Maurice Dean Savidge

Boot camp at US Naval Training Center Great Lakes, IL, with Company 1876. Selected for corpsman training and transferred to Hospital Corps School, San Diego, 13 March 1943. Completed coursework and assigned duty at Naval Hospital Mare Island. Transferred to Navy Pre-Flight School, Del Monte, California, as Hospital Apprentice First Class on 10 July 1943.

On 1 December 1943, transferred to Camp Elliott for Field Medical School. Assigned to 44th Replacement Battalion for transit overseas; to Replacement Battalion, Transient Center, V Amphibious Corps on 13 March 1944.

Joined Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 24th Marines at Camp Maui on 28 April 1944.

Outfit: HQ/1/24th Marines (attached Charlie Company)
Rank: Hospital Apprentice, First Class
MOS: Corpsman

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Outfit: HQ/1/24th Marines (attached Charlie Company)
Rank: Hospital Apprentice, First Class
MOS: Corpsman

Received commendation for service in the Mariana Islands campaign:

For excellent service in the line of his duties while serving as a company aid man with a battalion medical section during the invasion and capture of Saipan and Tinian, Marianas Islands, 15 June to 1 August 1944. His initiative in the face of many serious difficulties and his constant attention to duty were instrumental in bringing immediate medical attention to his comrades in arms who had been wounded in battle.

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Outfit: HQ/1/24th Marines (attached Charlie Company)
Rank: Hospital Apprentice, First Class
MOS: Corpsman
Important Events:
March 2, 1945 – killed in action (gunshot, head) while providing treatment to a wounded officer. Received posthumous Silver Star Medal for actions on this date:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity as corpsman attached to a Marine Rifle Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, on March 2, 1945. When his commanding officer was wounded by a concealed enemy weapon, Savidge alternately crawled and ran across the same dangerously exposed ground traversed by the officer and was administering aid when mortally wounded by a burst of enemy machine-gun fire. His unfaltering spirit of self-sacrifice, cool courage, and inspiring devotion to duty in serving another reflect the highest credit upon Savidge and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Buried in Plot 1, Row 27, Grave 1311, Fourth Marine Division Cemetery.

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