Thanks, Once Again, Dad!

Battle Ribbons for PFC Patrick E, Hickey, USMCR -1943-1945 ( Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima)

Dad carrying the tripod on Guam* and looking old at 19 years. 


" It was rugged." - Personal narrative of WWII by PFC Patrick E, Hickey, USMCR (dec.)

 God Bless you, Dad and all who protect us and our Freedoms.

Able Company ( Capt. Geary Bundschu) 1st Batallion, 3rd Marines pinned down during the three attack up the cliffs later named for Capt. Bundschu. At the center of this old photo are what is left of A Company in July 1994 on Guam.

the 1st Battalion landed and started across rice paddies toward Bundschu Ridge, a nose of land running down toward the beach,²⁵ enemy machine guns began to fire from the woods bordering the open ground. Company B, in assault on the right, quickly cleared these woods and made good progress until it ran into jungle and rock.
The Japanese did not give Company A, on the left, time to organize for an assault, but opened fire on LVT's as they moved ashore and stopped to unload troops. Casualties mounted as reorganization got under way. Enemy opposition, plus the fact that terrain bore little resemblance to that studied on maps and models, added to the normal confusion which --43--

---

follows any assault landing.²⁶ But cool thinking and the training under adverse conditions on Guadalcanal paid off. Captain Geary R. Bundschu quickly organized his company and made preparations for the assault on the ridge that already bore his name. (See Map 13)
The attack started with two platoons in assault and one in support, but the going was slow and rough. The support platoon had to be committed in short order. This added strength enabled Bundschu to get within 100 yards of the top by 1045, but he reported he needed corpsmen and stretchers badly. This message gave just a hint of things to come. Moving that last 100 yards proved to be a lengthy and costly business. Only one officer, Lieutenant James A. Gallo, Jr., and a few men of the company survived the action that followed.
It is doubtful if Captain Bundschu realized until after 1200 what he was up against.²⁷ The initial assault on the ridge had been driven back by two machine guns emplaced to deliver enfilade fire on advancing troops. A platoon tried to flank one position by going up a heavily wooded gully but the waiting Japanese forced it to withdraw. About 1400 Bundschu asked his battalion commander, Major Henry Aplington, II, for permission to disengage. But Aplington felt this could not be done because of the unit being so involved. However, the right platoon (1st) succeeded in disengaging. Lieutenant Gallo, its leader, reorganized the remnants of his unit and those of the 3d Platoon and awaited orders from his company commander.²⁸After a conference between the regimental commander and Captain Bundschu, Colonel Hall ordered a second frontal assault on the ridge. Bundschu and Gallo organized the remaining men of Company A into two forces for the attempt. The company commander requested that an 81mm mortar barrage be placed on the hill,²⁹ and just before sundown the attack started. Bundschu and his men inched forward but the same machine gun that had caused them trouble earlier in the day soon stopped the advance. Repeated attempts to take the position failed. Finally, covered by fire from every available weapon, the Marines silenced the gun with grenades. An assault reached the top of the hill, but by this time the remaining handful of Marines found it impossible to reorganize and defend this crest.³⁰On the right, Lieutenant Gallo and his men fared no better. Under cover of the 81mm barrage, they crawled up the ridge and reached a position under the machine gun in their sector. But the Japanese, by rolling hand grenades down on the advancing troops, made the position untenable and halted the attack. Little had been accomplished. The company was back where it had been earlier in the day, but this time with fewer men.³¹During the course of the Bundschu Ridge action, the regimental commander had decided to commit his reserve, Lieutenant Colonel Hector de Zayas' 2d Battalion. When it became apparent that the enemy offered the most resistance in the center of the zone of action, Hall alerted de Zayas' unit for a move into the line between the two assault battalions. Shortly thereafter, at 1300, Colonel Hall assembled his battalion commanders on top of Chonito Cliff and issued his fragmentary order:

* from Scott Carmichael's forthcoming book Bundschu Ridge 

Despite the rigorous training schedule which left them filthy and exhausted most days, the enlisted men found time and energy to temporarily escape the regimentation of an infantryman’s life through the pursuit of personal interests and hobbies.  Pfc’s Patrick E. Hickey of Chicago and Boyd C. Troup of Michigan discovered the game of horseshoe.  Hickey was the son of Irish immigrants; he was one of 13 kids in his family, and he was barely 19 years old when he joined the Marine Corps.  He and Boyd were machine gunners in 2LT Henry Oliver’s machine gun platoon, and neither of them had ever played the game of horseshoes before their arrival on Guadalcanal.  Boyd recalled that each of them threw ‘ringers’ on their very first tosses, and ‘laughed like hell’ because they couldn’t possibly have done that on purpose, had they tried.  They were hooked on the game from the beginning, and passed much of their spare time tossing iron shoes at a stake in the ground. 

 

Lt. Col. Earl Hancock Ellis (1880-1923): Marine, Visionary and Spy

Sixty-seven years ago, my late father was an eighteen year old Marine who survived the landing on Guam's Red Beach 2 with Able Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, the slaughter on Bundschu Ridge where only he and a dozen other Marines were not killed or terribly wounded, the largest and most savage Banzai charge of the Pacific war and fighting toward the northern jungles of Guam in the Marianas. Guam was American soil and had been taken by Japan hours after Pearl Harbor. From 1941-1944, America captured islands from Japan through amphibious assault. Vast fleets of ships brought troops to shore, covered by air and ship-to-shore bombardments from plans developed by a Marine officer in the 1920's. Though Guam was declared secured on August 10, 1944, fighting on Guam would continue after Japan surrendered.

Twenty one years before and a year before my Dad's birth, another Marine, a forty-three year old Lieutenant Colonel and the man who developed amphibious warfare doctrine, on authorized leave and in the guise of an American Businessman for the Hughes Trading Company died under mysterious circumstances on the Japanese controlled islands of Palau group in the Caroline Islands. Earl Hancock "Pete" Ellis joined the Marines in 1900 in Chicago, Illinois, as a private. Ellis served on Guam and the Philippines and was commissioned as an officer in 1901.

From 1901 up to WWI, Pete Ellis earned a reputation as planning genius and as a violent alcoholic. Ellis proved, on Guam during an exercise, that heavy artillery could be successfully landed in an amphibious attack. During a very dull dinner with a Navy chaplain, Ellis livened things up by shooting the glasses off of the dinner table. The balance of genius and self-destruction kept Pete Ellis in the game.

During WWI, Ellis rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and directed operations and planning for the 4th Marine Brigade through the Armistice. For his courage and genius French Marshal Foch awarded the Marine Brigade honors still worn of the uniforms of certain regiments and said this of Pete Ellis, "From the 2nd to the 10th of October, 1918, near Blanc Mont, Lieutenant Colonel Ellis has shown a high sense of duty. Thanks to his intelligence, his courage and hi energy, the operations that this Brigade (Fourth Brigade, Second Division) took part in, have always been successful."

Military men should and do plan for the next war and Ellis was certain that America would face the growing ambitions of Japan in a vast and bloody conflict on the earth's greates ocean. The Pacific and Japan dominated Ellis' thoughts and energies, but beer and whiskey controlled his blood stream and toxified his vital organs. Lt. Col. was hospitalized several times for alcohol related illnesses immediately after the World War, but, in 1920,he energetically drafted a study for the necessity to plan for war across the Pacific Ocean.

"Operation Plan 712 - Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia", which underlined that in the events of hostilities of Japan, advanced bases would be required to support the fleet. To include that the Territory of Hawaii constituted the 'only' support for the United States Navy due to the lack of facilities in the Philippines and Guam. In since, Japan has already occupied the Marshall, Caroline, and the Palau Islands, which flanked the U.S. lines of communications in the region by more than 2,300 miles. Ellis's conclusion in his document predicted that Japan will initiate the war, and furthermore indicating that Japan would stay near their own territorial waters until encountered by the U.S. fleet. He also added that great losses to the Marine forces would occur during the amphibious assault in what he termed "ship-shore belt". He advised the war planners to avoid 'blue-water' transfers, to form task forces prior to leaving base ports, and not to divide units up among several transports.

'... a major fleet action would decide the war in the Pacific; the U.S. fleet would be 25 percent superior to that of the enemy; the enemy would hold his main fleet within his defense line; fleet unites must be husbanded; preliminary activities of the U.S fleet must be accomplished with a minimum of assets; Marine Corps forces must be self-sustaining; long, drawn-out operations must be avoided to afford the greatest protection to the fleet; sea objectives must include a fleet anchorage.'[

Wikipedia

It is at this point the Father of Amphibious Warfare asked for and received the permission of Marine Corps Commendant John Lejune and Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. to quietly resign his commission and travel incognito through Japan's expanding Pacific empire.

A recent biography and study of Lt. Col. Ellis by Dirk Anthony Balendorf and Merrill L. Bartlett probes the mysterious death of Ellis and the loss of the charts, maps, tide schedules, and reports that were confiscated by the Japanese upon his death.

Tomorrow, I will post more on this fascinating American.

My Dad's Pacific Part 2 and His Final Fight

Presidential Unit Citation w/2 Bronze Stars
Navy Unit Commendation w/ 4 Bronze Stars
Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Streamer w/1 Silver Star
World War II Victory Streamer

On Thursday, my brother called and told me that my sister had taken my Dad to Palos Hospital ER.

That morning, my Dad told my brother that he had 'kind of a stomach ache.' My Mom was in a rehabilitation facility in Palos Park, following a knee replacement. Mom swims and walks and her muscle tone is great. Dad has been without his girl for about a week and we thought maybe his stomach issues were concern.

Like most of the Irish and especially men of his generation, Dad believes that if one avoids doctors, one is well.

Not the case. Dad had a blocked colon and it had ruptured - probably days before. Dr. Kanashira, a beautiful Japanese American woman and his doctor, questioned Dad, 'How could you stand the agony?' With his usual understatement he replied, " I'm a Marine."

He is that. I learned from Dick Prendergast ( Leo '43) about ten years ago, just how much of a Marine this man is - They went into the Corps together at 17 years of age. My daughter Clare has a picture of my Dad, Dick Prendergast and the late Dick Burke, a Chicago Fire Captain as young tough Marines on Guadalcanal before Guam. They are skinny and hard looking eighteen year olds. Dad had just come back from Bougainville.

Dad was court-martial ed for being AWOL after Boot Camp. He went home on liberty, but his train back to San Diego was side-barred. He was late getting back; court-martial ed and offered the choice of Navy prison or the Solomon Islands. He chose the later.

Without basic infantry training, Dad was sent to Guadalcanal in September of 1943 and trained as a machine gunner with veterans of that battle. He was assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines of the 3rd Marine Division. He went to Bougainville in November, 1943 and fought there.

Dick Prendergast trained to be a Signal Corps officer with Joint Assault Signal Companies and arrived on Guadalcanal in 1944. He and my Dad met up again and Dick learned why Hickey went overseas and was veteran.

They went to Guam next. Guam was a slaughter for the 3rd Marines.

At 0829, the attack was directed at the 2000 yards of beach between Asan and Adelup points. The 3rd Marines landed on Red Beach 1, on the left flank. Being closest to Adelup Point, they soon realized that the Japanese were secured in effective defensive positions within the Adelup Point and upon Chonito Cliff, the high ground overlooking the beach. . . . One tunnel system, 400 yards long, connected Chorito Cliff with Adelup Point. Japanese troops could retire to positions on the back-slope of the ridge during intense shelling, and return out to the peninsula behind the U.S. Marines landing on the beach. The Americans realized that their worst obstacle would be the 'almost impossible' terrain facing them (Lodge 1998:40). Troops advancing toward Chorito Cliff and Bundschu Ridge took heavy losses. Four times they attempted to advance up rugged cliffs covered with sword grass. Four times they were pushed back. Climbing up the 60 degree slope required two handed climbing that made it impossible to return fire. Marines lay piled at the bottom of the ridges and the others were forced back to the beaches over and over until reaching success (Gailey 1988:95-97). Heat of over 90 degrees, intense humidity, lack of drinking water, and motion sickness from the long confinement aboard the ships brought the efficiency rate of troops down to 75%. By mid-afternoon, many men were dropping from exhaustion. By day's end, the regiment invading Asan beach counted 231 killed or wounded. Of the 100 amphibious trucks (DUKW's) available, thirty-six were lost during the landing and immediate assault phase on Asan Beach. . . . Three days after W-Day, (24 July) the Southern Landing Force had its beachhead firmly established. The steep cliffs and ridges surrounding both Asan and Agat beaches again took their toll on the troops. Weighed down with the intense heat and humidity, and lacking adequate drinking water, the troops advanced on the ridges that sometimes required two handed climbing through razor sharp sword grass. The cliffs were so steep that supplies were sent up on ropes. Advancement over the ridges often required repeated efforts and caused significant losses (Gailey 1998:97).

The largest Banzai Charge of the Pacific war hit the men on Guam. One account says it all.

"On the left flank, the 3rd Marines is just having a terrible time," Eddy said. Eddy's platoon was being sent into a situation becoming more and more desperate - the battle line along Chorito Cliff and the ridge that would be named after Capt. Geary Bundschu. "You know, the Marines are always doing things like that, moving units. So ... we are detached from F Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Marines - we take the place of A Company of the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, - we take the place of the unit of Capt. Bundschu," Eddy said.

While the entire 3d Marines met stifling opposition on and near Red Beach 1, Bundschu and the rest of Company A were particularly mauled by the enemy. Caught in the ridge by machine gun fire from above, the unit could not move forward or backward.

Bundschu would lose his life on the ridge, becoming one of the 3d's 615 men killed, missing, or wounded in the first two days of fighting. As a unit, A Company was barely hanging on. . . . Harassed by well-placed and hidden machine guns atop the cliff and above on the ridge, the 3d managed to scale the cliff about noon of July 21, reach beyond the ridge later, and onto Fonte Plateau by July 25. But its frontline by July 25 still did not solidly contact with that of the 21st; a gap also existed between the 21st and 9th. . . . Takashina's counterattack was unlike the banzai charges experienced before by the Marines in the Pacific. This one was well-planned and coordinated; the objective defined - to thunder through the gaps, down the ravines (between ComNavMar and Top O' the Mar restaurant) and onto the beachheads. There, troops of the Rising Sun would be able to put the Americans into disarray by disrupting their communications as well as halt resupply of Marines above, thus isolating them.

Through the night, Takashina sent thousands of his soldiers into the gaps, hoping that his counterattack force would reach the beachheads. The force was comprised of seven battalions funneling into four columns through the 3rd Marine Division's frontline.. . . . ( a veteran) , who had fought in Bougainville and Iwo Jima and in other battles, said the night of July 25-26 in Guam was a living nightmare. He and his men repulsed not one, not two but seven banzai charges that night.

"It was the most traumatic experience I ever had, it will live in my memory forever," he said. Fighting was at close quarters. "I had expected to be in battle, but never anything like this. When you think about fighting, you think that you're 100 yards away, but this was pretty gruesome, fighting them from 20 feet away and they're running all around you and screaming. "They were of a different culture. They did things that Marines wouldn't do - yelling, screaming. They didn't give a shit if they got killed; they just wanted to make sure that you got killed. That was what got to you - they wanted to die. They were willing to sacrifice themselves, "They were screaming at us. There was 'Marine, you die,' - they were screaming all that kind of BS, and we'd return it. I remember George Tuthill - he was one of my machine gun section leaders - and he had a loud voice, extremely loud. He'd be shooting, yelling, just things that you couldn't print.

"It's all silly, like little kids yelling at each other, but it's all desperation too." . . . The men along the front line were told that the enemy was 2,000 yards ahead. "We were beat - we were all trying to get some rest. Then a flare went up again, and like all of a sudden, I saw them. They were there, in front of us."

"Thousands ... they were like ants. Oh man, they kicked the shit out of us. They just kept coming, coming."

Dad was one of about thirteen men in Company A to survive Guam. He went to Iwo Jima as a part of the reserve force , but the 3rd Marines were ordered back to Guam where they continued to fight in the jungle until long after the War Ended. Dad came home to Chicago in November 1945 and never left. He never went on a cruise. He put the War far behind him and dedicated every fiber in his being to his wife, three kids and his Union - Local 399.

Like most WWII veterans he refered to his time in the War as 'In the Service.' Everyone else had it much worse than he did. Dr. Grasias who did the surgery on Dad remarked on the Japanese grenade fragments that he still carries.

The grenade fragments are of no consequence to the man who possess them still. A blood clot found its way up and the veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima is being hammered by an 'evolving stroke.'

I pray that the morphine drip and the other medicines allow Dad to bypass what he has stored.

Please God, give him baseball at Billy Smith Field on 79th Street, smooch and hug time with his girl Ginny, play with his grandchildren and big icy pitchers of Keeley's Half and Half ( hi favorite beer of all time - that and 'whatever you got') in the company of Donny, Bud, Jack, Bart, Sy and Mike his brothers; candy with Joan, Nonnie, Margarite, Mary, and Kathleen his sisters - his favorite and Irish twin Helen is still with us thank God; pay-back breakfasts with my wife Mary, hugs from his mother Nora and eternal peace with father Lawrence - with whom he never seemed to get along. He's earned this.

He has been up many hills and trails in the jungle, let him have smooth path to Christ.

Pentecost,Memorial Day and a Young Man's Death

Veni, Creator Spiritus is the hymn that Terry McEldowney will sing at today's 10:30 Mass for Sacred Heart Church at 116th & Church here on the south side.

Terry McEldowney has one of the most powerful and rich baritones in Western Civilization - he is especially poignant when remembering our Fallen Veterans and in reminding weak Catholics like me of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Max Weissmann is the Director of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas at University of Chicago. Mr. Weissmann, an architect and philosopher, helped Mortimer Adler develop the Center. Max sent me the photos posted above.

Terry and Max know loss. Terry and Max know the power of Faith. I am proud to call each man my friend.

This is the Feast of The Ascension of Christ.

Next Sunday is the Feast of the Pentecost, which memorializes the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Mary the Mother of God and the Twelve Apostles. This might be considered a more powerful Feast than Christmas or Easter to Christians, as it recounts the sense of loss experienced by the Apostles and Christ's Mother following the Ascension of Christ. All of us lose those we love. The saddest of us are the ones who lose themselves - forget our roots, our family, our obligations and our place in God's Hands.

Tomorrow, we also celebrate the loss of men and women who have given their lives for our Country. My Dad was a seventeen year old who went to the Solomon Islands in 1943 with the 3rd Marines, and then fought at Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima and mopped up Guam some more until he was mustered out of the service. He is now a seventeen year old octogenarian, who has witnessed the ascension of his mother, father, brothers and sisters, friends, and daughter in law ( my wife Mary). He will be at 9AM Mass in Orland Park with his bride. He will hear Veni, Creator Spiritus

A family near me, lost their baby. Jack Callahan was a big strapping eighteen year old Marist football player who died following a seizure hours before his graduation from high school. ( click my post title for Mark Konkol's touching story)

My baby son, who worked at Di Cola's Fish Market until late last night, is sleeping. My baby girls are sleeping.

On the Pentecost, God sent his Spirit to revive us. On Memorial Day, we as a nation recall the babies who sacrificed themselves for Liberty.

Tell me God does not know what He is doing. Tell me that God not only sent the Holy Ghost, but also Terry McEldowney and Max Weissmann, outside of His Plan. Faith happens, when we let go of what is meant to return to Him according to that plan and also, when we try to make sense of the beautiful, as well as the terrible, sent as a gift to each of us.

Veni, Creator! We'll remember.

Veni, creator Spiritus
mentes tuorum visita,
imple superna gratia,
quae tu creasti pectora.

Come Holy Spirit, creator, come
from your bright heavenly throne,
come take possession of our souls
and make them all your own

My Dad - Guam in 1944 and St. Cajetan's Vet Services 2008

My Dad, Pfc.Patrick E. Hickey USMCR, a machine gunner with Able Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines was photographed on Guam in July, 1944. He was 19 years old at the time and a veteran of the Bougainville Campaign in the Solomon Islands in 1943. The following year he would go to Iwo Jima and return to Guam where he 'checked caves until he came home in November 1945 - he had the Points. Yesterday, the kids of St. Cajetan School in my Morgan Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, honored the Veterans of our Parish. My Dad is featured at the beginning of the video and had trouble standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

St. Cajetan Parish is honored by the service of about twenty young men now deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

He met a 'young guy' who served in the 3rd Marines during Operation Desert Storm and told him 'Semper Fi, Mac.'

Thank you to St. Cajetan's School!

Click my post title for great Southtown Star coverage of kids giving touching tribute to our heroes -Old and Young.

John McCain: Wright's Oafish Slur of 3rd Marines & Calvary at Guam - for real.

But Mr. McCain took a different approach at a news conference here when he criticized Mr. Wright for, as the senator paraphrased him, “comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our Savior, I mean being involved in that” and for “saying that Al Qaeda and the American flag were the same flags.” …
Mr. McCain said that he did not believe that Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, shared those views and that he was still against the advertisement in North Carolina. But he suggested that Mr. Obama had made the subject fair play by declaring in an interview shown over the weekend on “Fox News Sunday” that questions about Mr. Wright were “a legitimate political issue.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/the-early-word-mccain-takes-up-wright-issue/


McCain and other Americans should be concerned about Wright's words - here's the real context: 3rd Marines at Guam reported by Cyril O'Brien, later White House Correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and a combat correspondent with the 3rd Marines:


The Taking of Chonito Ridge*
The following is a dispatch written by Marine Combat Correspondent Private First Class Cyril J. O'Brien in the field after the combat action he describes in his story. It was released for publication in the United States sometime after the event (always after families were notified of the wounding or death of the Marines mentioned.) This story is reprinted from the carbon copy of the file which he retained of the stories he filed from the Pacific.

Guam July 24 (Delayed)—The first frontal attack on steep Chonito Ridge was made one hour after the Marine landing.

An infantry squad, led by Second Lieutenant James A. Gallo, 24, 172 Broadway, Haverstraw, NY., approached to within ten yards of the tip. The crest bloomed with machine gun fire. In the face of it the Marine company tried its first assault. The company was thrown back before it had advanced forty yards.

For fifty hours the company remained on the naked slope, trying again and again to storm the Jap entrenchments hardly one hundred yards away. Battered almost to annihilation, the tenacious Marines finally saw another company take the ridge from the rear.

Failing in the first rush the company had formed a flimsy defense line not fifty yards from the enemy. Cover was scant. Some Marines had only tufts of grass to shield them. The Japs were rolling grenades down the crest, and blasting the Marines with knee mortars from over the summit.


Under the cover of dusk the company commander led a second attack. As the Marines rose machine gun fire swept into them. The commander, and three Marines reached the crest. The last fifty feet were almost vertical. The attackers grasped roots and dug their feet into the soft earth to keep from falling down the incline.

The commander went over the ridge. He never came back. The remaining three Marines were ripped by cross fire. One saved himself by jumping into an enemy fox hole.

Beaten again, the company retired to a small ravine, and remained there all night. One Marine, shot through both legs, was asking for morphine. Another's thigh was ripped by shell fragments. A PFC, his dry tongue swollen, tried to whisper the range of an enemy sniper.

At eleven in the morning of the 22d, with little more a third of their original number, the company rushed hillside again.

Lieutenant Gallo led an assault on the left flank of the hill, but was thrown back. Sergeant Charles V. Bomar, 33, 4002 Gulf St., Houston, Tex., with nine Marines attempted to take the right ground of the slope. Five were killed as they left the ravine. The sergeant and three others reached the top of the slope.

The Japs again rolled grenades down the incline. One exploded under the chest of a Marine nearby, blowing off his head. Another grenade bounced off the helmet of the sergeant. It was a dud.

The Marines charged into the Jap entrenchment. The sergeant killed a Jap machine gunner with the butt of his carbine. The assistant gunner exploded a grenade against his body. The blast threw the Marines out of the hole. They jumped into vacated enemy foxholes. A lieutenant who had come to join them was shot between the eyes by a sniper. The sergeant killed the sniper with his carbine.

Unable to hold their positions, the sergeant and his companies returned to the shelter of the ravine. With the shattered remnants of the company they waited for nearly another 24 hours, until darting Marines on the top of the ridge showed Chonito had been taken from the rear.

Field commanders soon came to appreciate the effect these so-called "Joe Blow" stories had on the morale of their men. The stories were printed in hometown newspapers and were clipped and sent to the troops in the Pacific who could then see that their efforts were being publicized and appreciated at home.

* 'Chonito' was misnamed on dated American Naval Maps in 1944 - The Chamorros of Guam called it Chorito Cliff

For more context- click my post title

John McCain: Wright Slurred 3rd Marines and Italians

Pastor Wright's litany of hate extended beyond Italian Americans to the battle honored Third Marine Regiment - the 3rd Marines.

Full Disclosure - the focus of my recent novel The Chorito Hog Leg: A Novel of Guam in Time of War was the 3rd Marines and their magnificent assault of the cliffs over-looking the Asan Landing Beaches on Guam in July, 1944.

Pastor Wright retired to a mansion in Tinley park, IL and lecturing the NAACP yesterday and the National Press Club this morning was a Marine.

National Review's Jim Geraghty reported Wright's 'Crucifixion comments' that also offered an Unchristian slam on Italian Americans, but to sully the 3rd Marines who have won American battle honors at Bougainville, Guam, Iwo Jima, Vietnam, and Iraq is bizarre to say the least:
Wright describes Roman soldiers who mistreated Jesus as "Commandos.. trained in urban command and trained to kill on command... the Third Marine Regiment of Rome," and that Jesus was mistreated "as a prisoner of war."

He describes the Roman presence in Jerusalem as "Operation Israeli Freedom." (So in this America-as-Rome metaphor, is Abu Zarqawi Jesus?)

"It was the Italian Army that led Jesus to Calvary Friday morning."

Here is an all too brief battle history of America's Third Marine Regiment - 3rd Marines:

The 3d Marine Regiment first came into existence during the period of international unrest in the early twentieth century. The regiment was formed 20 December 1916, by consolidating Marine detachments from the various ships in the Atlantic Fleet then at anchor in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The early days of the regiment were highlighted by campaigns in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

During World War I, the regiment was heavily involved in the occupation and pacification of the Dominican Republic. As the Dominican crises subsided, the regiment’s role in the Republic also lessened.

Between wars, 3d Marines became a reserve unit stationed in San Francisco, eventually being disbanded in 1937.

The 3d Marine Regiment was reactivated on 16 June 1942, in North Carolina, as part of the World War II military expansion. The regiment fought and bled at Bougainville and Guam. Four medals of Honor were awarded to members of 3d Marines for actions during this period.



Following World War II, the regiment was ordered to China to aid in the disarming of Japanese units and to assist the Nationalist government in the occupation of Northern China in an effort to deny land to the communists.

The regiment did not participate in the United Nations defense of South Korea, but continued to actively train in Hawaii and Japan to remain combat ready.

3d Marines was quick to respond to the call for forces in Vietnam, providing security for the Da Nang Air Base in early 1965. The regiment’s experience level and ability to adapt led to many innovations including the Combined Action Company and the Civic Action Program. Ultimately, 3d Marines was to participate in 48 major operations in the Republic of Vietnam.

Following the retrograde of forces from Vietnam, the regiment was initially relocated to Camp Pendleton and assigned to the 5th Marine Amphibious Brigade. During April of 1971, the regiment became part of the 1st Marine Division. Two months later, the regiment was moved to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, to assume the role of the ground combat component of the 1st Marine Brigade.

The 3d Marine Regiment was one of the first combat forces to deploy to Saudi Arabia in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The regiment, which became known as task Force Taro in honor of the state and people of Hawaii, became the first American unit to be engaged by Iraqi artillery, rocket and missile fire on 18 January 1991. Task Force Taro countered the Iraqi supporting attacks by conducting artillery raids into Kuwait as the first ground offensive actions of the war. Task force Taro was instrumental in the recapture of Khafji, was the first unit to advance into Kuwait, conducted the only helicopter borne assault of the war and secured the Marine Corp’s final objective of the war, Kuwait International Airport.

Following the cease-fire on 28 February 1991, the regiment redeployed to Saudi Arabia and subsequently completed its strategic redeployment to Hawaii two months later.

Effective 1 October 1994, the 1st Marine Brigade was deactivated and 3d Marine Division became the regiment’s higher headquarters.

http://www.mcbh.usmc.mil/3mar/History.htm

Senator John McCain slammed Wrights insults of this elite regiment.

Pastor Wright sure seems certifiable - well, maybe not to Bill Moyers

Click my post title for Geraghty's article in National Review.