I don't think a finer tribute to the United States Coast Guard, one of our sister sea services, was ever written than this 1990 article in Leatherneck Magazine. It's worth a reread 20 years later.
Although he never served in the Army, Navy, Marines or Air Corps, Douglas A. Munro posthumously received a Medal of Honor for heroism. He sacrificed his life while rescuing Marines, many of them wounded, during the battle for Guadalcanal.
It was decided that 23 transport ships would be required for what was called Operation Pestilence, but the Navy didn't have sufficient personnel in mid-1942 to man those ships, nor the numerous landing craft hanging from the davits of those ships. In mid-1941, a Presidential Executive Order directed that the Coast Guard would come under operational command of the U.S. Navy.
When the Marines assaulted Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942, the transport Hunter Liggett was crewed by 51 officers and 634 Coast Guardsmen. One of the largest transports in the amphibious force, she had 35 landing craft and two tank lighters aboard.
Douglas A. Munro, a 22-year-old first class signalman, was originally from South Cle Elum, Wash. He was in charge of a group of Higgins boats which scraped sand when depositing Marines on the enemy-held island. He and his tiny fleet were everywhere, bringing men, ammo and supplies to shore, and carrying the wounded back to Hunter Liggett.
As the battle progressed, he and his unit searched for survivors from the transport USS George F. Elliott, and the cruisers Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy which had been sunk during the battle. At one time, Hunter Liggett had 686 American survivors and three Japanese POWs.
The long days and nights passed, and on September 20, Munro volunteered to search for the crew of a bomber shot down off Savo Island. Munro, Sergeant Jim Hurlbert (a Marine combat correspondent who later related the story) and three others searched in vain for the aircraft's crew.
The party cruised out of effective radio range of his ship, and unknown to Munro, the plane's survivors had been picked up by a Navy PBY "flying boat." Meanwhile, Munro and his crew continued the search. At one point, they came under intense enemy machine-gun fire from a Japanese landing party. Munro gave up the search only when he felt there was no chance of finding the survivors.
On the morning of September 27, Munro was ordered to take his Higgins boats and land a unit of Marines near a place called Point Cruz. The Leathernecks were members of the 1st Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, less "Charlie" Company. After making the unopposed landing, Munro and his men returned to the seaplane tender USS Bollard, a converted destroyer, to await further instructions.
The newly landed Marines moved inland. Suddenly, a heavily armed, superior-sized force of Japanese threatened to annihilate the Marines. It soon became obvious that an evacuation would have to take place.
Sergeant Danny Raysbrook, a Marine communicator, stood in the open and signaled USS Ballard with his semaphore flags. Instructions wig-wagged back and forth, and finally the ship's 5-inch guns opened up on the advancing enemy force.
The Marines were slowly pushed back into a tiny perimeter, their backs to the sea and their fronts to hot lead.
Munro again volunteered to lead his Higgins boats into battle. But as the tiny fleet neared the shore, and Japanese automatic weapons fire and mortars tore into the boats, the Coast Guardsmen took evasive action. Some headed back to the safety of Ballard.
Finally, one Higgins boat ground onto the beach, which measured a mere 25 yards deep and 100 yards wide. Six-man Marine teams began loading the 23 wounded aboard. The other coxswains witnessed the bravery of the first, and returned.
Munro ran his boat onto the shore, using his boat as a shield between the Marines and the advancing Japanese. Two Coast Guardsmen raked the enemy lines with fire from the boat's Lewis machine guns, and when Petty Officer Raymond Evans was wounded, Munro took over the gun from the exposed position.
The fight continued. The Marines slowly withdrew; the Japanese continued pressing forward. The Bollard's guns hammered and the .30-caliber machine guns on the Higgins boats continued chattering. When an enemy mortar round exploded next to his boat, Munro was severely wounded.
He felt the boat pull free of the beach, coxswained by another wounded Coast Guardsman. As he was being lifted aboard Bollard, Munro asked, "Did they get off?"
Assured that the 200 Marines were safe, he smiled and died.
Signalman First Class Douglas Munro is the Coast Guard's only Medal of Honor recipient. The U.S. Navy named a destroyer escort after him, and that ship distinguished itself in both World War II and Korea. After the ship was decommissioned in the mid-1970s, the Coast Guard named a cutter in his honor.
Last September 23, the Marine Corps participated in a ceremony dedicating a statue of Douglas Albert Munro at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center, Cape May, N.J.
Many Marines will recall the heroism of Douglas Munro, especially those who served with 1/7 at Guadalcanal.
Happy Birthday, Coast Guard, on August 4, 1990. For 200 years, you have lived up to your motto, "Semper Paratus" . . .Always Ready. Douglas Munro may be its only Medal of Honor winner, but heroism has always been a way of life in the Coast Guard.
Happy Birthday, and "Semper Fi!"
High praise indeed, and well deserved praise, for Douglas Albert Munro. And his service.
It is an excellent tribute, and I think only a Marine or Soldier could write it.
The ground pounders would hit the beach once on any given day.
Landing craft crewmen like Munro would hit the beach, and if they lived through it they returned to their transports and picked up another load and did it again. And again.
A great many of them, like Munro, did not live through it.
I wouldn't necessarilly try to make the case their jobs were more dangerous than an infantryman's. But it was no vacation.
