“I get on this half-ton truck and they lower me in a net all alone on the landing barge. I’m looking around like, ‘Hey, isn’t anybody coming with me?’ I’m all alone. “As I landed I got caught between to infantry units firing, and I was in the middle, so I spent my time in a brook there up to my neck in the water. I could here the bullets coming in over my head. I figured, ‘If I get in the water, I won’t get hit.’”
Equipped with mostly World War I-issued gear, which was common in the beginning of the Second World War, Mlodzianowski set out into the Japanese-infested interior of Guadalcanal in his jeep to begin laying the communication lines that enabled Marines at the front to contact the rear for necessities such as ammunition and food. Mlodzianowski was wounded for the first time in September when shrapnel from nearby shelling hit his ankle. To make matters worse, Navy Rear Adm. Richmond K. Turner, the commander of the Pacific Fleet at Guadalcanal, had pulled his amphibious force out of the waters surrounding the island the third day of the battle due to intense Japanese harassment of its ships, leaving the Marines to fend for themselves without Navy support. Therefore, Mlodzianowski could not be medically evacuated from the island. http://www.military.com/news/article/marine-corps-news/marine-vet-remembers-guadalcanal.html?ESRC=marine.nl As the article says, Guadacanal was assaulted exactly 8 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor making it the first US offensive of WWII. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
