_MajGen Harry Schmidt_]
The leader of the 4th Marine Division at Roi-Namur was born in 1886
and entered the Corps as a second lieutenant in 1909. By extraordinary
coincidence, his first foreign duty was at Guam in the Marianas
Islands, an area he would return to 33 years later under vastly
different circumstances!
The Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua (where he was awarded
a Navy Cross--second only to the Medal of Honor), interspersed with
repeated stays in China, were the marks of a diverse overseas career.
At home, there were staff schools, paymaster duties, and a tour as
Assistant Commandant.
By the end of the war, he had been decorated with three Distinguished
Service Medals. Retiring in 1948 after 39 years of service, he was
advanced to the four-star rank of general. He died in 1968.
A contemporary described him as “a Buddha, a typical old-time Marine:
he had been in China; he was regulation Old Establishment; a regular
Marine.”
]
[Sidebar (page 4): The 4th Marine Division
[Illustration: Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A707113
_Shoulder patch of the 4th Marine Division: a gold “4” on scarlet
background, official colors of the U.S. Marine Corps. This emblem was
designed by John Fabion, in the division’s Public Affairs Office before
the Marshall campaign, and his commanding officer was astonished to
find that the layout of the runways on the Japanese airstrip on Roi
were “an exact replica.”_]
This division was formed as the result of the organization and
redesignation of several other units. The 23d Marines began as infantry
detached from the 3d Division in February 1943, the same month that an
artillery battalion of the 12th Marines became the genesis of the 14th
Marines and engineer elements of the 19th Marines formed the nucleus of
the 20th Marines. In March the 24th Marines was organized, and then in
May it was split in two to supply the men for the 25th Marines.
This war-time shuffling provided the major building blocks for a new
division. The units were originally separated, however, with the 24th
Marines and a variety of reinforcing units (engineer, artillery,
medical, motor transport, special weapons, tanks, etc.) at Camp
Pendleton in California. The rest of the units were at Camp Lejeune,
North Carolina. This East Coast echelon moved to Pendleton by train and
transit of the Panama Canal in July and August. When all the units were
finally together, the 4th Marine Division was formally activated on 14
August 1943.
After intensive training, it shipped out on 13 January 1944, and in
13 short months made four major assault landings: Roi-Namur, Saipan,
Tinian, and Iwo Jima, suffering more than 17,000 casualties. It was
awarded two Presidential Unit Citations and a Navy Unit Commendation,
and then deactivated 28 November 1945. In February 1966, however, it
was reactivated as the lead division in the Marine Corps Reserve, and
major units later served with distinction in the Persian Gulf.
]
_The Marine Attack: Roi-Namur_
As the amphibian tractors sought to form up in organized attack waves,
a series of problems arose. There was a continuation of the rough
weather and radio communications difficulties of the day before; the
amtrac crews had not previously practiced with the assault units;
the control ship turned out to have been assigned firing missions as
well as wave control and left its control station (followed by some
stray amtracs); the attack commander was reduced to racing around in a
small ship and shouting instructions through a megaphone. As a result,
W-hour, the hour for attack, had to be postponed from 1000 to 1100.
Meanwhile the men in the amtracs (and some in hastily scrounged
up LCVPs [landing craft, vehicle or personnel]) were watching the
awe-inspiring sight of the furious bombardment. Overhead, for the
first time in the Pacific War, two Marines were in airplanes to act
as naval gunfire controllers who would cut off the shelling when the
troops approached the beach. Brigadier General William W. Buchanan
later recalled how one of them “on one of his passes found one of the
trenches on the north side of Namur filled with a number of troops
crouching down in the trench. So he asked the pilot to go in on a
strafing attack, and then as they came over he was going to continue
raking them with the machine guns. He did this to such a point that,
after they got back to the ship, it was determined that in his [the
spotter’s] enthusiasm he practically shot off the tail end!”
[Illustration: AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS AGAINST JAPANESE ON THE MARSHALL
ISLANDS 1944