Sources vary on the exact date the replacements arrived. Battalion muster rolls indicate about half reported for duty on 24 February, while the other half joined on 28 February. This first date is unlikely, as 1/24 was engaged in heavy combat on February 24 and 25, and the replacements suffered no losses on this date. The battalion’s AAR states that the replacements arrived en masse on 27 February, which seems more plausible for a unit in reserve.[2] It is also not clear when the front-line platoons and squads actually absorbed the new men. Baker Company appears to have had a policy of using at least some of its replacements as stretcher-bearers before putting them on the firing line. This would help the new men acclimate to battlefield conditions. Replacements could also be sent wherever needed, which may explain why some combat veterans felt like new faces appeared daily. Corporal Alva Perry, for example, recalled that “we were getting replacements every day as we were losing men every day.”[3]

No matter when they arrived, each new man was taken up on the battalion’s muster rolls by D+9. Administrators tried to tailor each man’s assignment to his MOS, but with so many “basic” Marines and anti-tank crewmen (1/24 had no anti-tank weapons save the bazooka) this was not always possible. Private Wayne D. Thomas (521) was sent to Company A for a crash course in the mortarman’s craft.[4] Private Joseph Ziemba was directed to the assault platoon and handed a flamethrower. Private Robert Owensby would live the credo “every Marine a rifleman,” while his buddy James Parker became a machine gun ammo carrier. Both went to Charlie Company with Sergeant Philip R. Baldwin.[5]

Private James A. Moore “was sent forward to a dugout where there was a man with a typewriter and a file system. He asked for my name, rank, and serial number. Then, he handed me a “V” mail blank and told me to write home. ‘Remember, this might be your last letter ever to go out,’ he said.”[6] Moore was assigned to duty as a stretcher-bearer in Baker Company. Private Lawrence A. “Slats” Trower also wound up in Baker; the welcome he received from his new squad leader, Corporal Andrew Chorzempa, was brief but memorable: “If you know how to pray, start praying now.”[7] Trower became an assistant BARman. Privates Melvin Adalman, Rondall Baird, Andrew Donaldson, Lloyd Abbott, and dozens more were similarly assigned.