in 1942 from Albert Lea, Minn. The son of tenant farmers, Gasca’s young life was characterized by manual labor on farms during the Great Depression. He went to school on a part-time basis but frequented the local library and was especially enthralled by its collection of images of the First World War.

In the summer of 1934, Gasca had a chance encounter that would change the course of his life. While shocking wheat for a farmer, the farmer’s son returned home on leave from the Marine Corps. “He was wearing the khaki shirt with the blue trousers with the red stripe, and the white cap. And he sat and talked to us.” Gasca recalled. The Marine was serving on guard duty in Washington, D.C., and showed Gasca and the other children photos of himself in his dress blue uniform. Gasca had also seen photos of trench warfare in the library’s collection. “I had seen these guys fighting in the mud and everything. So, when World War II broke out and they started talking about recruiting, I said ‘well, I’m not going to join the Army, I’m going to go in the Marine Corps, because I’ll get the easy job. I’m not going to be crawling in the mud like those other guys.’ ” Gasca did join the Marines, and after completing his training, was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, refitting in Wellington, New Zealand.

In November 1943, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines moved from New Zealand to the New Hebrides to practice beach landings, and then finally into position a few miles off the coast of Betio Island. Gasca had been assigned to a machine-gun team of 1st Battalion’s Company B, under the command of Captain Maxie Williams. The 1st Bn was assigned to be the regimental reserve. Even so, at about 2 a.m. on Nov. 20, Gasca and the other Marines of B/1/2 filed into the ship’s galley for their pre-invasion breakfast. Then they geared up, and after a long wait, Gasca climbed down the cargo nets and into the landing craft idling in the water below.

“It was just pitch dark as could be,” he remembered. “I could see the shadows of the other ships, and some Higgins boats already making their circles. And just as I got down on the Higgins boat, I heard this funny whistling noise, right over the top of us. It was a shell! I’d never heard anything like that.” As dawn broke, Gasca and his fellow Marines continued their long wait offshore in their landing craft, “circling and circling,” as Gasca recalled. The plan was for the brand-new amphib­ious tractors, of which there were precious few, to create a shuttle service, taking wait­ing Marines from Higgins boats across the reef to the beach. If all went according to plan, 1/2 would follow close on the heels of the Regiment’s 2nd and 3rd Battalions. “They said, ‘they’re land­ing and they’re going to come back,’ and so we were waiting for that 15 minutes it was supposed to take.” Gasca said. “It was hours before I finally got there.”

As they waited, the water rough from the wakes of the other craft, Gasca heard more artillery. “The Japanese got our spot, and they were concentrating on our group” he recalled, imitating the noise of the incoming fire. “To my left—and I could almost see the shell!—their cox­swain was hit and just disappeared.” Gasca watched helplessly as the Marines in that landing craft were thrown about, becoming casualties before even reaching the island. Even when the tractors finally did appear to complete the shuttle proc­ess, loading from the Higgins boat proved chaotic. In the confusion, Gasca and his gunner, Alfred Lewis, were left behind in the Higgins boat while their ammuni­tion carriers went ashore aboard the amtracs, separating them and leaving the two gunners with all of the ammunition, in addition to the gun and tripod they were assigned to carry.

By this time it was about noon, and the lieutenant in his boat ordered the coxswain to take the Marines ashore instead of waiting for another amtrac. “The guy took off and went, but pretty soon, the thing hit coral. And then, the ramp went down. We were still about 200, maybe 300 yards from the beach. And we were very lucky that when the ramp went down and we started walking, the water was only up to here.” Gasca remembered, drawing a line with his hand in the middle of his chest. “There were no holes. But what happened to some other people [and] tanks completely even—the ramp went down, and the unit went down. The Sailors dropping us off were just as green as we were, they didn’t know.” With their feet on solid coral, Gasca and Lewis began their long trek to shore. “When we got so far, Lewis and I looked at each other, and we headed for the pier.” The pier, a pre-war construction extending 1,000 yards into the lagoon to allow for commercial shipping, divided Red Beach 3 from Red Beach 2, and was neutralized in the morning by a scout sniper platoon under the command of First Lieutenant William Deane Hawkins, one of Tarawa’s Medal of Honor recipients. It offered slight protection for Marines on their harrowing journey ashore.

“We were walking, and we finally got along the pier. And every so often, they would spot us. But then they’d stop again, and they’d concentrate where there were a lot of guys coming in. So, we kept walk­ing.” Gasca recalled. “At that time, I’m just hoping I don’t get hit. When I got off of the Higgins boat into the water, there was no reason to be scared because there was nowhere to go but forward. Lewis and I weren’t even talking, we operated just on instinct.” The two Marines picked their way along the pier, careful on the rocks made slippery with the bodies of small fish killed by the concussion of the pre-invasion bombardment. Having made it to the beach, Gasca found chaos. “Final­­ly at the end of the pier was this coconut wall. All I could see was the wall and the sand, and in the open area a bunch of junk. You could see fire, smoke and everything, and there were maybe 150, 200 guys there,” Gasca recalled. “Who they were, I don’t know. Lewis and I didn’t know anybody. But we knew that our unit was supposed to be to the right, so we started heading that way.”

The two began to move along the wall, when suddenly Lewis was grabbed by an unknown Marine sergeant. “He said, ‘where the hell do you think you’re going? You can’t go over there! Look!’ and he pointed. And sure enough, there was just a layer of Marines, dead in what they call no man’s land.” Unable to locate anyone from their unit, Gasca and Lewis joined a platoon of Marines fighting from a section of Red Beach 2. “There was a bunch of debris, and I could see to the left the big bunker. I couldn’t see any of the enemy. They were underneath this debris and tin, and they could see us, and they were close,” Gasca recalled. “There must have been buildings there, because there were tin roofs on the ground, with coco­nut trees fallen over on top of them. It was just like being in a pile of junk. And we just kept firing at the tin.” The two Marines remained there, only about 30 feet inland, firing at an unseen enemy until night fell.

When daylight came, Gasca and Lewis continued moving towards where they believed Co B to be. Finally, at about midday, they found a Marine from their company, Wayne Barr. He told them that B Company was in a tank trap, located on Black Beach, across the narrow island. After waiting for an opportune moment to cross the gun-swept terrain, Gasca noticed four planes circling in the sky above. “Just like in the movies, the sun would hit the wings, and flash silver. And then they started coming down, they were dive bombers. And I can recall telling Lewis, ‘when the other plane comes straf­ing, we’re going to take off,’ and so we did. We ran across, and I jumped into the tank trap and just about landed on top of Maxie Williams.”

They were greeted by laughter from the Marines in the tank trap, who told them that as they ran, Japanese bullets were hitting the ground right behind their feet. Barr, however, was not so lucky. “As he got up and took his first step, a bullet hit him right in the neck,” Gasca recalled. “We didn’t know what had happened to him, just that he had probably gotten hit, because he never came back.”

At long last having rejoined Co B, Gasca continued to fight his way across Betio. He and Lewis spent the day providing suppressing fire for riflemen attempting to capture well-camouflaged and heavily defended fighting positions. “We couldn’t see anybody. They’d just tell us to fire, to pin them down while they were trying to go around a bunker,” Gasca recalled. “In one of those instances, the only guy that was there was our squad leader, by the name of [Private First Class] Arthur Wende. He was the only one from our squad, so he was directing us. There was a crater to the left of this bunker, and Wende said, ‘we can’t do anything here. I’m going to go to that crater, you keep an eye on me and I’ll give you the signal to move the gun to the crater, to fire on the other bunker.’ And he took off and ran to the crater,” Gasca said. “Just as he gets there—I can just see him—he gets his head up above the ground. And I can see the bullet hit his forehead. He stayed like that momentarily, and then fell, and was killed. Just like that … and I think that’s the only time I didn’t see Lewis grinning looking at me. And so we didn’t budge, we didn’t go. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

The Marines continued fighting. An hour later, the two had another close call as a Japanese grenade landed next to their gun. It exploded, bending the receiver, but leaving the two Marines remarkably unscathed. The second day of battle con­tinued for Gasca much as the first had. Even as incremental advances were made, the enemy was largely unseen and well-fortified. Occasionally, enemy emplace­ments would be passed with the thought that they were neutralized, only to present active resistance again later in the day from occupants who had survived pre­vious assaults. Night fell on the second day, with Gasca and his fellow Marines still inside the tank trap.

On the morning of the Nov. 22, the Marines in the tank trap again made plans to neutralize the bunkers in their area. Gasca provided suppressing fire, enabling the riflemen to locate the source of the Japanese returning fire and successfully neutralize the position. The tenor of the fight had changed, advances were being made. “People were more relaxed, some of them were walking around” (as opposed to crawling for fear of being hit), Gasca remembered. But the island was far from secure.

Co B continued their advance along the island’s southern shoreline. “So now, it gets dark,” Gasca recalled. “We headed towards this other bunker, but there was no activity. Nobody shot at us. And so we got there, and made our dugout for the third night.” Gasca was standing watch, with his machine gun facing the water to guard against possible infiltration from the sea. “At about 11 o’clock, I thought I saw some movement at this bunker. Now before it got dark, I hadn’t seen any door there. But pretty soon, I saw a couple of other guys moving. I had a rifle right next to my machine gun, and I picked up the rifle and I fired. And I hit him.”

At once, it all broke loose. “Just as I fired on top of the bunker—which was high and covered in sand and debris—about 20 guys came over the top! They were firing at us, and I spun my machine gun around and opened up. I didn’t even fire a belt, I probably only fired about 15 seconds. All the other guys opened up with rifles and BARs and everything,” he recalled. “And about the same time that I was doing this, a hand grenade landed to my left and killed some of the guys, and that’s when I got hit. I felt warm from my legs, and tried to move, and I fell down. So that’s when I got wounded. I’ll never forget that.”

Gasca was taken to an aid station back by the tank trap, where he was patched up by corpsmen. The next morning, he was evacuated. “A jeep came over with a stretcher to take us, and they brought me back towards the beach, almost where I came in,” he recalled. “And the Higgins boats still couldn’t come in because there wasn’t enough water. So they put me on a rubber boat and took me out to where it was deep enough for the Higgins boat.” From there, the Higgins boat transported Gasca to the waiting ship. “The winch came down from the ship, and the guys in the landing craft put me in the wire basket. And I was just thinking ‘gee, I hope these baskets don’t drop.’ It hap­pened, you know, and you would sink.” Gasca made it aboard without incident and began his nine-day voyage back to Hawaii. Arriving at the hospital in Pearl Harbor, Gasca was greeted with a pleasant surprise. “The day I arrived in the hospital, I got into the [ward], and there he was, Barr! He was already walking, with a bandage around his neck. The bullet had gone through his neck, but he survived.”

Gasca underwent procedures to remove the shrapnel from his legs—without anesthesia—and slowly regained the ability to walk. He recovered in time to rejoin B/1/2 and fought with them for the rest of the war, surviving the campaigns on Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. As a part of the occupation forces, he witnessed firsthand the devastation in Nagasaki. Finally, in late 1945, he returned home to Minnesota.

The Battle of Tarawa remains a defin­ing moment in the history of the Marine Corps. The brutality of the battle shocked the Ameri­can public, and the images produced caused scandal. Nearly 3,500 casualties in just 76 hours was a bitter pill to swal­low. Admiral Chester Nimitz, the com­mand­er of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during World War II, said the battle, “knocked down the front door to Japanese defenses in the Central Pacific,” and in­fluenced American doctrine in amphib­ious oper­ations to come. Eighty years on, remnants of the battle are abundant on Betio, and efforts continue to recover the remains of Marines still buried in lost graves on the atoll, PFC Arthur Wende among them.

To Gasca, the legacy of his involvement doesn’t seem to loom large. “It’s a long time ago, and you know, over the years I never talked about it. I came home and got married and raised a family, and we never talked about it. In fact, even when I got back to B Company right after the battle, we never talked about it,” Gasca said. “But after so many years, I wondered—why did they do it like that?”

Eight decades later, Gasca is one of only a few left who fought on Tarawa. He doesn’t see himself as a hero. “I just went and joined the Marine Corps because I didn’t want to join the Army,” he laughed. “But later on, I was proud.”

Editor’s note: Special thanks to Kurt Barickman for his assistance with this article.

Author’s bio: Patrick Reed is a his­torian and graduate of Abilene Christian University. He has a particular interest in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps history, and travels to speak with World War II veterans about their experiences.

A sharp fight for a nameless ridge and a ravine led to a bloody sacrifice for the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.

October 1942 was a bleak and ter­rifying month for the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal. Nearly three months of combat—exhausting patrols punctuated by ferocious pitched battles—left men weakened, wounded and riddled with tropical disease. They were short of food, short of ammunition, short of everything to the point where they dubbed the campaign “Operation Shoestring” and themselves the “First Maroon Division.” Yet, despite these hardships, they managed to hold their perimeter around an airfield whose ex­istence was their sole reason for invading the Solomon Islands. And when they took the tallies at the end of the month, the Marines appeared to come out ahead of their Japanese adversaries.

“On the Matanikau [the Japanese gar­rison] appears to have lost about 500 killed by artillery fire in addition to a total of 13 tanks,” noted the D-2 (Intelli­gence) report. “Total enemy losses along the Matanikau during this period can be conservatively estimated at 1,200 killed. Most of these were from the 4th Infantry and the Oka Unit. On the other front, 1,200 bodies were buried after the battle. A partial count of additional bodies lying in the woods indicates total losses of 2,200 killed … . The 29th and 16th In­fantry Regiments and the Kawaguchi Detachment had been annihilated.” Reconnaissance patrols led by Lieu­tenants William “Holly” Whyte and Harold “Ramrod” Taylor revealed dis­organized and demoralized defenses west of the Matanikau. While these positions could still fight—Lt Taylor gave his life to obtain this information—evidence suggested that a concerted push might break the Japanese lines.

Augmenting this pleasantly bloody news was the anticipated arrival of the 8th Marines, fresh from garrison duty in Samoa, plus additional Navy firepower. These “riches beyond the dreams of avarice” led the Division commander, Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, to green-light a new offensive across the Matanikau River. The ultimate goal was to annihilate any remnants of the beaten Japanese regiments, capture the base at Kokumbona, and “give them a sense of futility” preventing further reinforcement of the Guadalcanal garrison. Furthermore, Vandegrift hoped to capture or destroy the artillery pieces dropping shells on Henderson Field. For this mission, he tapped the relatively rested 5th Marines; the 2nd Marines and a battalion of the Army’s 164th Infantry would follow in reserve.

Crossing the Matanikau was a daunting endeavor. Marines made repeated forays to the western bank, starting with the ill-fated Goettge Patrol in August 1942 and the aptly named “First Battle of the Matanikau.” Subsequent efforts resulted in temporary control or outright repulse. In the 1st Marine Division, it was said that a man was only a man after crossing the Matanikau three times. By this stand­ard, the 5th Marines was one of the most mature regiments on the island.

Private Leonard Anthony Baumann, a 25-year-old from Queens, N.Y., was an as­­sistant machine-gunner in Company D, 5th Marines. He knew enough about what lay beyond the river to take note of the preparations. “One heavy cruiser and four destroyers came in and sailed up beach to Kokumbona and shelled [Japa­nese],” he noted in a makeshift diary. “Ships went up and down six times con­tinuously throwing shells.” The following morning, Baumann’s squad moved out of their defensive positions and down to a coconut grove “to start the push.” Lieu­tenant Herbert Merrillat, a Marine public relations officer, watched the flow of military might moving into position. “Long lines of men in green and trucks full of ammunition and food crowded the road west of Kukum in a steady stream,” he wrote. The assault troops learned their objectives, duties, and the designated sig­nals for success or support. Through the pattering rain, they could hear the whump of Japanese artillery rounds falling else­where in the regimental area.

Rain and artillery dampened the al­ready muffled sounds of activity along the Matanikau. Under cover of darkness, Co L, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines crossed the sandbar at the river’s mouth and set up a defensive perimeter on the western bank. A thousand yards upstream, a pla­toon from E/2/5 slithered to the water’s edge and boarded small boats, rowing across to establish a foothold in the jungle. Three companies of the 1st Engineer Battalion went to work deploying sections of pontoon bridges across a slow, lagoon-like stretch of the river. Previous cross­ings relied on the sand bar and “One Log Bridge”—sites well-known to both sides and “inadequate, in any case, for the number of men involved” in the coming operation. The engineers withdrew be­fore dawn, having secured three foot­bridges across the Matanikau. A fourth, strong enough for vehicles, would be deployed if the attack went well.

For 1/5, Nov. 1—All Saints’ Day, be­gan with a 4:30 a.m. reveille and an uninspired breakfast of coffee, jam, and “slum”—C-ration hash, eaten cold from the can on the front lines. As they wrapped up their repast and shouldered their weapons, an artillery barrage—nine batteries of the 11th Marines—ripped through the air overhead. Wildcats and Warhawks winged by, strafing the ground ahead with ma­chine guns and cannon fire. A flight of 19 B-17s droned westward to drop bombs on Kokumbona. As the last shells rumbled overhead at 6:30 a.m., the first 1/5 Ma­rines stepped onto the sturdy pontoon bridge, tramped across, and disappeared into the foliage on the other side. Within an hour, the entire regiment, from lead scouts to command post, was west of the Matanikau with all hands heading for their assigned sectors. The Japanese, shocked or strategically silent, did not contest the crossing.

A Japanese sniper fired too soon; one of Crosby’s Marines returned fire and scored a killing hit. As if on signal, the Japanese line opened up with “a withering barrage of fire.” Although outnumbered and outgunned, Crosby “began to coolly direct” his scouts into a position where they could fight back but was killed as he rushed a camouflaged antitank gun. “David’s men, berserk with sorrow at the loss of the leader whom they idolized, managed in the face of that hell to drive past the spot where he was slain so that they could recover him,” wrote Lieutenant Armitage. “They immediately attacked the enemy position but could not get close enough to assault it. These boys were also killed; the only man who safely returned was the runner Dave had sent back.”

Corporal Casamento, meanwhile, was getting his guns into the fight. Hill 78 ap­peared as a bisecting ridge to the ad­vanc­ing Marines; Casamento sent Shaner’s squad to the left while he ac­companied Robarts’ squad on the right. “We were to meet up together again when we cleared the ridge we were on, before advancing to the ridge [Hill 84] directly in front of us,” recalled Private Tortorici. “Corporal Shaner’s squad wasn’t out of sight more than five minutes when our squad came under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire.” Casamento sighted a spot for the gun, directed Robarts to deploy, and ran directly into a crossfire from two Japanese positions. The assistant gunner, Pvt Michael Ciavarelli, was severely wounded; Robarts and gunner Pvt Joseph Seymour received mortal wounds, and PFC Joseph Corriggio died instantly. Japa­­nese mortar rounds sang down, flin­g­ing Private Tortorici 30 feet in the air. The temporary ammo carriers bor­rowed from Co C were all killed or wounded. An entire machine-gun squad was hors de combat—and a heavy Browning could mean the difference between survival and defeat.

The 5th Marines’ message center lit up at 8:40 a.m. with a simple notice: “C/1/5 receiving MG fire.” Twenty minutes later, a report noted “heavy MG and mortar fire,” followed by “hit hard from front … request help from 1st Bn.” At 9:45 a.m., a breathless runner arrived with a written note from Captain Shine: “Hit hard. Many casualties. Need assistance. Right front in woods MGs. My position on ridge—also woods to left front MGs. Request directions of assistance.” Colonel Merritt Edson dispatched halftracks and 37 mm guns to assist his beleaguered 1st Battalion, but these weapons could not reach Co C on the steep slopes of Hill 78. Edson sent 1/5 a message giving coordinates of the regimental aid station and simultaneously directed the 1st Battalion’s reserve—Co B, with attached machine guns—to Shine’s position.

For two hours on the morning of Nov. 1, 1942, C/1/5 endured a hell of fire the likes of which few other American units experienced on Guadalcanal. The 7th Company of Major Masao Tamura’s 4th Infantry had planned their defenses well, digging sturdy bunk­ers out of coral rock and expertly camou­flaging their positions. Any Americans who ap­proached would be trapped in a jungle-choked ravine: relief or retreat could only happen by crossing the steep, bare western slope of Hill 78, exposed to flat trajectory fire from Hill 84. Japa­nese mortars and artillery dropped along the ravine and ridge, and concealed field pieces ripped through foliage and flesh at point-blank range. Their patience and preparations paid off as Crosby’s platoon melted away.

By order or by general assent, Co C recoiled from the vicious positions in the ravine. Crosby’s survivors fell back to the ridge, bearing the body of their fallen leader. Pvt William Frank Seiverling of Drexel Hill, Pa., staged a one-man coun­terattack and charged down the bar­ren slope, blazing away with his Browning Automatic Rifle to cover the platoon’s re­organization and withdrawal. Seiverling then ran a gauntlet of fire to assist Holland’s platoon, “killing several Japa­nese before he, himself, was hit by ma­chine-gun fire.” Bleeding heavily, Seiverling opened fire on the enemy gun and silenced it before heading for safety. He was too late: another Nambu chattered, and the 22-year-old Marine fell to the ground, never to move again.

Not far away, Corporal Terrence Joseph Reynolds Jr., another Pennsylvania Ma­rine, was writing his name in the history books. “Terry” was a fanatical athlete, and his buddies all knew his dearest ambition was to get his name on the sports page of a major newspaper. He came close on the baseball diamond and closer still as a boxer but never quite clinched a championship. On Nov. 1, 1942, the sports­man showed his true mettle. As Co C made its “temporary organizational withdrawal,” Reynolds picked up a light Browning machine gun and waded into a Japanese attack, firing from the hip and blunting the enemy thrust. He was shot down moments later, still well forward of friendly lines. Seiverling and Reynolds were both posthumously decorated with the Navy Cross.

These heroics bought time for Co C to withdraw and reorganize about 250 yards short of the O-1 line. Sensing an oppor­tunity, Tamura’s men counterattacked through the ravine. Sergeant Carl Weiss, who had already knocked out an enemy emplacement with a grenade, directed the fire of his machine guns against “the infuriated Japanese” who charged up the hill with fixed bayonets. When a wounded Marine rolled down the slope into the crossfire, Weiss crawled through the spitting bullets and dragged the man to safety. The sergeant would also receive the Navy Cross—posthumously, as he was killed in action the following day.

On the northern slope of Hill 78, Tony Casamento clung to his position. Bullet wounds ran from his instep to his ear; a round passed through his neck, and the corporal used his shirt as a makeshift bandage. Japanese troops crept towards the gun and began throwing grenades and insults. “Retreat, Marine!” they shouted. “Tojo says you must die!” Casamento, “mad as hell,” jumped up and danced “like a crazy man,” challenging the Japa­nese to get him. His curses came out as a breathy whistle: the bullet through his neck clipped his vocal cords. “I know if I pass out, those goddamn Japanese will rush up, grab my gun, turn it around, and start mowing down our own men about 100 yards behind me.” Grenade shrapnel smashed his right hand. Unable to load his machine gun, Casamento first tried to pick up a rifle, then Robarts’ sidearm, but his strength failed. Finally felled by concussion “like the kick of a mule,” the corporal began to lose hope.

“I can’t budge. Every time I try, it hurts all over. It’s getting so I can’t see things very well. I’m waiting to die, but I don’t want to die. I keep thinking of my mother and father, and how close it is to Christmas … Any minute I figure the Japanese will be there and stick me, but what worries me is that gun. Any minute they’ll be here and train my own gun on the fellows behind me, and they’ll raise hell with us, and our boys won’t know what it’s all about—one of their own guns shooting at them.”

Casamento could barely make out a figure moving toward him, bayonet at the ready.

It was a Marine. Co B had arrived.

Second Lieutenant Maurice Raphael was appalled at the carnage atop Hill 78. Japanese fire had ripped a hole in the line between companies C and A; Raphael’s platoon of Co B filled the gap. “As we were moving across this hill that was covered with dead and dying men, I came across this body all covered with blood,” he said. “My men had bayonets on their rifles and were ready to bayonet this ‘thing,’ when all of a sudden, I recognized Casamento. I cried out, ‘My God, Casa­mento, what have they done to you?’ He was a bloody mess, and he did a lot of jabbering about the Japanese and his men, crying about losing all of them. Empty rounds of MG ammo were all over the place.” Raphael pulled out his aid kit and bandaged the worst of Casamento’s many wounds, helplessly muttering, “Don’t you worry, fella, don’t you worry.” Incredibly, Casamento survived his ordeal; in 1980, he received a long-overdue Medal of Honor.

Raphael tried to make sense of the slaughter as his men carried Casamento to the rear. He recognized many of the battered bodies personally: Raphael had served as a Co C platoon leader for months and led some of these men in com­bat before transferring to Company B on Oct. 1, 1942. Each fallen figure was like a punch in the gut. “Saw Ausili die,” he wrote in his diary. “Louis Kovacs was dead but still warm, Harland Swart, Carlson, Potocki, Doucette, Waterstraw … everyone was dead … shot to hell and back. It was the saddest and most awful sight I’ve ever seen in my life. I saw Jack Holland, leader [of] 2nd Platoon, shot in the shoulder. Henry Loughman was shot in the groin and died … I found Crosby’s body … poor fellow, he never knew what hit him.”

Second Lieutenant Richard F. Nellson commanded the machine-gun platoon attached to Co B. “I went forward to re­connoiter for suitable machine-gun po­sitions,” he reported. “I saw Casamento at his gun position. All of his men and those of C Company in his sector were dead or wounded. Casamento was riddled by small arms fire but was still at his gun.” It was evident that Casamento’s cour­age prevented Japanese troops from scaling the ridge and dropping flanking fire onto Co A on the flats below. Next, Nellson and his runner found Cpl Shaner’s machine gun. “It was in a shell hole, but both [the] gunner and his assistant were dead,” Nellson continued. “We put the gun out of action and returned to our lines. Shaner’s gunner had not had time to fire a full belt before he was killed.” As Co C treated their wounded and calmed their nerves, Captain “Tabasco Mac” McIlheney’s men pushed forward down the ridge and into the ravine, finally securing their section of the O-1 line at 11:30 a.m.

Impatient officers at Division Head­quar­ters wasted no time in issuing new orders: in one hour, all units were to press on to the O-2 line, a half-mile be­yond Point Cruz. By now, it was clear that the Japanese facing 1/5 had no inten­tion of retreating to Kokumbona; instead, they were determined to defend a strong po­sition near the base of the Point. This “pocket” was soon surrounded by Ma­rines, but, unfazed by the prospect of death, the defenders contested every step with the massive arsenal at their disposal. Companies B and C crossed the stream marking the O-1 line, but Major Tamura’s men fought so desperately that the Ma­rines made no more headway. The two sides traded blows in a bloody jungle brawl, fighting each other to exhaustion while trying to gain a tactical advantage.

Co A had slightly better success along the coast and managed to advance about 800 yards. They also ran into determined defenders—in this case, Japanese artil­lery positions supported by entrenched infantry. As the machine gunners de­ployed, Private Baumann saw his buddy Private Thomas C. White moving out ahead of his squad, pistol in hand. “See­ing [a] trap, he turned to get back to his gun,” recalled Baumann. “Was shot then. Bullets went in [White’s] back and came out chest. White died in about two mi­nutes. No aid available.” Minutes later came the order to withdraw—just a hun­dred yards back, giving mortars room to fire. Baumann, the assistant gunner, was responsible for carrying the dismounted Browning. “I picked up [the] gun, put it on my shoulder and start[ed] back, sud­denly I got a terrific whack on the back of my head, knocked me down,” he wrote. “MG went flying. Didn’t know what hit me. Placed my hand on back of head and saw it was full of blood.” Pharmacist’s Mate Wesley Haggard bandaged the wound and sent Baumann toward the beach to await evacuation by boat. He was shocked to see so many men from his company “in a bad way” on the beach. “Bonin, Kapanoske, Whalen, Wells, and others … . Few of our boys were killed. In all, D Company caught hell.” Co A fought on until catching the sound of vehicle motors approaching along Gov­ernment Track. Fearful of a tank attack and with their left flank in the air, Com­pany A gave up its gains and returned to the O-1. Despite all the chaos, only two A/1/5 Marines—Privates Charles H. Ludwig and John Monaco—died during the day’s fighting. The exact number of casualties among the attached machine-gunners is not known.

There was little sympathy for 1/5 at Division Headquarters. As early as 10:30 a.m., senior officers debated replacing the battalion on the front line with a unit from the 2nd Marines, but Lieutenant Colonel Merrill Thomas (D-3) resisted; he would not mollycoddle what he con­sidered a sub-par outfit. “They’ve had too much of that,” he grumbled. That evening, “it was learned that 1/5 has not yet even passed O-1,” noted Lieutenant Herbert Merillat. “Much disgust at headquarters … 1/5 will never get any­where, D-3 officers say, and 3/5 wouldn’t do any better.” In reality, the battalion had given a good account of itself on a challenging assignment. On Nov. 1, 1942, Major Tamura’s battalion “vanished.” The 7th Company, which caused so much havoc at Hill 78, could muster barely a dozen men by nightfall, and his other companies were in tatters. It would take two more days and five Marine companies to wipe out the Point Cruz pocket. Three hundred and fifty Japanese soldiers were killed, and Marines captured three field pieces, a dozen antitank guns, and 30 machine guns. “Impatience at the CP with the performance of the 5th Marines shows the gulf that often divides a di­vision staff from officers and men on the front line,” admitted Merillat.

While it seems that 1/5 gave better than they got, their casualty report was staggering. Twenty-five Marines were wounded on Nov. 1 alone, while 41 were either killed outright or died of wounds suffered in action. The unusual ratio of killed to wounded speaks to the close-up savagery of the fighting. Twenty-seven of the dead were from C/1/5: no other Marine company suffered so many fatal casualties in a single action during the entire Guadalcanal campaign.

Among the dead were Robert M. Eastburn and Matthew J. Kirchner, high school classmates and neigh­bors from Riverside, N.J., who enlisted, trained, and fought side by side. Pvt Frank W. Lawton of Springfield, Mass., joined up with two buddies from Tech­nical High School; Robert Burdick and Edward Gray were left to mourn his loss. Pvt Austin W. Pollock Jr.’s demise made the Kentucky newspapers: he killed five Japanese sol­diers, reports claimed, before running into the line of fire to cover his sergeant. Pvt Anthony Antonoglou en­dured years at an infamous Florida re­form school; he attacked an abusive teacher and opted to join the Marine Corps to avoid prison time. Privates Theodore Potocki, William Zeigler, William Hall, and Arthur Doucette died before reaching their 18th birthdays.

Nov. 2 was a day of dramatic action at the Point Cruz pocket, culminating in a series of bayonet charges by 3/5—the only such attack by Marine units on Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, 1/5 faced the unwelcome challenge of disposing of dozens of dead men. Extreme heat exacerbated the problem: temperatures reached the triple digits, straining Ameri­can ability to supply their fighters and evacuate the wounded, let alone arrange transport for the fallen. As a result, 30 of the 41 men killed in action were buried in the field at a point “about 400 yards west of Point Cruz [and] about 600 yards inland from the sea.” The Marines had every intention of returning for the bodies—but two days later, American forces withdrew to the Matanikau in response to a perceived threat from Koli Point, far to the east. All of the ground taken was back in Japanese hands. It would take another few weeks of hard fighting to regain the territory—and the front lines would freeze along the Nov. 1 O-1 line until the very end of the campaign.

It is surprising, therefore, that 23 of the 30 field burials are still unrecovered. No other battle on Guadalcanal resulted in so many field burials in a relatively small area—and American troops oc­cupied the location for months—yet there are no known reports of Marine or Army per­sonnel even noticing the graves, let alone making attempts to retrieve re­mains, even after the battle ended. The first graves were rediscovered in March 1944: Pvt Pollock (Co B), Cpl Reynolds (Co D), Sergeants Louis Kovacs and Harland Swart Jr., and Pvt Albert Ausili (Co C) were exhumed by Army Graves Registration and reburied in the island’s military cemetery. Cpl William F. Wheeler (Co C) was discovered in 1945, and Pvt Lawrence Keane (Co C) was found in an isolated grave during a post-war search. The rest have vanished.

The story of Merton Taylor provides a clue to the others’ whereabouts. As a member of C/1/5, Taylor survived the All Saints’ Day debacle but saw four friends cut down around him. He witnessed their burial, which “necessarily consisted sim­ply of placing the fallen comrades in foxholes, covering them with stones, and marking the graves with tiny sticks and bayonets.” Taylor swore to make sure his buddies got “a decent burial,” but malaria forced his evacuation from the island days after the battle. After attending in­telligence school at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, he returned to the island in September 1944 as a member of the 29th Marines. Naturally, Taylor visited the cemetery—where he was evidently told in error that his buddies were not there.

According to the Marine Corps Chevron, Taylor went looking for the spot where he thought the graves to be. “It wasn’t as easy as he expected. The ridge, bare of growth when he was there before, was now covered with dense brush,” reads the article. “For two days, he searched every inch of the ridge. Then he found a rusty bayonet splitting a stick to form a crude cross … then a second cross, the third, and finally the last.”

A press photographer snapped Taylor pointing out a marker to an Army Graves Registration officer, 1stLt John L. Stewart. The story is moving, but prob­lem­atic: Taylor and Stewart arrived on Guadal­canal months after Kovacs, Swart, and Ausili had been reburied in the cemetery, and no other 1/5 remains were found while either man was on the island. Whomever Taylor found was not his combat buddies; indeed, the photo­graph may have been staged and the story enhanced. A com­pelling kernel of truth remains, though. It is highly likely that the missing dead were initially buried in foxholes where they fell instead of a regulation field cemetery.

Today, the National Parliament of the Solomon Islands sits atop the site where Tony Casamento’s squad fought their final battle. Roads and residences run through the ravine, and the creek marking the O-1 line has vanished beneath the city of Honiara. Under these buildings, singly or in small groups, lie the remains of the 1st Bn, 5th Marines—forgotten victims of a hard-fought victory.

Author’s note: Special thanks to Dave Holland for his contributions to this article, and Colonel Pam Baumann, USMC (Ret) for permission to publish extracts from her father’s diary.

Author’s bio: Geoffrey W. Roecker is a researcher and writer based in upstate New York. His extensive writings on the WW II history of 1st Battalion, 24th Ma­rines, is available online at www.1-24thmarines.com. Roecker is the author of “Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal” and advocates for the return of missing personnel at www.missingmarines.com.