Category: World War II

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

In reading some of the past articles concerning Marines making various modifications to equipment to suit their needs, I recalled a couple of small things my Dad told me when I was a teen-ager. Dad was a Pfc. with the 3rd Special Weapons Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. read more

Treasure The Legacy

Navajo Code Talkers Day

The Navajo Code Talkers whose ranks exceeded 400 during the course of World War II in the Pacific Theater took part in every assault the United States Marines conducted from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language — a code that the Japanese never broke. The Navajo Code Talkers served in the United States Marine Corps for America and for the world with integrity. read more

Ingenious Jarheads

Sitting here watching a Military Channel program on the Browning 'Stinger' 30-cal as used by the Marines in WW2 – very interesting story behind it; Marines took Browning A-2's out of damaged SBD's and used an M-1 rear stock, BAR rear sight, bipod, and carrying handle, plus a modified trigger and lighter barrel, to make a light machine gun. Showed re-enactment of Marine PFC Tony Stein using one to take out numerous bunkers and pillboxes on Iwo – kept running to and from the beach to replenish the 100-rd ammo belts… took off his shoes and socks to run better in the sand. Pretty neat little MG, supposed to have a 1300rpm rate of fire! read more

Ended Up On Ulithi Islands

"What did you do during the War?" This was a title for a movie, books and stories that always come with an answer.

Let me tell you a story of something that happened to me during WWII. Because I was only seventeen and looked much younger I was often transferred. For some reason I ended up on Ulithi Islands awaiting transfer to somewhere else. There was an ship with smoke coming from it and people took off afraid the ammo aboard might explode. Now on the Ulithi Island of Mog Mog, you couldn't go very far. Due to my innocence or gullibility or what, my friend and I went to the ship, there were two men working on it and they were leaving. One was working in the hold loading ammo boxes on an elevator and sending them up. The other guy took the boxes from the elevator and then he removed the boxes so they could be placed on barge next to the ship. The smoke was coming from the opposite side of the ship where the ammo was so I went aboard with my friend and went down in the hold and started loading ammo into the elevator and sending it up to my friend on the deck. read more

That Was Then, This Is Now

I read in your column recently someone said he was a Real, Real Old Marine of 85. I've always thought age was a figment of the mind and if you let it get to you you'll worry about getting old and infirm. I never had time for that, I only had time to do my job and think about what I had to do next. read more

Painted Stripes On Dungarees

I don't know when we started painting stripes on our Dungaree sleeves, but it was after World War II. Some were so bad and some so small that one of the guys that made stuff for the Marine Corps made Stripe markers. The original was like a box, you put that part of the sleeve where your stripe was supposed to be, then pushed the inside of the box back in, inside the sleeve, and if everything came out fine you had great looking stripes on your dungarees. read more

Roi Namur, WWII

Many times things didn't go as planned during Invasions of the Islands in the South Pacific for the Marines. One such incident was at Roi Namur in the Kwajalein Island group. Roi Namur was the target of the 4th Marine Division in the Battle for Kwajalein. There isn't many references to this so you'll just have to rely on the memory of an Old Marine who got the story from one of the Marines who landed on Roi Namur, later information of this was given reference to in articles and stories of the Invasion. read more