Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, November 7, 1943. The heroism of Sgt. Thomas

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, November 7, 1943. The heroism of Sgt. Tho...: 

Sunday, November 7, 1943. The heroism of Sgt. Thomas, Shoes rationed.

Sgt. Herbert J. Thomas.

Marine Corps Sgt Herbert J. Thomas displayed heroism on Bougainville that would lead to him being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

SERGEANT HERBERT J. THOMAS

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Third Marines, Third Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces during the battle at the Koromokina River, Bougainville Island, Solomon Islands, on November 7, 1943. Although several of his men were struck by enemy bullets as he led his squad through dense jungle undergrowth in the face of severe hostile machine gun fire, Sergeant Thomas and his group fearlessly pressed forward into the center of the Japanese position and destroyed the crews of two machine guns by accurate rifle fire and grenades. Discovering a third gun more difficult to approach, he carefully placed his men closely around him in strategic positions from which they were to charge after he had thrown a grenade into the emplacement. When the grenade struck vines and fell back into the midst of the group, Sergeant Thomas deliberately flung himself upon it to smother the explosion, valiantly sacrificing his life for his comrades. Inspired by his selfless action, his men unhesitatingly charged the enemy machine gun and, with fierce determination, killed the crew and several other nearby defenders. The splendid initiative and extremely heroic conduct of Sergeant Thomas in carrying out his prompt decision with full knowledge of his fate reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

The 25-year-old Thomas had first served, in the war, in the United Stated Army Air Corps before transferring to the Marine Corps.

According to Sarah Sundin's blog, on this day in 1943 shoe rationing commenced in the US.  She has an article about it here:

Make It Do – Shoe Rationing in World War II

It's a really interesting article.

The rationing move was announced suddenly, and limited Americans to three pairs of new shoes per year.  I'm sure I don't buy a new pair of shoes most years, which makes this limit interesting in context.

The Red Army captured Fastiv near Kyiv.

The Detroit Lions and the New York Giants played a scoreless tie game, the last such game in NFL history.

The passing of Marine Corps Corporal Remigio "Ray" Barela.

Marines on Tarawa, November 1944.

In Casper, Wyoming this past week a crowed gathered to observe the passing of World War Two Marine Corps Corporal Ray Barela.

Not much was really known about him, other than that he lived to be 101 years old. 

Cpl. Barela had been born in Ft. Collins Colorado in 1918, a then much smaller and very agricultural town.  He therefore by default grew up in the Great Depression and was in his early 20s when World War Two broke out and he joined the Marines.

For unknown reasons, he simply dropped out of communication with his family, forever.  For some time they thought he may have been killed by the Japanese during the war.  At any rate, he returned to the region and after the war worked as a vegetable picker and sheepherder, the latter job being one that classically favored people who love isolation.  Those who knew him in later years said that he loved dogs and horses, but people not so much, something that also would have favored his occupation.

His first and last name are Latinate names, common among Italian and Hispanic families. Based upon the location of his birth and the names of his closet relatives, who until the funeral had thought that he had died decades ago, he was from an Hispanic family in Colorado.  The post war occupations he chose would have been common pre war ones for Hispanics in the region, although they became increasingly less so as every decade following the war moved on.  His omission of his family is odd and its connection with World War Two unmistakable.  His family, which he claimed to have outlived, apparently never forgot him, and when news of his funeral spread they came to pay their respects, joined back to his family in the end.

Lex Anteinternet: Two Casualties of Belleau Wood, Taking a Closer Look. Part Two. Weeden E. Osborne

Two Casualties of Belleau Wood, Taking a Closer Look. Part Two. Weeden E. Osborne

Lieutenant, junior grade, Weeden E. Osborne.

Weeden E. Osborne was the first commissioned offer in the history of the U.S. Navy to be killed in ground combat overseas. He was also the first officer of the Navy's Dental Corps to be killed in action.



He isn't the exception to the rule in regard to just that.



Weeden is actually fairly difficult to obtain accurate information on, at least if you are trying to do it via the net.  Still, we can learn a little.



He was born on November 13, 1892 in Chicago.  Lake Villa is a suburb of Chicago today.



He went to primary school, however, at Allendale Farms.  Allendale School was a school for orphans.  As we'll see, other evidence also suggests that Osborne had lost his parents at an early age.  At any rate, he graduated from that facility and, after completing school he went to work and worked his way through Northwestern in Chicago, graduating dental school in 1915.  That would have made him a dentist at the young age, at least for today, of 23.  And that's a pretty impressive record for somebody who had an apparent rough start in life.



What exactly he did thereafter is a little unclear, but at least a paper with connections to Allendale Farm (but which focused on dogs) claims that he relocated to St. Joseph Missouri, where he started his dental practice.  If he did, it seems that by 1917 he had relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he was instructing in the Dental School at Denver University, which was noted about him by the National Dental Association, of which he must have been a member.*  The ADA's journal spoke highly of him but noted that his disposition was "nervous", and also energetic.  It might well have been, given that he had gone from being a resident of a school for orphans to a dentist at rocket speed.  That may well have been while he moved on to being a dental professor in Denver, or perhaps his young age made it difficult for him to gather a practice.



He wasn't at that long before the Great War arrived.



He seems to have entered the service from Denver but gave a Chicago residence as his permanent residence upon entering the service, for which there could be a lot of reasons.  He listed his sister as his nearest relative, and she was also living in Chicago, in some sort of association with Wheaten College, but he didn't give her address on Racine as his.**



He was carried on the Navy's roles as a Dental Surgeon, with an appointment date of May 8, 1917.  He served in Boston and Alabama in that role until March 1918 when he was assigned by the Navy to the Marine Corps.  The Marines are a branch of the Navy, and this was even more true at the time than it is now, and the Marine Corps was provided with all of its medical personnel from the Navy.



He had only been at the front with the Marines for a few days when the Marine unit he was attached to went into action at Belleau Wood.  While there, he exposed himself to German fire again and again as he went into the field to help bring in wounded Marines.  He was helping to carry wounded Cpt. Donald F. Duncan when shell fire killed both Osborne and Duncan.



The Recruit Dental Station at the Navy's Great Lakes training facility, which is in his native home of Chicago, is named after him.  And the Marine Corps has remembered him and another dental corps member in the name of an award that they give to members of that branch annually.



So here too, was this a sad story?  It's certainly not a typical one.  Weeden seems to have been a Chicago orphan who overcame his circumstances to become a dentist at a very young age, while keeping in touch with a sister in Chicago.  He was killed at age 25, just starting out, but seems to have applied the heroism that characterized his life to what he saw on the field of battle.

Marker for Lt. J.G. Weeden E. Osborne at the Belleau Wood Cemetery in France.

*This era saw the real rise of professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association, and the American Bar Association.  All of these organizations were working to improve the professionalism of their professions, and they all had very wide membership.  The percentages of practitioners who are members of these organizations has declined greatly since then.



**I don't know Chicago at all, but Racine is depicted as the street of residence of the Irish policeman who is killed by the mob in the film The Untouchables.

Belleau Wood, France

These are photographs of the American memorial at Belleau Wood, the site of the epic 1918 battle involving American ground troops for which the Marine Corps is particularly well remembered.  The photographs include the memorial chapel and cemetery, as well as scenes of the battlefield itself.

MKTH photographs

 Lt. J.G. Weeden E. Osborne won the posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions in trying to carry a wounded officer to safety.  Osborne was a dentist assigned to the Marine Corps.

During World War Two a battle was fought at the cemetery and this corner of the monument received a hit from a projectile fired from a tank.  Such projectiles are typically armored piercing, which explains the penetration, but which also explains shy the shell was not explosive.

The famous hunting lodge that was fought over in the Wood.