THE FORGOTTEN BATTALION

        The Forgotten Battalion's story began on January 1, 1941.  An Artillery Placement Battalion was organized on the West Coast early in 1941, then shipped out from the States in July of 1942.  The newly formed unit was equipped with 75-mm pack Howitzers which they used on Tulagi, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa.  They then became one of the first Marine units to be equipped with 155-mm Howitzers, which they received just before they entered the Marianas operation.  They were again redesignated as the 2^nd 155-mm Howitzer Battalion, 5th Amphibious Corps on April 29, 1944.  The Battalion continually diminished in number of surviving original members while its ranks expanded in a progression of names to identify it.

          Among other distinctions, in addition to decorations earned, they rightly claimed to have fired the opening artillery round in the first U.S. offensive of World War II.  That round was fired at a Japanese sniper position in the treetops of Gaomi.  The day after that opening volley they fired the first artillery preparation from Tulagi against Makambo. They had gone ashore on Tulagi on Sunday morning, August 9, 1942 and set up to shell Makambo at a one thousand yard range.  They fired a ten-minute preparation under section control.  The Marine infantry later found three Japanese and one dead pig in Makambo.  After that small beginning the Artillery Placement Battalion supported every Marine division that saw action in the Pacific during World War II, as well as several Army units.  They were the only artillery troops to fight on both Saipan and Guam. 

          After organizing defensive positions in which their 75s were set up to fire on the Japanese fleet if it came in range, the battalion had ringside seats for all the air and naval battles that took place over and between Tulagi and Guadalcanal.  The action they witnessed reinforced their respect for both Marine flyers and the U.S. Navy.  The Battalion spent six harrowing months on Tulagi and Guadalcanal, a tour few outfits could match.  They fired thirteen thousand one hundred and forty-five rounds between December 22 and January 7, 1943, finally pulling out for R & R on January 31.  Nearly every man had malaria, dengue fever, or dysentery, a situation calling for heavy replacements.

          Following intensive training and troop buildup on New Zealand, they left with the Marine 2^nd Division, headed for Tarawa.  They supported the 6^th Marines in a mop-up of the Tarawa atoll, which included a march of twenty-two miles across a chain of islands and coral reefs.  They moved their artillery with them and finally set up positions on the furthest tip of the island group.

One of their number won the Silver Star after acting as Scout Sergeant for a Naval gunfire shore party.  He waded four hundred yards to shore carrying radio equipment and his own gear while men all around him were throwing away their packs in the deep water and in the face of heavy fire.  He set up the radio, laid wire to the front line position, and prepared to deliver fire wherever it was requested. 

The Forgotten Battalion had sweat out twenty-eight months in the Pacific by October 1944.  They saw a lot of salt water over the rails of a lot of ships as well as seeing Tongatabu, the Fijis, Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo, New Zealand, Efate, Tarawa, the Hawaiian Islands, Eniwetok, Saipan, and Guam.

During their extensive tour of the Pacific Islands, they once went twenty-two days without rations when supply ships were pulled out of the Solomons after the Forgotten Battalion had gone ashore with only seventy-two hours rations.  Each gun section had to organize its own mess, their diet consisting of wormy rice and taro roots.  The first day their cooks removed the worms before cooking the rice, but after that they cooked worms and all, and the men ate the rice, worms and all, calling it meat and rice.  The scant diet caused many to drop out from exhaustion when they had to carry ammo up the steep Tulagi hills to their gun positions.  That experience certainly gave support to the name they gave themselves.  They were even forgotten by their supply ships.

On a lighter note, one Captain William G. "Wild Bill" Winters, who liked to scout ahead of his outfit, came back from the front one day looking for a jeep.  He hitched a trailer to it and drove up through the lines.  He returned with the trailer loaded with Japanese beer which he proceeded to distribute among the men of his battery.  Wild Bill also  stopped an adjacent outfit from firing indiscriminately at night by setting up four .50 caliber machine guns in a strategic spot and issuing an ultimatum stating his men would return any fire coming in their direction.  He also methodically destroyed each Japanese gun in a battery that tried to destroy his position.  He got each one by making precision adjustments, a skill by which the Forgotten Battalion was well known.

Heavy artillery seldom moved so fast and so far under such conditions as the 2^nd met on Saipan and Guam.  They did such a good job that no one man could be singled out for commendation.  Each man carried in his record book a letter of commendation by Brigadier General Pedro del Valle, Commanding General of 3^rd Corps Artillery on Guam, plus a letter from his own CO. 

The outfit was beat up but proud when they disembarked from their ships in New Zealand for R&R.  They packed their gear on a little train to take them to their rest camp.  Captured Japanese flags flew from the engine and from every car.  The only thing missing was the sound of the cheers the Forgotten Battalion rated from every man, woman, and child in America.