David Vaughn Colbert

David entered the Marine Corps on 20 March 1941, at the age of nineteen – choosing, somewhat oddly, to use the suffix “II” on his military paperwork. After completing boot camp at San Diego, Private Colbert was assigned duty with the base Naval Air Station. The country was still at peace, and it was a simple enough to get to San Mateo on a weekend liberty. However, late in the summer of 1941, Colbert was reassigned to the Marine detachment aboard the carrier USS Lexington. This meant big changes for Private Colbert – not the least of which involved his love life. He secured a flight up to San Mateo, popped the question to Marcia, and the two were married at a midnight ceremony on 19 August 1941. After a brief reception, Private and Mrs. Colbert got back aboard a plane and flew back to San Diego – arriving just before his liberty expired.^[1]

Colbert earned a promotion to Private First Class aboard the “Lady Lex,” and was aboard en route to Midway when Pearl Harbor was attacked. As the flagship of Task Force 11, Lexington participated in some of the earliest raids against Japanese forces in the South Pacific. And, being the flagship, she had Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, Commander Scouting Force (COMSCOFOR) aboard. PFC Colbert was one of about a dozen Marines picked to serve as flag orderlies for the Admiral in the first few months of the war.

Failing health and advanced age led to Brown being recalled to Pearl Harbor. When the admiral departed the Lexington at the end of March 1942, it appears he took his staff and orderlies along. PFC Colbert, along with other Marine orderlies, went on board the USS Honolulu for transit back to Pearl. There, Colbert joined the much smaller Marine detachment of the transport President Jackson and sailed back to California. He was allowed a furlough in May 1942 – and may have been home in San Mateo when word of the Battle of the Coral Sea hit newspapers. The USS Lexington was lost in action – taking scores of Colbert’s former shipmates to a watery grave.^[2]

Although he served briefly aboard the USS Harris, Colbert’s days as a seagoing Marine were rapidly coming to a close. He received a promotion to corporal and for a brief period in the fall of 1942 served as a drill instructor at MCRD San Diego – the same depot where he himself had once been a “boot.” By January 1943, however, Corporal Colbert was back overseas, serving with a seacoast artillery battery in the 6th Defense Battalion.

The 6th earned their reputation during the 1942 battle of Midway, but by the time Colbert arrived aboard the islands were a backwater to the war. He would spend more than a year with the battery running daily drills, standing inspections, and idly watching activity on the airfield. It was said that too much time on garrison duty was bad for the brain: a Marine might talk to the “gooney birds” who nested on the island, but if the birds talked back, it was time for a transfer. Colbert got his marching orders in April 1944, and once again returned to California – this time at Camp Pendleton, undergoing specialized training in 155mm artillery pieces.

Exactly how Corporal Colbert, a former ship’s detachment Marine with long experience in artillery, wound up assigned to an infantry replacement draft is not known – yet in the fall of 1944 he was making his third trip overseas, this time with the 17th Replacement Draft. The Corps deposited him on the island of Maui and directed him to report to Captain William A. Eddy, Jr. of Baker Company, First Battalion, 24th Marines. Colbert complied, and on 22 November 1944 was taken up on the rolls of B/1/24 with the military occupational specialty of rifle NCO – a role for which he had little training and no practical experience.