Legend honored [Col. Mitchell Paige, MOH Guadalcanal ]

Marinelink ^ | 11-26-03

[SJackson]

, Calif.(Nov. 23, 2003) -- A quiet chill settled over the Riverside National Cemetery. Six Marines gripped the polished metal rails of a casket. They moved in unison, carrying the flag-draped coffin for one final honor for a Marine hero.

Col. Mitchell Paige, recipient of the Medal of Honor, was laid to rest near the Medal of Honor Memorial here Sunday. Hundreds of mourners turned out to watch as an honor guard and honor platoon from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment based at Marine Corps Air-Ground Center Twentynine Palms, the 1st Marine Division Band and Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force participated in the memorial ceremony paying tribute to the Marine legend.

Paige was a platoon sergeant with 2nd Bn., 7th Marine Regiment during the Battle of Guadalcanal when he led a platoon of 33 Marines to fend off a charge of Japanese soldiers.

With just 33 Marines, many of them dead or wounded, he held the line through most of the night, never giving ground. For that, he was given the Medal of Honor.

When he died Nov. 15, he was the last of the Medal of Honor recipients from Guadalcanal.

"His friendship has been sought by presidents, legislators, captains of industry and Hollywood celebrities, but his heart was then as it always was, with Marines" said Col. John R. Bates, in his eulogy for Paige.

"Three things he carried with him to his last days on earth," he added. "His complete trust in the Lord, his vice-grip handshake and a memory sharp as a 'just-honed' Ka-Bar."

The still, quiet air was broken as the wind picked up, snapping the flags as the Marine honor guard creased the first fold into the colors that draped Paige's casket. The cracking of the fabric echoed off the Medal of Honor Memorial.

The single lone bugler sounded out Taps for Paige as the flag was folded, eventually given to his widow, Marilyn Paige. Conway handed her the flag with a few soft-spoken words. The echo of Taps faded with the afternoon breeze.

A rumble was heard in the distance, like the sky ripping apart. A moment later two AV-8B Plus II Harriers, from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, tore through the sky over his casket. The jets were from Marine Attack Squadron 211, the very same unit that supported Paige during Guadalcanal.

"It was such an amazing tribute for such an amazing man," said Christie A. Terry, 24, one of Paige's granddaughters.

After the ceremony, Paige was carried to his gravesite, through the honor platoon of Marines. His family followed the casket, accompanied by the muted sound of the footsteps on the pavement as Marines stood stoic, saluting their fallen warrior.

"I was so touched by the Marines lining the road," Terry said. "It was like he was leading us through your respect for our grandfather."

"We can see Mitch now giving a platoon of angels the order to fall in; dress right dress; ready front; and eyes right, as he smiles and watches us here today," Bates said.

Six Marine honor guards carry Col. Mitchell Paige's casket to his final resting place in the Riverside, Calif. National Cemetary Nov. 23, 2003. Hundreds of his family, friends and Marines were present for the ceremony honoring the fallen legend. Photo by: Cpl. Jeremy M. Vought

Sgt. Jesse G. Gerhardt, a member of the 1st Marine Division Band, plays echo Taps at the memorial service for Medal of Honor recipient, Col. Mitchell Paige, Nov. 23, 2003 at the Riverside, Calif. National Ceremony. Photo by: Cpl. Jeremy M. Vought

Col. Mitchell Paige's wife, Marilyn, watches as the Marine honor guards fold the flag that was draped over her husband's casket Nov. 23, 2003 at Riverside, Calif. National Ceremony. Photo by: Cpl. Jeremy M. Vought

The President of the United States
in the name of The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the

Medal of Honor

to

PAIGE, MITCHELL

Rank and organization: Platoon Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Place and date: Solomon Islands, 26 October 1942. Entered service at: Pennsylvania. Born: 31 August 1918, Charleroi, Pa.

Citation:
For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with a company of marines in combat against enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands on 26 October 1942. When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machinegun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire against the advancing hordes until reinforcements finally arrived. Then, forming a new line, he dauntlessly and aggressively led a bayonet charge, driving the enemy back and preventing a breakthrough in our lines. His great personal valor and unyielding devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

 

 

[Servant of the 9]

PING

So9

[NormsRevenge]

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton - 1st Marine Division History

Medal of Honor winners for heroism on Guadalcanal at a formation on 21 May 1943 were, from left, MajGen Alexander A. Vandegrift, Col. Merritt A. Edson, 2ndLt. Mitchell Paige (3rd from left) and Platoon Sergeant John Basilone.

[FReepaholic]

Bump

[tet68]

What marines!

The citation doesn't tell half the story, go to his website and read it in his own words.

Semper Fi. Marine.

Tet68 USMC. 65-69

[NormsRevenge]

PBS ran a special recently called American Valor. It was about the MOH, its history, some of the honorees, and included Mitchell Paige talking about his experiences that fateful day on the Guadalcanal.

The PBS page includes a video link at the bottom of the page.

The link to his website is included HERE as well. Thanks.

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Mitchell Paige, WWII Medal of Honor recipient, dies at age 85
Associated Press 11/17/03

LA QUINTA, Calif. - Mitchell Paige, a retired marine colonel who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in World War II's Battle of Guadalcanal, has died. He was 85.

Paige, whose family said was the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the historic ground battle, died at his home in La Quinta on Saturday from congestive heart failure, said family spokesman Michael Landes. He had long suffered from heart problems.

"I called him my husband, my sweetheart and my hero, as well as my friend," his wife, Marilyn Paige, said. "When I met him I said 'You must be where the name gentleman comes from.' He was very unassuming and yet willing to stand up for what he believed."

On Oct. 26, 1942, Paige was leading a platoon of 33 men when the Japanese broke through the line directly in front of his position at Guadalcanal, part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean.

With all the men in his machine gunner group killed or wounded, he continued to fire on advancing troops until reinforcements arrived. He then led a bayonet charge and drove the enemy's line back.

A few weeks after the battle, Maj. Gen. A. A. Vandergrift, commander of the First Marine Division and later commandant of the Marine Corps, commended Paige: "Son, that was an important hill that you and your men held. It was the last major Japanese effort to dislodge us and capture the airstrip."

Paige was given a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant and was one of 440 Medal of Honor recipients in World War II, although 250 were honored posthumously.

After the war, he wrote a book, "A Marine Named Mitch," and later served as the model for a GI Joe Marine Doll.

Earlier this year, Paige was awarded his Eagle Scout badge 67 years after skipping the ceremony for a career in the Marine Corps. He also was involved in a number of veterans causes and worked to catch Medal of Honor impostors.

The son of Serbian immigrants, Paige was born in Charleroi, Pa., in 1918. He is survived by his wife, six children, 15 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Services are scheduled for Nov. 23 at the Riverside National Cemetery. The family asks that donations be made to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation or the World War II Museum in Eldred, Pa.

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Col. Mitchell Paige, Medal of Honor Recipient, Dies

By Adam Bernstein
Post Staff Writer
November 18, 2003

Mitchell Paige, 85, a retired Marine Corps colonel who received the Medal of Honor after almost single-handedly staving off enemy forces during a crucial battle of World War II, died Nov. 15 at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He had congestive heart failure.

On Oct. 26, 1942, Col. Paige, who was then a sergeant, was leading a platoon defending a small but strategic airfield on jungle-covered Guadalcanal, part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. The islands and the airstrip, Henderson Field, were key positions in the defense of Australia.

Col. Paige and his 33 men placed their few machine guns on a hilltop ridge, bracing for the inevitable: thousands of Japanese soldiers planning to rush them at night.

To hear any sneak attack, Col. Paige placed C ration tins filled with empty bullet casings about 20 yards away, near the tall grass.

It was, in fact, a noisy assault. He said the Japanese yelled in the darkness "Banzai!" and "Blood for the emperor!" One of his own men started a chorus of "Blood for Eleanor!" referring to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Because of the sheer volume of Japanese troops he faced, Col. Paige ordered members of his platoon to fire until they or the enemy were dead or wounded.

Soon, he was the only able-bodied American left on the ridge and solely held the Japanese at bay. In the pre-dawn, he darted from one machine gun to another, firing constantly to make the Japanese think he had a fully manned defense.

He was under ceaseless threat. At one point, he said, he felt the heat from bullets that whizzed past his neck. His metal helmet also was struck by gunfire.

As the battle waged into morning, he knew the enemy would see he was the only one standing.

By then, U.S. reinforcements had arrived with bayonets. Col. Paige grabbed one of his machine guns, still burning hot after hours of use and charged into enemy lines with the others.

The Japanese began their retreat.

Besides the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor, Col. Paige's decorations included the Purple Heart.

He spent two more years in the South Pacific before returning home. He was a veteran of the Korean War and retired in 1964 as a full colonel. During the Vietnam War, he did advisory work to test high-powered rockets.

Col. Paige, the son of Serbian immigrants, was born in the southwestern Pennsylvania town of Charleroi.

On his 18th birthday, in 1936, he walked and hitchhiked to the nearest Marine Corps recruiting station -- in Baltimore, 200 miles away.

After retiring, he spent years on a crusade to identify those who bought, stole and sold the Medal of Honor for profit or false glory. Starting in the mid-1990s, he worked in tandem with the FBI.

"I couldn't arrest these guys before I got together with the FBI," he told Newsday in April, "but I scared the hell out of them and even got some of the medals back."

Working with Rep. Al McCandless (R-Calif.), Col. Paige successfully lobbied for a provision in a 1994 crime bill that increased the penalties for selling a Medal of Honor from six months in jail and a $250 fine to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

A friend in the FBI also helped Col. Paige on another issue of great personal interest: becoming an Eagle Scout. His old paperwork had never been properly submitted before he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

In March, he received his Eagle Scout badge. "My heart is overwhelmed with joy," he said at the time.

His first wife, Genevieve Paige, died in 1979.

Survivors include his wife of 23 years, Marilyn Paige of La Quinta; two children from his first marriage, Mitchell J. Paige of Goddard, Kan., and Janis Bruha of San Mateo, Calif.; four stepchildren, Wendy Allaire of Laguna Hills, Calif., Judith Terry of Biggs, Calif., William Wylde of Whittier, Calif., and Robert Corey Wylde of Fullerton, Calif.; 15 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

[jslade]

The USMC

220 years of romping, hell, death and destruction; the finest fighting machine the world has ever seen. I was born in a bomb crater, my mother was an M-16, my father was the devil. Each moment that I live is an additional threat upon your life.

I'm a roughish looking roving soldier of the sea. I am cocky, self centered, over-bearing and i do not know the meaning of fear, for I am fear itself. I am a green amphibious monster made of blood and guts who arose from the sea, whose sole purpose in life is to perpetuate death and destruction upon the festering of anti-Americans throughout the globe, whenever it may arise and when my time comes I'll die a glorious death on the battlefield giving my life to mom, apple pie, and the American flag. We stole the Eagle from the Air Force, anchor from the Navy, rope from the Army, and on the seventh day while God rested we overran his perimeter and stole the globe, and we've been running the show ever since. We live like soldiers, talk like sailors and slap the hell out of both of them. Soldiers by day, lover by night, drunkard by choice and a MARINE by God!!!

[Greg_99]

About 0200, in a silence so pervasive that men many yards apart could hear each other breathing, I began to sense movement all along the front and deep in the jungle below us and to our left. We could hear the muffled clanking of equipment and periodically, voices hissing in Japanese. These were undoubtedly squad leaders giving their instructions. At the same time, small colored lights began flicking on and off throughout the jungle. I could hear Price whispering for me to come to his foxhole. I quietly crawled over to him and he had an excellent view of someone flicking a light on and off. Price said, 'I thought I was cracking up seeing all those fireflies.' I assured him he was not cracking up because those were lights handled by Japanese soldiers.

As I crawled around telling the men to glue their eyes and ears to anything and reminded them that the small lights we were seeing were assembly signals for the enemy squads, I again instructed everyone not to fire their guns as the muzzle flash would give away our positions and that we would be raked with fire and smothered with grenades. We had to let them get closer as we were outnumbered, but when things started popping I urged each man to just hang on. Earlier Jonjock, Swanek and I stretched a piece of wire out in front of our position and hung several empty blackened ration cans on it. We put an empty cartridge case in each can which would rattle if hit by someone's foot.

I had previously requested an artillery and mortar concentration. This was, however, denied because the enemy was still in the jungle where the effect would almost be nil. I then returned to my foxhole. Manning my number two gun was Corporal Raymond 'Big Stoop' Gaston and Private Samuel 'Muscles' Leiphart. Their gun was at the part of our line which bordered on the side where the jungle came up to meet the ridge. They both whispered to me that there was considerable rustling very near to the undergrowth. I said, 'Hold your fire.'

Corporal Richard 'Moose' Stanberry arranged several grenades in a neat row in front of him, then nervously rearranged them. He was fond of his Thompson sub-machine gun and I never worried about him as he was well-trained, a perfectly disciplined marine who could handle himself in any situation. Now everyone was straining to hear and see.

The bushes rustled and the maddening voices continued their soft sibilant mutterings, but still nothing could be seen. Then I dimly sensed a dark figure lurking near Gaston's position. I grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin and held the lever ready to throw it. Around me I could hear the others also pulling pins as we did the night before. We heard the ration cans rattle and then somebody let out a shriek and instantaneously the battle erupted. Grenades were exploding all over the ridge nose. Japanese rifles and machine guns fired blindly in the night and the first wave of enemy troops swarmed into our positions from the jungle flanking Gaston's gun.

Stansberry was pulling the pins out of his grenades with his teeth and lobbing them down the slope into the jungle. Leiphart was skying them overhead like a baseball pitcher. The tension burst like a balloon and many men found themselves cursing, growling, screaming like banshees. The Japanese were yelling Banzai! and 'Blood for the Emperor!' Stansberry, in a spontaneous tribute to President Roosevelt's wife, shouted back, 'Blood for Eleanor!'

The battleground was lit by flashes of machine-gun fire, pierced by the arching red patterns of tracer bullets, shaken by the blast of shells laid down no more than 30 yards in front of the ridge by Captain Louis Ditta's 60mm Mortars. It was a confusing maelstrom, with dark shapes crawling across the ground or swirling in clumped knots; struggling men falling on each other with bayonets, swords and violent oaths. After the first volley of American grenades exploded the wave of Japanese crowding onto the knoll thickened. Pfc. Charles H. Lock was killed from a burst of enemy machine-gun fire.

I screamed, 'Fire machine guns! Fire!' and with that all the machine guns opened up with all the rifles and tommy guns. In the flickering light, I saw a fierce struggle taking place for the number two gun. Several Japanese soldiers were racing toward Leiphart, who was kneeling, apparently already hit. I managed to shoot two of them while the third lowered his bayonet and lunged.

Leiphart was the smallest man in the platoon, weighing barely 125 pounds. The Japanese soldier ran him through, the force of the thrust lifting him high in the air. I took careful aim and shot Leiphart's killer.

Gaston was flat on his back, scrambling away from a Japanese officer who was hacking at him with a two-handed Samurai sword and grunting with the exertion. Gaston tried desperately to block the Samurai sword with a Springfield he had picked up off the ground, apparently Leiphart's. One of his legs was badly cut from the blows. The rifle soon splintered. The Japanese officer raised his sword for the killing thrust and Gaston, with maniac strength, snaked his good leg up and caught his man under the chin with his boon docker, a violent blow that broke the Japanese's' neck.

The attackers ran past Gaston's gun and spread out, concentrating their fire on the left flank gun, manned by Corporal John Grant, Pfc. Sam H. Scott and Willis A. Hinson. Within minutes, Scott was killed and Hinson was wounded in the head. Then Joseph A. Pawlowski was killed. Stansberry, who had been near me, was hit in the shoulder, but the last time I saw him he was still firing his tommy gun with ferocity and shouting, 'Charge! Charge! Blood for Eleanor!'

Corporal Pettyjohn on the right, cried out in anguish, 'My gun's jammed!' I was too busy to answer his call for help. At the center, we were beating back the seemingly endless wall of Japanese coming up the gentle slope at the front of the position. There were at that point approximately seventy-five enemy soldiers crashing through the platoon, most of them on the left flank, but the main force of the attack had already begun to ebb. The ridge was crowded with fighting men it seemed.

Somehow I vividly recall putting up my left hand just as an enemy soldier lunged at me with a fixed bayonet. He must have been off balance as the point of the bayonet hit between my little finger and the ring finger, enough to let me parry it off, and as he went by me he dropped dead on the ground.

The enemy started to melt back down the slope, and almost before they were out of sight, Navy Corpsmen began moving forward to treat the wounded. At Petty john's gun, James 'Knobby' McNabb and Mitchel F. 'Pat' Swanek were badly wounded and had to be moved off the line. Stansberry was still around and didn't want to leave. I crawled over to Pettyjohn's gun.

'What's wrong with it?'

Pettyjohn said 'a ruptured cartridge which refused to budge'.

I said, 'Move over,' and fumbled with stiff fingers, broke a nail completely off, but somehow pried the slug out with a combination tool, which I found in the spare parts kit under the tripod. I also changed the belt feed pawl, which had been damaged in the rough slamming trying to get the round out. Pettyjohn and Faust covered me.

Though the first assault had flopped, a number of enemy soldiers had shinnied to the top of the tall hardwood trees growing up from the jungle between the platoon and Fox Company's position. From this vantage point, they could direct a punishing, plunging fire down in two directions. The men in the foxholes along the crest were especially vulnerable; Bob G. Jonjock and John W. Price were wounded and helped back of the line by corpsmen.

I was getting ready to feed a new belt of ammunition into Pettyjohn's gun. My left hand felt very slippery so I rubbed it in the dirt under the tripod of the gun, then as I reached up to hold the belt again, I felt a sharp vibration and a jab of hot pain in my hand. I fell back momentarily and flapped my arm and stared angrily at the gun, which had been wrecked by a burst of fire from a Japanese Nambu light machine gun.

Almost immediately, a second assault wave came washing over our positions. This attack was more successful than the first. Oliver Hinkley and William R. Dudley were wounded. Hinson, over on the left gun and already wounded, continued to fire until all his supporting rifles were silenced. He then withdrew down around the hill in the rear of George Company, putting the gun out of action before he left as I had instructed.

That section had been hit hard with mortars and grenades, causing severe shock to all the men; one of the first being August P. Marquez. All the men on the spur had been literally blasted off, including Lieutenant Phillips, Bill Payne and John Grant.

In the Fox Company area back toward my left rear, I saw Fox Company men pulling out and disappearing over the crest. I picked up a Springfield and fired a shot at them, yelling for them to hold the line.

The Japanese swarmed up that seventy-foot cliff in great numbers, armed with three heavy and six light machine guns, a number of tommy guns and several knee mortars. I thought, "Dear God, Major Conoley and his small command post are just over the crest," but here was the only grazing fire I had with my machine gun, so I quickly found Gaston's gun and swung it around toward our own lines as there was nothing between my gun and the crest but enemy soldiers.

I fired a full belt of ammunition into the backs of those crouching enemy, praying that they could not get over the crest to the command post. I learned later from Captain Farrell, who was with Colonel Hanneken's command post, that the word was that the enemy had one of Paige's fast firing machine guns and the rounds were ricocheting over the line over Major Conoley's position. He had also heard reports that all my men had been killed and in fact, some had seen me sprawled out dead on the ground before they left the ridge.

I learned later, too, that this information had gotten back to the Division Command Post.

By 0500 the enemy was all over the spur and it appeared they were going to roll up-the entire battalion front. A second prong of the attack aimed at our front had not fared as well, but my platoon was being decimated. A hail of shrapnel killed Daniel R. Cashman. Stansberry had been pulled back over the hill after being hit again.

I continued to trigger bursts until the barrel began to steam. In front of me was a large pile of dead bodies. I ran around the ridge from gun to gun trying to keep them firing, but at each emplacement I found only dead bodies. I knew then I must be all alone.

As I ran back and forth, I bumped into enemy soldiers who were seemingly dashing about aimlessly in the dark. Apparently they weren't yet aware they had almost complete possession of the knoll. As I scampered around the knoll, I fired someone's Springfield that I happened to pick up. Then somehow, I stumbled over into the right flank into George Company. There I found a couple of men I knew named Kelly and Totman. They had a water-cooled machine gun. I told them I needed their gun. At the same time, I grabbed it and they took off with me.

I said, 'Follow me!' and ordered several riflemen to fix bayonets and to follow us to form a skirmish line back across the ridge. I told the riflemen not to be afraid to use the bayonet. We still had the 1905, 16-inch bayonets with the front end sharpened throughout its length and the back edge five inches from the point.

It was by then not quite as dark as it had been. Soon dawn would break. I knew that once the Japanese realized how much progress they had made, a third wave of attackers would come up the slope to solidify their hold on the hill.

On the way back I noticed some movement of Japanese on the ridge just above Major Conoley's position, which I had raked with grazing fire earlier. I fired Kelly's and Totman's full belt of 250 rounds into that area and once again the rounds were ricocheting over Conoley's head, but he had no way of knowing that I was doing the firing. He could only surmise that the enemy was now using our machine guns.

As we advanced back across the ridge, some of the Japanese began falling back. Several of them, however, began crawling awkwardly across the knoll with their rifles cradled in the crooks of their arms. Then I saw with horror that they were headed toward one of my guns, which was now out in the open and unmanned.

Galvanized by the threat, I ran for the gun. From the gully area, several Japanese guns spotted me and swiveled to rake me with enfilading fire. The snipers in the trees also tried to bring me down with grenades, and mortars burst all around me as I ran to that gun. One of the crawling enemy soldiers saw me coming and he jumped up to race me to the prize. I got there first and jumped into a hole behind the gun. The enemy soldier, less than 25 yards away, dropped to the ground and started to open up on me. I turned the gun on the enemy and immediately realized it was not loaded. I quickly scooped up a partially loaded belt lying on the ground and with fumbling fingers, started to load it.

Suddenly a very strange feeling came over me. I tried desperately to reach forward to pull the bolt handle back to load the gun, but I felt as though I was in a vise. Even so, I was completely relaxed and felt as though I was sitting peacefully in a park. I could feel a warm sensation between my chin and my Adam's apple. Then all of a sudden I fell forward over the gun, loaded the gun, and swung it at the enemy gunner, the precise moment he had fired his full thirty-round magazine at me and stopped firing.

For days later I thought about the mystery and somehow I knew that the 'Man Above' also knew what had happened. I never wanted to relate this experience to anyone, as I did not want to ever have anyone question it.

I found three more belts of ammunition and quickly fired them in the trees and all along the ridge. I sprayed the terrain with the remaining rounds clearing everything in sight. All the Japanese fire in the area was being aimed at me apparently, as this was the only automatic weapon firing from a forward position. The barrage, concentrated on the ridge nose, made me feel as if the whole Japanese Army was firing at me.

I was getting some help from our mortars control led by Battalion with the George Company Commander, Captain L.W. Martin, observing. These rounds laid on the spur and prevented the enemy from moving up which would have probably enveloped me from the rear. Other than this, I was still alone as my George Company friends were still behind me some distance.

In addition to being in this position, I had an immediate need of more ammunition and I couldn't see anymore lying around anywhere. Just at that time, aid came that made me glow with pride. Three men of my platoon voluntarily crossed the field of fire to resupply me.

The first one came up and just as he reached me he fell with a bullet in the stomach. Another one then rushed in and was hit in the groin just as he reached me too. He fell against me, knocking me away from the gun. Seconds later, Bob Jonjock, who had also been wounded earlier, came from somewhere with more ammunition. Just as he jumped down beside me to help load the gun, I saw a piece of flesh fly off his neck. He had been hit by an enemy bullet.

I told him to get back while I sprayed the area. He refused to leave. I said, 'Get the hell back, Jonjock!' and he again said, 'No, I'm staying with you.'

I hated to do it, but I punched him on the chin hard enough to bowl him over and convinced him finally that I wanted my order obeyed. He somehow made his way back as I was afraid he would bleed to death.

Meanwhile, Major Conoley, at the forward command post, was rounding up a ragtag force with which to retake the Fox Company spur. There were bandsmen serving as stretcher bearers, wiremen, runners, cooks, even mess boys, who had brought some hot food up to the front lines during the night and stayed just in case. Those men, numbering no more than twenty-four, mounted a counterattack up over the crest line that I fired some 500 rounds at. They found the Japanese machine guns and several of Fox Company's weapons, including three light machine guns, all in good working order. That counterattack found ninety-eight dead on the spur by actual count.

That was about 0530 or so. Dawn was already breaking. I was able to observe the progress of that charge from my position as I was directly out in their front. I also watched quite a few enemy soldiers scrambling back into the jungle, but I couldn't fire in that direction. As I watched that beautiful charge, it gave me the inspiration to get up and yell to my George Company fighters with their fixed bayonets to stand by to charge. I yelled out in Japanese to stand up: 'Tate! -- tah- teh, tah-teh!', hurry: 'Isoge!' -- ee-soh-geh, ee-soh-geh!'

Immediately a large group of Japanese soldiers, about thirty in all, popped up into view. One of them looked quizzically at me through field glasses. I triggered a long burst and they just peeled off like grass under a mowing machine.

At that point, I turned around to tell my friends I was going to charge over the knoll and I said, 'I want everyone of you to be right behind me,' and they were. I threw the two remaining belts of ammunition that my men had brought me over my shoulder, unclamped the heavy machine gun from the tripod and cradled it in my arms. I really didn't notice the weight which was about a total of eighty pounds, and was no more aware that the water jacket of the gun was red hot.

I fed one of the belts into the gun and started forward, down the slope, scrambling to keep my feet, spraying a raking fire all about me. There were still a number of live enemy soldiers on the hillside in the tall grass, pressed against the slope. I must have taken them by surprise, as the gun cut them all down. One of them I noticed, was a field grade officer who had just expended the rounds in his revolver and was reaching for his two-handed sword. He was no more than four or five feet from me when I ran into him head on.

The skirmishers followed me over the rim of the knoll and they, too, were all fired up and were giving the rebel yell, shrieking and cat-calling like little boys imitating marines, sounding like there were a thousand rather than a mere handful.

They followed me all the way across the draw with fixed bayonets, to the end of the jungle, where long hours before, the Japanese attacks had started. There we found nothing left to shoot at. The battle was over.

The jungle was once again so still, that if it weren't for the evidence of dead bodies, the agony and torment of the previous hours, the bursting terror of the artillery and mortars rounds and the many thousands of rounds of ammunition fired, it might only have been a bad dream of awful death.

It was a really strange sort of quietness. As I sat down soaked with perspiration and steam still rising from my hot gun, Captain Louis Ditta, another wonderful officer who had joined the riflemen in the skirmish line and had earlier been firing his 60mm mortars to help me, slapped me on the back and as he handed me his canteen of water he kept saying, 'tremendous, tremendous!' He then looked down at his legs. We could see blood coming through his dungarees. He had a neat bullet hole in his right leg.

There were hundreds of enemy dead in the grass, on the ridge, in the draw, and in the edge of the jungle. We dragged as many as we could into the jungle, out of the sun. We buried many and even blasted some of the ridge over them to prevent the smell that only a dead body can expel in heat. A corpsman sent by Capt. Ditta smeared my whole left arm with a tube of salve of some kind. He cleaned off the bayonet gash, since filled with dirt, and the bullet nicks on my hands also filled with dirt and coagulated blood. He stuck a patch on my back just below the shoulder blade. (In 1955, I felt something irritating in my back, and then had a piece of metal about 3/4 of an inch long removed from my back; right where the corpsman had placed that patch.)

As the corpsman left he said, 'You know, you have some pretty neat creases in your steel helmet.'

I replied:

"Yes, thank God -- Made in America."

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Ex-Marine fought for honor of medal
By Dennis McCarthy
Los Angeles Daily News 11/19/03

If his life was a movie, you would stand up and applaud at the end, and there would be tears in your eyes.

You would walk out of the theater on a high, anxious to tell your best friends about this incredible man who just left us -- World War II Medal of Honor recipient Mitchell Paige.

He died Saturday at 85, and his obituary should have been on the front page of every newspaper in this country because he was that important. It wasn't.

It should have led the local nightly news, and been breaking news at the top of the hour on CNN. It wasn't.

Flags all over the country should be flying at half-staff this week in his honor and memory. They're not.

Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and all the other leading men should be calling their agents right now to get them an audition to play Mitchell Paige. It's an Oscar role waiting to happen.

But they're not, because like most people they never heard of Mitchell Paige and what he did for this country for more than 60 years -- right up to the day he died.

"They throw this word hero around a lot these days," says FBI agent Tom Cottone Jr. "Movie hero, sports hero. But you know something? The real heroes, like Mitch, never use the word. Really, they don't.

"Mitchell Paige was the greatest person I ever met," Cottone said by phone Wednesday from his office in the violent crime task force in Newark, N.J.

He was the greatest person a lot of us ever had the privilege of meeting.


The more he read the Medal of Honor citation, the more he got goose bumps, Cottone remembers, looking at the background of this man he started working with in 1995, shortly after Congress passed a bill stiffening the penalties for anyone caught fraudulently making, buying, selling or even wearing the Medal of Honor.

His name was Paige, and he was a retired Marine Corps colonel who had been chasing phony Medal of Honor recipients for 40 years. He was awarded the real thing by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his heroism at Guadalcanal in October 1942.

His bravery was legendary in the Marine Corps. When Hasbro Inc., maker of the famous GI Joe dolls, went looking in 1998 for one Marine to honor as the new GI Joe action figure representing all Medal of Honor recipients, it was the name Mitchell Paige that went on the box.

He was a 24-year-old machine-gun platoon sergeant in charge of 33 men who dug in and fought through the night, repelling an attack of more than 2,500 Japanese soldiers trying to overrun an airfield on Guadalcanal in 1942.

When reinforcements finally arrived the next morning, they found Paige's whole platoon either dead or severely wounded. Paige was still fighting -- moving from machine gun to machine gun after his own weapon was spent, firing from the hip to keep the enemy at bay until help arrived.

"When I got my medal, I dedicated it to every one of the 33 men in my platoon who were killed or severely wounded holding off the enemy," Paige told me when we met at the 1st Marine Division's 58th anniversary in 1999 at Camp Pendleton.

"They were the real heroes. The guys who gave up their lives, the guys nobody ever recognized because nobody knows their names.

"To have these phonies take the glory is a disgrace," he said.

It was a disgrace -- a disgrace FBI Agent Cottone wanted to help him uncover after he arrested a military collectibles dealer for selling a couple of phony Medals of Honor for $500 each.

"At the time, I was totally unaware something like this was going on," Cottone said. "When I called the national Medal of Honor Society, they said, 'It's about time, it's been going on for years.'

"That's when they told me about Col. Paige, and how he had been out there for 40 years tracking down these phonies," he said.

"That's when I also learned the real Medal of Honor recipients are the most humble guys you'd ever want to meet. The impostors are the direct opposite. They want to tell everyone how great they are."

Phonies like the grand marshal of a Fourth of July parade in Twentynine Palms whom Paige exposed, or the judge in Illinois who upgraded his Purple Heart to a Medal of Honor. Or the New Jersey mayor who resigned in disgrace after Paige debunked him.

Working alone the first 40 years, Paige uncovered almost 400 men throughout the country posing as Medal of Honor recipients. Since 1995, with Cottone's help, they found 100 more.

"Most of them get probation, fined, and have to make a public apology," Cottone said. "One guy recently had to write a letter of apology in the local newspaper, and do community service at a veterans hospital.

"Exposing them, embarrassing them, and getting those phony medals out of circulation is better than criminal prosecution," he said.

Mitch Paige was still looking for the phonies up to the day he died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta on Saturday, Cottone said.

Still fighting for the honor of the medal -- the honor of his men.

The real heroes.

[ErnBatavia]

The thread I started the night after his death has been printed in it's entirety, and is on it's way to Marilyn. It will surely provide her some comfort.

[ErnBatavia]

Tet68 USMC. 65-69

Kinda makes it feel good you "chose right", doesn't it? Semper Fi! (Bat....'66-'68)

[rosyposy]

Bump and read later.

[concentric circles]

The essay that contained these excerpts was submitted to The Oak Ridger a few weeks ago. The writer did not cite sources but I presume these came from Paige's own book.

"After loading, Paige had to pull a lever twice before it would fire. Meanwhile the enemy soldier placed his weapon ready to fire. Paige cocks the lever once. He attempted to lean forward again for the second pull, but some strange force held him in place no matter how much he tried. The enemy's machine gun began to chatter and then he felt the heat of the bullets passing between his chin and Adam's apple. The enemy's gun out of ammunition fell silent. Suddenly, the strange force released Paige. He made the second pull and killed the enemy with a burst of fire."

"...After the battle he wondered, "Why them and not me?" Finding his pack, he picked it up and out fell his Bible. He picked it up and his thumb slipped between some pages. He looked at it. The pages were Proverbs, Chapter 3, verses 5 and 6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight." Then he remembered what his mother had told him leaving home for the Marines: Trust in God."

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

BTTT. Thanks for posting.

[ErnBatavia]

Great excerpt from "A Marine Named Mitch"...I'm honored to have an autographed copy.

When Mrs. Bat and I spent close to an hour with him and Marilyn (getting the GI Joe autographed, also), we both noted something very special in his eyes...THE EYES...he may have been 80 at the time, but I remember saying to wifey on the way home that Mitchell Paige must've been quite a rattlesnake 60 years ago.

Semper Fidelis, Mitch. Glad and honored to have met you.

[SunkenCiv]

this topic is from 2003.

Autumn, 1942: It came down to one Marine, and one ship
Source: Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism
Published: October 23, 2000 Author: Vin Suprynowicz
Posted on 10/23/2000 10:11:29 PDT by gordgekko
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39f47141497d.htm