Robert Lee Owensby

Boot camp at MCRD San Diego with 8th Recruit Battalion, May-July 1944. Outposted to Infantry Training Regiment, Camp Pendleton, on 12 July 1944 for training as an anti-tank gunner. Attached to 24th Replacement Draft in fall of 1944; deployed to Camp Maui, and then to Iwo Jima.

Joined Charlie Company, First Battalion, 24th Marines as a battle replacement, 27 February 1945.

Outfit: C/1/24th Marines
Rank: Private
MOS: 610 (Antitank gunner; assigned duty as assistant bazookaman)
Important Events:
February 27, 1945 – joined from 24th Replacement Draft
March 5, 1945 – slightly wounded in action (shrapnel in right wrist & hip); treated in field, not evacuated
March 8, 1945 – wounded in action (grenade shrapnel); evacuated to USS Samaritan.

While we were in the front lines, on the eastern side of the perimeter and headed east towards the coast, I got hit with a hand grenade that was thrown into our position by a Japanese soldier which we’d bypassed and was up on a rocky cliff right above us. It rolled down the side of the slope and onto my pack and exploded. I was fortunate that I was chow hound and in my pack I had 10-in-1 rations, a couple of cans of food and also I had a packet of letters from my girlfriend which I’d received aboard ship and not thrown away. These pretty much took the forces of the fragments from the grenade, although I did get fragments in my neck and in my back and in my upper and lower left arm and my left hand was all swollen up. When I got back to the hospital and they turned it over, I had grenade fragments and very small pieces. And I’m pretty sure most of them are still there.

Campaign Narrative

Admitted to US Fleet Hospital #111, Guam, on 11 March 1945. Transferred to US Naval Hospital #128 (Pearl Harbor); arrived 18 April 1945. Released to Casual Battalion, Transient Center, Fleet Marine Force on 17 April 1945. Classed as fit for limited duty.

Assigned to Company B, 6th Military Police Battalion and deployed to Saipan for occupation duty through spring of 1946. Honorably discharged on 28 May 1946.