Robert Frederick Fleischauer
"Bobby"
Marine Corps Reserve | Service Number 459745
August 19, 1924
in New Britain, CT
Frederick William Fleischauer (d. 1938)
Hazel Christine (Selander) Fleischauer
New Britain High School (1942)
Hartford Art School (post-war)
Recent graduate
September 16, 1942
at Springfield, MA
November 15, 1942
from 10th Separate Recruit Battalion
December 7, 1944
transferred to HQ FMFPAC
May 31, 1967
Retired
193 Main Street, New Britain, CT – home of mother, Mrs. Hazel Fleischauer
Service & Campaigns
Enlisted 6 September 1942 at Springfield, MA; boot camp at Parris Island with the 10th Separate Recruit Battalion. Outposted directly to Company A, First Separate Battalion (reinforced) at New River, North Carolina on 15 November 1942.
Outfit: A/1/24th Marines
Rank: Private First Class
MOS: 675 (Messenger)
Outfit: A/1/24th Marines
Rank: Private First Class
MOS: 675 (Messenger)
Important Events:
July 6, 1944 – wounded in action (shrapnel, left knee); evacuated to field hospital on Saipan
July 12, 1944 – returned to duty
July 18, 1944 – promoted to Corporal
Outfit: A/1/24th Marines
Rank: Corporal
MOS: 675 (Messenger)
Important Events:
July 24, 1944 – wounded in action (gunshot, left forearm); evacuated to USS Fuller. Admitted to US Naval Base Hospital #3, Espiritu Santo, for treatment.
Returned to duty with A/1/24 at Camp Maui on 29 September 1944. Transferred 7 December 1944 to HQ Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, for further transfer to United States. On 28 January 1945, joined Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, New York City for service with the yard fire department. Honorably discharged from New York on 1 November 1945.
Reenlisted USMC 21 July 1949 for service as an art instructor at the Marine Corps Institute in Washington, DC. Joined staff of Leatherneck Magazine as a cartoonist and illustrator. Switched to Marine Corps Gazette to work as an art director. Retired from active service in May, 1967, with rank of master sergeant. Continued to work for the Gazette through 1995.
Individual Decorations
Medal
Purple Heart
– with Gold Star
Campaign
Saipan
Tinian
Citation
For wounds received in action on July 6, 1944
For wounds received in action on July 24, 1944
Service Stories
During the battle for Saipan, Fleischauer lobbed a grenade into a Japanese bunker, only to hear a cascade of breaking glass. To his company’s dismay, he had blown up a large storeroom full of sake. “Fleischauer, if you stay in the Corps twenty years, you’ll never see corporal,” sighed company commander Captain Irving Schechter. Schechter himself promoted Fleischauer to corporal immediately after the battle.
On liberty in Hawaii, Fleischauer sat for a Marine Corps tattoo, but the artist misspelled the motto as “SEMPER FIDLES.” He was wounded by Japanese fire on Tinian, and the projectile happened to hit right on the erroneous ink – effectively removing the mistake.
(Anecdotes originally related in “Because Marines Never Forget” by R. R. Keene, Leatherneck Magazine November 2011)
See Bob Fleischauer’s elaborately painted seabag in “Seagoing Art” by Kater Miller, Marine Corps University Press.
