3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines

In the morning light of 22 July, W plus 1, that small but formidable Japanese position still held firmly against the 3rd Marines advance.

During the bitter fighting on the previous day, Private First Class Luther Skaggs Jr. of the 3rd Battalion led a mortar section through heavy enemy fire to support the attack, then defended his position against enemy counterattacks during the night although badly wounded.

For conspicuous gallantry and bravery beyond the call of duty, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

On the 22nd, Private First Class Leonard F. Mason, a Browning automatic rifleman of the 2nd Battalion, earned a posthumous Medal of Honor for single-handedly attacking and wiping out an enemy machine gun position which threatened his unit.

On the right of the landing waves, Major Bernard W. Green's 1st Battalion 4th Marines ran head-on into a particularly critical hill mass, Hill 40, near Bangi Point, which had been thoroughly worked over by the Navy.

Hill 40's unexpectedly heated defense indicated that the Japanese recognized its importance, commanding the beaches where troops and supplies were coming ashore.

It took tanks and the support of the 3rd Battalion to claim the position.

Before dark on W-Day, the 2nd Battalion 22nd Marines could see the 4th Marines across a deep gully.

After the war, recalling his feelings that eventful day in July 1944, the lieutenant considered it all a bad dream, even absurd to think that his forces could ever withstand the onslaught.

On W-Day, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph E. Hauser's 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines was on the extreme left of the line, facing Adelup Point, which, with Asan Point, marked the right and left flanks of the invasion beaches.

Hauser's troops could seize the territory in his zone only with support of tanks from Company C, 3rd Tank Battalion, and half-track-mounted 75-millimeter guns.

Holding up the regimental advance was a little nose projecting from Chinito Ridge facing the invasion beach in the 1st Battalion 3rd Marines zone.

just awesome.

So what'd you do in the Marine Corps? 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, and I was a machine gunner.

So heavy guns, think 50KLs, Mark 19s, the ones that were mounted on the Humvees.

But I am not a combat vet, so thank you to those.