James Adolphus Moore

Inducted into Naval service 22 June 1944; volunteered for Marine Corps. Boot camp at MCRD San Diego with 6th Recruit Battalion. Outposted to 7th Training Battalion, Second Infantry Training Regiment for instruction as anti-tank gunner.

Assigned to 24th Replacement Draft for deployment overseas. Attached to Fourth Marine Division in winter of 1944, in preparation for Iwo Jima operation. Traveled to Iwo Jima aboard USS Newberry; performed stevedore and salvage work until assigned to Baker Company, First Battalion, 24th Marines as a battle replacement on 27 February 1945.

Outfit: B/1/24th Marines
Rank: Private
MOS: 610 (Anti-tank gunner)
Important Events:
February 27, 1945 – joined from 24th Replacement Draft
March 8, 1945 – wounded in action (shrapnel, lower back); evacuated to USS Solace

And at the end of the 8th of March, we dug in, and that night, there were two fellas from the 3rd Division with me in the foxhole, and we were well out in front, and the sergeant told me to dig in, and I told him that we were too exposed, and he said, “Forget it. Stay covered.” So during the night, a Japanese soldier tried to infiltrate past the foxhole, and I pulled a handle on a hand grenade and we got him. And I didn’t realize there were two other Japanese that were with him, and they ran back up some rocks and they touched off a hand grenade.

I had run out of grenades, so I was supposed to keep from shooting at night because that would reveal our position, but with these star shells going off, they could see our position real well. So they threw the hand grenade, and it came right in the hole, and it killed the two men next to me. I was blown through the rock enclosure that we’d built around our foxhole, and suddenly I became conscious lying out in the open ground, and I was blind and I was partially paralyzed, from the waist down.

And the corpsman came, and he said the two men with me were dead, and he didn’t know what he could do for me, but he dragged me back of the line. So he took me back of the line and put me under a poncho and gave me a shot of morphine and said I was probably going to bleed to death.

So I told him to get the captain [William A. Eddy, Jr.]. The captain had promised me that if I had ever gotten in that position, he would come and rescue me, or at least help me in any way he could. The first day carrying stretchers I had rescued a Marine out in front of the line and got him back alive with the help of a corpsman, and the captain wanted to give a medal for bravery, and I said, no, I wanted to be helped if I ever got in that position. So this was the time to cash in.

I was brought back, and the captain got me and said he couldn’t carry me, but he could support me on my legs and guide me back. So I got back to a pickup spot, and he got on a field phone and called the beach and said to send a Jeep; he had several wounded. And they called back that it was dangerous and they weren’t sending any Jeeps up to the front line. So he hollered in the phone that if they didn’t send a Jeep he was going to call his men off the line.

Admitted to US Naval Base Hospital #18 (Guam) on 12 March 1945. By air to Naval Hospital #10 (Aiea Heights) on 31 March. Discharged to Transient Center, Fleet Marine Force for duty, 27 April 1945.

Service with Sixth and Fifth Military Police Battalions (Provisional) on Saipan through April, 1946. Returned to United States and honorably discharged 28 May 1946.