| NAME: Fred Orval Bates |
NICKNAME: | SERVICE NUMBER: 272588 |
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| HOME OF RECORD: Dresden, ME |
NEXT OF KIN: Mother, Mrs. Hattie Bates |
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| DATE OF BIRTH: 5/6/1920 |
SERVICE DATES: 6/15/1939 – 10/16/1945 |
DATE OF DEATH: 8/19/1995 |
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| CAMPAIGN | UNIT | MOS | RATE | RESULT | |||
| Saipan | E/2/20 | 653 | Corporal | ||||
| Tinian | E/2/20 | 653 | Corporal | ||||
| Iwo Jima | HQ/1/24 | 870 | Corporal | ||||
| INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS: Good Conduct Medal |
LAST KNOWN RANK: Corporal |
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Fred Bates was born in Illinois in 1920. He grew up in New England with his mother and younger sister; his last known address before enlisting was in Dresden, Maine.
Bates joined the Marines from Philadelphia in June, 1939. He thrived in boot camp and was appointed as an assistant DI immediately after graduation, then won appointment to Sea School. To be accepted for a ship’s detachment, a Marine had to be spit-and-polish in appearance, professional in demeanor, and imposing in physical stature. Bates met all of these requirements, and on September 8 1939 was assigned to the cruiser USS Helena. Over the next year, he accompanied the cruiser to ports of call up and down the eastern seaboard, qualified as a rifle marksman, and was promoted to Private First Class.
In September 1940, a sizable portion of the Helena’s Marines – Bates among them – transferred to another cruiser, the USS Louisville. Following a cruise in the seas off South America, Bates received orders to report back to Parris Island, where he joined the Second Defense Battalion as an antiaircraft gunner. This was familiar duty; Bates had manned light artillery pieces while at sea. Further transfers landed him at a base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – he was there when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Discipline was a perpetual issue in Bates’ First Provisional Marine Company; every few days a Marine was written up for drunkenness, unauthorized liberty, or other offenses. One luckless private was sentenced to a year in Portsmouth Naval Prison. Bates himself ran afoul of an officer and was busted down to private, but quickly regained his rating. Most of the problems were due to boredom – the Guantanamo Bay Marines wanted to get into the fighting against the Japanese. Bates and his comrades were reorganized into the 13th Defense Battalion, one of a number of garrison units deployed in static defense positions at sensitive areas. A Marine historian (himself a veteran of a defense battalion) described the men as a “hard-worked and frustrated species” who “endured isolation, sickness, monotonous food, and primitive living conditions for long periods, as they engaged in the onerous task of protecting bases in areas that by no stretch of the imagination resembled tropical paradises.” (1)
At long last, the 13th Defense Battalion was transferred to Hawaii. They would be performing the same duties as in Cuba, but they were closer to the action and an enterprising Marine stood a good chance of wangling a change of station. Bates, by now a corporal, managed just such a switch and got himself assigned to the Fourth Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. His new post was with Company E, Second Battalion, 20th Marines – the pioneer battalion of the division’s regiment of combat engineers – and his job was that of construction chief, which carried with it a promotion to sergeant.
When the 4th Division shipped out to invade the Marshall Islands in January 1944, Bates did not accompany them. His skills were put to use in constructing the division’s new home, Camp Maui, and having it ready for the combat Marines when they returned in February. Building a camp for several thousand Marines in a remote Hawaiian field was a thankless, tiring task; recreational opportunities usually involved alcohol, and Bates was busted during a drunken spree in March, 1944. He was reduced in rank to corporal; though no further action was taken, he would never regain his third stripe.
Bates finally saw combat when his division landed on Saipan on June 15, 1944 – five years to the day after he enlisted in Philadelphia. Corporal Bates led a squad of engineers through the battles of Saipan and Tinian, emerging unhurt each time. When his regiment was disbanded in September, Bates found himself transferred to Battalion Headquarters, 1/24th Marines as a chemical specialist. He served in that post through the battle of Iwo Jima, again beating the odds and surviving without a scratch.
The 24th Marines would be Bates’ home for the remainder of his World War II career. He left First Battalion in August, 1945 and made his way back to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he was honorably discharged on October 16. His few indiscretions were overlooked in favor of his combat record, and Bates was recommended for the Good Conduct Medal.
After the war, Fred Bates settled in Everett, Massachusetts and found work as a laborer. He married Ella Elizabeth LaVigne in August, 1947, and returned briefly to active duty in 1951, serving with the 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, but never left the country for combat again.
Bates died in 1995, and is buried in Memory Gardens Cemetery, Concord, California.
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NOTES:
(1) Col. Robert D.Heinl, Jr., quoted in Condition Red: Marine Defense Battalions in World War II. pg 28.