BATTLE NARRATIVE
Quarry. Iwo Jima: 21 February 1945
The night brought no respite from the mortars, the rockets, and the nighttime infiltrators.
Nearly one hundred Japanese soldiers, alone or in small groups, crept up to American foxholes to throw a grenade, slash with a saber, thrust with a bayonet. The Marines of BLT 1-24 knew that daylight meant another advance, but by 0443, they were so sick of fighting infiltrators that they welcomed the dawn, no matter what it brought.
King Hour was 0810, with the ambitious objective of taking the O-2 line. The assault companies of 1/24 – Able and Baker – were assured of supporting artillery and naval fire from 0750 to 0830, and concentrated air support until 0850.[1] Baker Company received this news with derision, recalling the American planes, ships, and guns that mistakenly blasted them on the previous day. A last-minute delaying order postponed the infantry advance until 0930 – but nobody told the artillery, and the bombardment went ahead on schedule. The gunners of 1/14th Marines fired nearly 1,500 rounds into the hills and crevices, saturating the area with high explosives and shrapnel and waking up the Japanese. By the time the infantry assault began, any element of shock or surprise was long gone.[2] The artillerymen could only guess at the effectiveness of their fire; the infantry would soon find out firsthand.
The Pivot Point: Able Company
Major William K. Stewart’s men anchored the right flank of the invasion force. To their left, other Marines were attempting to swing the entire line across the island to the north, making Able Company the pivot point. Instead of a general advance, they were to continue the mission of the previous day, moving slowly along the beach. Gaining ground and killing Japanese were of secondary importance to keeping contact with the units on their left.
The Able Company Marine who set his jaw, squared his shoulders, and climbed out of his foxhole at 0930 was very different than the one who landed on the beaches some 36 hours ago. He was familiar with the sights and sounds of sudden death and catastrophic injury; he was a rare man indeed if he hadn’t lost at least one friend. He faced more of the same blockhouses, pillboxes, firing ports, and reinforced foxholes he’d faced the day before. Each new defensive position presented a new and unique challenge to his squad, platoon, and company as they worked out how to eliminate each one on the fly.
Fortunately, reinforcements were on hand to help deal with the situation. A platoon from the 4th Engineer Battalion was on hand; the combat engineers would move up along the beaches with the riflemen. Even better, M4 Shermans from Company B, 4th Tank Battalion were rumbling up in support, and their 75mm main guns tracked targets along the cliffs.
Scarcely 100 yards into the advance, sharp-eyed Marines spotted the distinctive horns of a Japanese anti-boat mine. These powerful explosives could tear the guts out of a Sherman tank or flip an amphibious tractor onto its back. Even a near miss could cause a tank to throw a tread, rendering it immobile and an easy target for mortars, antitank guns, or suicide squads of infantry carrying explosives.[3] Brave groups of Able Company men accompanied the engineers into the minefield while the tankers kept up covering fire. Engineers gingerly removed 35 mines from the area and marked safe passages with white tape.[4] Meanwhile, demolition teams kept up their grim work of eliminating caves and pillboxes.
Able Company “moved along the beach as far as the terrain would permit,” under increasingly heavy fire. When the order came down to consolidate positions for the night, they found they had advanced too far to tie in with the unit on their left. With great regret and no small amount of foul language, Able retraced their steps and dug in for the night in TA 166E. They were less than 100 yards from where they’d started that morning.[5] The drastically reduced casualty rate was a point of consolation. With their newfound experience with the peculiar Boat Basin terrain – and with engineers and tanks to share the risk – Able Company got through the day all but unscathed.[6] PFC Alfred Dennis had a close call with a shell fragment that caught him on the jaw; he would return to duty in a few days, sporting a new scar and a good war story. PFC Joe Locke was bandaged up by a corpsman and told he could stay on the line.
The Ridge: Baker Company
If a combat correspondent were to wander into the four blockhouses atop the ridge overlooking the Quarry on D+2, he would have met a company of Marines with strong opinions regarding the battle’s progress. And should he ask an ignorant question about where they’d rather be (as some correspondents were wont to do), he would have gained a notebook full of quotations, very few of which would have passed the censor.
Athletic PFC Roland Jackson felt he was too old for this kind of game. In his younger days, “Boney” Jackson had captained the University of Delaware’s “Blue Hens” baseball team; after graduation, he became the athletic director of Newark High School and coached the “Yellowjackets” to a winning football season. Then the draft board came calling. Jackson left his wife Josephine and baby Lamont at home on West Cleveland Avenue and entered the service just before his thirty-first birthday. Eleven months later, to the day, he was fighting alongside kids who looked just like the ones he’d taught back home.
PFC Gilbert Miller could dream up the faces of his brothers and sisters in less time than it took to recite “William, Elmer, Harry, Clarence, Nellie, Cora, John, Ralph, Robert, James, Carl, Opal, Hazel.” Doing so could distract him from worrying about his four best buddies. At least Corporal Robert “Ernie” Watkins was back in the States at engineer school – dangerous training, but safe enough. PFC Ed Curylo was scouting for the battalion intelligence officer and rarely had time to visit. And Corporal Donald Rau was somewhere in the rear, carried off dazed and bloody during the previous day’s attack. First Squad, Third Platoon was dwindling fast, and Miller likely hoped for the mythical “million-dollar wound” that would send him home to Jasper, Indiana. His twenty-first birthday was coming up in March; he doubted he’d be back by then, but maybe he’d celebrate his twenty-second surrounded by his siblings.
Reminders of home were much closer for a pair of Baker Company machine gunners. PFC Alex Klinkoski could simply turn around and see a familiar face looking back – his twin brother, PFC Frank Klinkoski. The nineteen-year-old Ohioans enlisted on the same day (their service numbers were sequential: 969224 and 969225) and, in defiance of the odds and military logic, wound up in the same boot camp platoon. Then the same replacement draft. And then the same regiment, company, and platoon. They even pinned on their PFC stripes on the same October day. Alex and Frank were, quite literally, inseparable.
Second Lieutenant Homer English was nervous. He was new to command, having inherited Baker Company’s Second Platoon from the popular First Lieutenant David Lownds in early December. English could lean on a pair of combat veterans for guidance. His second-in-command, Gunnery Sergeant Albert Estergall was a decorated veteran of three earlier campaigns, and his messenger PFC Ardith W. Gilbreath was a former BARman who had fought on Saipan. Still, the lieutenant felt the weight of his responsibility – it slammed home the previous day when a bullet nicked Gilbreath’s throat. Now, the lieutenant fiddled with his wedding band and waited for the appointed time, wondering what Elizabeth was doing back home in Shidler, Oklahoma.
And so it went down the line. Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Mackey wished for his old post as orderly to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR). Corporal David Colbert remembered serving aboard the USS Lexington in the early days of the war; he’d escaped fighting at the Coral Sea, and wondered how he’d fare under fire. Corporal James Naurot was leading a machine gun squad for the first time and just wanted to do his job well. Private Matthew Redling thought back over his recent history: sweating out Belle of Barcelona rehearsals with the Saint Michael’s High School Glee Club two years ago; sweating out his first week of boot camp one year ago; now sweating out his second morning in combat.
Of all the places in the world they could be, the Marines of Baker Company would rank sitting in the blackened, reeking blockhouses as second to last. The only place less appealing was outside those same blockhouses, making another advance into the Japanese lines – which was precisely what their orders demanded on D+2.
A group of Marines (probably 5th Division) waits for orders. Note men peering out from inside the bunker. USMC photo.
PFCs Alfred Eskildsen and Charles Brown hopped down from the blockhouse roof at first light and were digging a foxhole when word came down that a new push was imminent. “Esky” and “Chuck” shifted immediately from defense to offense. “We wanted to make sure that we were fully loaded with ammunition, water, whatever we needed, C rations or K rations, because we didn’t know how long this was going to last,” said Eskildsen. “You wanted to be prepared.” It was then that “stuff started to fall in on us.” A shell landed close to their half-finished hole, blowing Chuck Brown off the hill. He suffered a broken heel, while Esky took shrapnel in his back. Both men were evacuated; they would never see the other side of the Quarry.[7]
The rest of Captain William A. Eddy‘s boys stepped off on schedule at 0935. To their left was a company from 2/25, to their right was a platoon from their own Charlie Company. To their front were the Japanese, who greeted them with rifle, light machine gun, and mortar fire. Baker Company had a bone in its teeth that morning, and by 1000 had advanced the nigh-unthinkable distance of 200 yards. From their new vantage point, they could see Japanese soldiers wellemplaced in caves along a ridge to their right front. More immediate danger came from the enemy soldiers they could not see, some of whom launched 50mm grenades from short-range “knee mortars” while others targeted the company with heavy mortars. The attack, which slowed under the rain of bombs at 1100, picked up steam again in the early afternoon, but for all their efforts, “the enemy resistance did not decrease.”[8]
By midafternoon, it was clear that Baker Company could take no more. A welcome warning order came down to prepare for relief; Charlie Company’s reserve platoons completed this tricky maneuver by 1600, and the assault troops passed gratefully into battalion reserve. The hated blockhouses – now sufficiently “rear area” enough to count as a reserve position and supply staging area – were a much more welcome sight and Baker Company, in Marine parlance, “crapped out” in numb exhaustion.
Tired 4th Marine Division personnel, thought to be B/1/24th Marines, rest beside a Japanese gun emplacement near the Quarry. USMC photos.
Twenty-five men from Baker Company did not return to the blockhouses that night. Lieutenant English was carried away, his legs full of shrapnel, his combat career over. The blast of a bursting shell knocked Gunny Mackey unconscious; he was taken to the rear with a severe concussion. The Klinkoski twins were both wounded, but here their paths diverged: Alex was bandaged and returned to action while Frank, riddled with shrapnel in arms and legs, wound up aboard the hospital ship USS Solace. Colbert, Naurot, and Redling were also aboard hospital ships, all with multiple shell fragments embedded in their bodies. Assistant Cook Dave Gonzales was gone; a grenade fragment sliced his left eyelid, sparing him blindness by a hair’s breadth. PFC Joseph A. Martel stepped on a mine that shredded his lower body; he died two days later, and the news took two months to reach his friends. And Roland Jackson and Gilbert Miller lay dead under bloody ponchos. There was no cemetery yet – there was no time, or space, or detail available to make one – so the dead were simply laid out in neat rows, or stacked like cordwood, in ever-increasing numbers.[9]
Sailors and Marines await burial on Iwo Jima. USMC photograph by Sgt. Louis Lowery.
The Relief: Charlie Company
It was time for Major William Esterline’s outfit to take a turn on the front line. One platoon, alerted earlier than the rest, was fed into the line between Baker Company’s right and Able Company’s left; they spent most of the morning “working over a cliff area” and maintaining contact between the two assault companies. The order to relieve Baker Company arrived at 1500, and within the hour, Charlie Company occupied a few hundred yards of hard-won front-line Iwo Jima real estate.
This was beachfront property that nobody wanted. “At the water’s edge were giant rocks which, after a short space of level terrain, rose in a cliff-line to the tableland on top,” wrote Captain Fred Stott. “This lower shore area was sufficiently rugged with a plentiful supply of caves, small canyons, and fixed fortifications.” Able Company’s sector by the water’s edge was difficult enough, but Charlie Company was moving into an area even more wild and intimidating. “Atop the cliff, the terrain almost defied passage,” continued Stott. “Trees and vines twisted in confused fashion over an area in which erosion and excavation had created cuts, dips, rises and pinnacles which made direct line progress impossible. Rock piles and dirt mounts jutted everywhere, and no man could be certain that the ground ten feet to his front was devoid of Japs.” [10]
Charlie Company quickly learned to assume the worst and take every precaution. Although they pushed no farther ahead that day – the cutoff time for consolidating positions was 1700 hours – they still encountered point-blank gunfire, grenades, and the ever-present mortars. PFC Joseph “Smokie” Borges, a twenty-year-old rancher from rural California, caught a mortar round in his chest that killed him instantly; he was the company’s first combat fatality of the battle. Corporal Raymond McAdoo was carried unconscious from the field; a fractured skull was his death sentence. He died aboard the USS Logan the following morning and was buried at sea.
If a wounded Marine reached a hospital ship, his chances of survival improved exponentially. His prospects improved if he made it to a base hospital, and if he made it to Hawaii, he was almost certain to live. However, almost certain is not absolutely certain. PFC Richard Russell Rusher, a Charlie Company machine gunner, was struck in the head by shrapnel on 21 February 1945. He received first aid in his foxhole before being carried back to the battalion aid station, where Doc Porter and Doc Lyon worked to stabilize the young Marine for the trip back to the beach. From the beach, Rusher was carried onto a landing craft, boated to the hospital ship USS Samaritan, and placed under 24-hour observation. Like Cpl. McAdoo, his diagnosis was a compound skull fracture.
Within days, Rusher was at the 148th General Hospital on Saipan; one week after being wounded, he was on a flight bound for Oahu. He wrote to his family that he was not seriously injured, and hoped soon to be home in York, Pennsylvania. And yet, in the end, it was not enough. Richard Rusher died of complications from his Iwo Jima wound on 19 March 1945 – one day after Charlie Company’s survivors left the island for good.
The Rear: Headquarters Company
Battalion HQ reinforced its position of the day before and kept up its hum of activity. Lieutenants Murray Fox and Steve Opalenik had their 81mm mortars firing in support of the day’s advances. They were already compiling notes on the effectiveness of the weapons: the heavy HE rounds had accuracy issues, and there weren’t enough of the lighter ones to supply the demand for fire missions. Fox, in particular, was beginning to question the effectiveness of the 81mm weapon itself. Fewer men were required to carry the smaller 60mm mortars and an ample supply of ammunition; the weapons themselves were less conspicuous to deploy. Against soft, living targets, 60mm shrapnel did plenty of damage, and Fox doubted that the seven-pound 81mm projectile had the power to dent the Japanese defenses. He made a mental note to recommend a heavier mortar when he got the chance.[11]
The ammunition situation was problematic enough even before an ordinance man, Corporal Raymond Rodgers, was sent hobbling to the aid station with a lacerated foot. The beachmasters were still struggling against wreckage on the beaches and plunging Japanese fire; one lucky round scored a hit on ammunition stockpiles on Beach Blue 1. “Our division dump was fired with all its precious stores of mortar and artillery ammunition,” groaned Stott, and the cataclysm torched additional piles of supplies along the beach. From his position, Stott marveled at the bravery of the supply men struggling on the beach. “Infantry battalions are accustomed to speak contemptuously of beach party personnel as ‘rear echelon,’” he admitted, “but that contempt vanished immediately as we saw the bursting hell through which these parties were striving to bring in our needed gear.” [12]
Getting the supplies from the beach to the battalion was a challenge, too. Caves and emplacements, all of them theoretically “secured,” lined the heavily traveled route. One could never take chances, though, and supply personnel and stretcher-bearers had several close calls. “Demolition charges blocked up many, but Japs popped out of other unknown entrances,” wrote Stott. “Late one afternoon, a Nip flung a grenade out of one hole and received a flurry of rifle fire and grenades in return. Undamaged, he popped up again shortly and got a squirt from a flamethrower which backed him down a second time. Still unhurt he appeared a third time with a bayonet, which he hurled with a ‘banzai’ cry at the closest Marine. This time the bullets and flamethrower caught him squarely and he sizzled in death.” [13]
Once again, it was a sleepless night. Japanese infiltrators were out in force; occasional flurries of exploding grenades accompanied yells of fury, grunts of exertion and wails of pain as Marines in foxhole pairs or trios fought the intruders. “The tension from the unknown of such nights was wearing and a strain,” wrote Captain Stott in a typical understatement. [14] The Fourth Marine Division, “reduced by heavy casualties and battle fatigue,” was operating at 68% efficiency. None of its units had advanced farther than 500 yards since D-Day.[15]
[1] Fourth Marine Division Operations Report, IWO JIMA, 19 February to 16 March 1945 (18 May, 1945), 40. Hereafter “Division Operations Report.”
[2] Ibid.
[3] Even with precautions, B/4th Tanks lost four machines on this date, two to 47mm antitank fire and two to thrown treads. 4th Tanks report, 5.
[4] Major Charles L. Banks, “Final Report on IWO JIMA Operation, Battalion Landing Team 1/24,” in Annex George to Fourth Marine Division Report on Iwo Jima: RCT 24 Report (20 April, 1945), 121. Hereafter “Final Report.”.
[5] Ibid. In the words of the Final Report, “The landing team right flank was on the beach in 166E, although the right flank company advanced forward of this position during the day.”
[6] The Final Report has a wildly different assessment, stating, “The company had 7 killed in action and 10 wounded and evacuated this date.” The casualty rate reported in this article is based on original copies of the 1/24 muster roll, cross-checked against the Marine Corps casualty database. It is not known where the Final Report’s figures come from.
[7] Charles Brown and Alfred Eskildsen, oral history interview conducted by Ed Sutkowski, “Interesting People with Ed Sutkowski, Episode #404 – Chuck Brown and Al Eskildsen,” 26 February 2009. In this interview, both Eskildsen and Brown are adamant that they were hit by friendly fire and reference the air and naval strike of D+1. However, all available Marine Corps records indicate that the pair were hit and evacuated on D+2. Their claim of friendly fire, though, is likely true: short rounds occurred in almost every bombardment.
[8] “Final Report,” 121-122.
[9] Roland Jackson was buried five days later, in Plot 1, Row 4, Grave 177 of the Fourth Marine Division Cemetery. Gilbert Miller had to wait a full week for burial in Plot 1, Row 8, Grave 361.
[10] Frederic A. Stott, “Ten Days on Iwo Jima,” Leatherneck Vol. 28, No. 5 (May 1945); 18.
[11] Fox did just this in the battalion’s After Action Report, requesting to reequip his section with “a 4.2 mortar or a 155mm mortar” and recommended dropping the 81mm weapon entirely.
[12] Stott, Ten Days, 18.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Division Operations Report, 9.
Battalion Daily Report
Casualties, Evacuations, Joinings & Transfers
KIA/DOW
WIA & EVAC*
SICK
JOINED
TRANSFERRED
STRENGTH
Out of an original landing strength of 893 officers and men.
* Does not include minor wounds not requiring evacuation from the line.
| Name | Company | Rank | Role | Change | Cause | Disposition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armstrong, Harvey Samuel | Baker | PFC | Ammo Carrier | Wounded In Action | Multiple shrapnel wounds in thighs; blast concussion | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Avancena, Manuel Claude | Headquarters | PFC | Lineman | Wounded In Action | Unknown (slight) | Not evacuated |
| Bales, Robert Edgar Jr. | Baker | PFC | Rifleman | Wounded In Action | Multple shrapnel wounds in left arm & left knee | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Borges, Joseph Francis | Charlie | PFC | BARman | Killed In Action | Shell fragment, chest | Removed for burial |
| Bower, Murray | Baker | PFC | Ammo Carrier | Wounded In Action | Abrasions, chest & left leg | Evacuated to USS Fremont |
| Bowers, Noble Lester | Baker | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Amputation, left leg & burns on arms | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Brown, Charles Earl | Baker | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Fracture, left heel | Evaucated to USS Solace |
| Burzynski, Melvin Joseph | Baker | Corporal | Small Arms Technician | Sick | Unknown | Evacuated to field hospital |
| Colbert, David Vaughn II | Baker | Corporal | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, left lumbar & right buttock | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Dennis, Alfred Dewey Jr. | Able | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, jaw | Evacuated to USS Hendry |
| Dull, James Henry | Charlie | Corporal | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, left leg | Evacuated to USS Hendry |
| English, Homer Charles | Baker | 2nd Lieutenant | 2 Platoon Leader | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, both legs | Evacuated to USS Cecil |
| Eskildsen, Alfred | Baker | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, buttocks | Evacuated to USS Lowndes |
| Fritze, Leonard Otto | Baker | Corporal | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Multiple shrapnel wounds in arms, legs, buttocks | Evacuated to USS Solace |
| Gaminde, Pedro Jr. | Baker | Sergeant | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Combat fatigue | Evacuated to USS Solace |
| Gonzales, Dave Louis | Baker | Assistant Cook | Cook | Wounded In Action | Grenade shrapnel, left eyelid | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Harte, Francis Vincent | Baker | Private | BARman | Wounded In Action | Gunshot, right leg | Evacuated to USS Solace |
| Jackson, Roland Pusey | Baker | PFC | Rifleman | Killed In Action | Shell fragment, head | Removed for burial |
| Jettenberg, Donald LeRoy | Charlie | Corporal | BARman | Wounded In Action | Compound fracture, right radius | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Kelley, Kenneth Stewart | Baker | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, back | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Klinkoski, Alex | Baker | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Unknown (slight) | Not evacuated |
| Klinkoski, Frank | Baker | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Multiple shrapnel wounds in arms, left leg, right thigh | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Krasco, Joseph Francis | Baker | Private | BARman | Wounded In Action | Phosphorous burns, left eye | Evacuated to USS Lowndes |
| Lamberson, Floyd William | Charlie | Corporal | BARman | Wounded In Action | Unknown (slight) | Evacuated to USS Lowndes |
| Locke, Joe Preston | Able | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, left leg | Not evacuated |
| Mackey, Thomas David Jr. | Baker | Gunnery Sergeant | Gunnery Sergeant | Wounded In Action | Blast concussion | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Martel, Joseph Arche | Baker | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action (Fatal) | Land mine shrapnel both legs, back, testicles | Evacuated to USS LST 931 |
| McAdoo, Raymond Arthur | Charlie | Corporal | BARman | Wounded In Action (Fatal) | Skull fracture | Evacuated to USS Logan |
| Miller, Gilbert Lincoln | Baker | PFC | Rifleman | Killed In Action | Shell fragment, head | Removed for burial |
| Monahan, Eugene Francis | Baker | Sergeant | MG Section Leader | Wounded In Action | Multple shrapnel wounds | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Muller, William Edward | Baker | Corporal | MG Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Blast concussion | Evacuated to USS Dickens |
| Naurot, James Bernard | Baker | Corporal | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, right arm & hand | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Nicoll, James | Baker | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, right arm & ear | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Pinciak, Joseph Paul | Baker | Corporal | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Blast concussion; intracranial injury | Evacuated to USS Lowndes |
| Pion, Leo Francis | Baker | Private | BARman | Wounded In Action | Phosphorous burns, legs | Evacuated to USS Lowndes |
| Puliafico, Aniello Anthony | Baker | Sergeant | Squad Leader | Returned To Duty | From hospital | To Baker Company |
| Redling, Matthew Stephen | Baker | Private | BARman | Wounded In Action | Multiple shrapnel wounds | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Rodgers, Raymond Moyer | Headquarters | Corporal | Ammunition NCO | Wounded In Action | Laceration, left foot | Evacuated to USS Hinsdale |
| Rusher, Richard Russell | Charlie | PFC | Machine Gunner | Wounded In Action (Fatal) | Compound fracture, skull | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Salvaggio, Marshall | Able | First Lieutenant | Platoon Leader | Returned To Duty | From hospital | To Able Company |
| Shampine, Leon John | Baker | Private | BARman | Wounded In Action | Blast concussion | Evaucated to USS Solace |
| Stuart, Earlon Cecil | Charlie | PFC | Mortarman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, left leg | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Teitler, Harry Aaron | Charlie | PFC | BARman | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, both legs & combat fatigue | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
| Townsend, Charles Arthur | Baker | Sergeant | Squad Leader | Returned To Duty | From hospital | To Baker Company |
| Verschaeve, Jerome Morris | Baker | Corporal | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Blast concussion | Evaucated to USS Sibley |
| Warren, Frank | Baker | Sergeant | Squad Leader | Wounded In Action | Shrapnel, right forearm & right thigh | Evacuated to USS Samaritan |
