Were

Men Who Were There

By Carole Bellacera

Charles Laßerge, sth Marines CHARLES Laßerge was a 20-year-old actor/entertainer in California when he joined the marines after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A member of the fifth Marines Division, he remembers the first days on Guadalcanal as among the most frightening of the war.

The first night on the island, the marines received very little, if any, sleep.

Although there was no resistance from the Japanese, every moment was filled with anxiety.

Surrounded by the dark menacing jungle, pelted by the warm rain that fell almost continuously and alarmed by the scurrying of nocturnal creatures in the bush, the uneasy quiet was punctured time and again by gunfire from nervous sentries who imagined danger in the dark.

In November, Laßerge was trans ferred to the Second Raider Battalion. As Christmas approached, he began travel ling with a 14-piece band from one outfit to another to entertain the troops throughout the captured islands. His most memorable experiece during this time was when he did a show for a hillside of troops that were about to be shipped out for a push towards Bougain ville.

“I sang ‘ White Christmas ,’ ” Chuck Laßerge says. “I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place. That was the toughest performance I ever did in my life.”

Today at age 70, Charles Laßerge lives in the historical town of Spotsylvania, Virginia, about 66 miles from Washing ton DC. Although disabled from a war wound he received in later fighting in the Pacific, he volunteers his services to the Marine Corp League, acting as head of the Capitol Marines, an organisation that sponsors awards ceremonies for deserving marines and other branches of the service. Recently, The Marine Corp League honoured Army General Colin Powell for his service during the Persian Gulf War.

Of the six months that he spent in

Guadalcanal, Chuck says that after 50 years, the details are hazy in his mind.

“And ...” he adds softly, “there are some things I don’t want to remember.”

Luther Wilson, 25th Infantry Div ision, U.S. Army If it weren’t for a case of pneumonia, Luther Wilson may not have ended up in Guadalcanal. After being inducted into the army in January, 1943, the 27-year-old farmer from Russell Springs, Kentucky, was sent to Fort Belvoir, Virginia for basic training and was selected to attend a drafting school in Nashville. However, that was not to be.

After days of marching in the cold wet winter typical of the Chesapeake Bay area, Luther became ill with bronchitis

that eventually developed into pneu monia. By the time he recovered, his drafting school had already started.

Instead, he was placed in a 10-week combat course and before long, was on board a ship headed for Guadalcanal with the 25th Infantry Division.

The Guadalcanal fighting had been prominent in the news, so Luther was well aware that he was on his way to a “hot spot”. It was said, of course, that the island was in American hands, but upon his arrival, he realised immediately that it wasn’t going to be a holiday. The Japanese still had airfields within easy raiding distance and most every night as the troops camped in the sprawling coconut grove owned by the Palmolive Company, the air would fill with the hum of low-flying Japanese fighters.

Forewarned, the American fighters lost no time in getting airborne. Luther and the other marines often watched spec tacular dog-fights just off the coast over Ironbottom Sound.

After several months on Guadalcanal, Luther’s division was sent to make an

invasion of nearby Kolombangara

Island. “We were on the top deck of the LCT boat, our packs and rifles on our backs. We’d just pulled into the harbour when three Japanese planes came over with their guns blazing. I could see the pilots looking at us with big grins on their faces. The bullets were splattering all around. I made a dive under a jeep but couldn’t get any further than my shoulders with my pack on. It only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed like a life time.”

From there, it was on to New Georgia Island where the division met tough resistance from the Japanese in hand-to hand jungle combat. The nights were

miserable as the American troops huddled in their fox-holes, deluged by heavy rains and suffering from ever present hunger pains because of the shortage of food. Water, too, was scarce.

Because most wells were filled with salt water, it was cause for celebration when a fresh-water well was found.

“On New Georgia, we ran the Japan ese back from a good well,” Luther remembers. “During the night, they slipped back across the lines and threw a dead body into the well. The next morning, we had to get it out and move our water (purifying) system to the well.

I and the others said we wouldn’t drink that water, but before the night was over, we were drinking it as if nothing had

happened.”

In November 1943, Luther’s division was sent to New Zealand for a much needed R & R. From there, he went to New Caledonia for more combat training and was eventually sent back to the states and medically discharged after becoming ill.

Today, Luther is 77 years old and lives in Russell Springs, Kentucky. Until his recent retirement, he was a cabinet maker and the owner of a successful antiques business.

Like Chuck Laßerge, Luther admits there are things about the Guadalcanal experience he’d like to forget. “You really became attached to the men who were with you,” he says. “We were glad to get out of it. Coming home and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge was really a beautiful sight.”

LaRerge: sang ‘White Christmas’

Wilson: found dead body in the well

US National Archives US Marines: checking out a possibly booby-trapped tunnel left by the Japanese on Guadalcanal