The Agana 5K
80 years ago this week: “Guam Invasion, 1944. Marine 1st Lieutenant Richard C. Bryson leads troops of the Third Marine Division into Agana City, July 31, 1944.”
Note the cigarette-carrying automatic rifleman with his M1918 BAR at the ready, plenty of extra mags, and the abundance of Mk 2 “pineapple” frag grenades, with those on the LT’s belt likely painted bright yellow-chrome. Behind his right hand is a holstered M1911 and the leather-handled bayonet to his M1 Carbine. The uniform is Marine P-41 HBT fatigues with M1 helmets and camo covers.
USMC Photo 93582 via the National Archives
LT Bryson and his BARman weren’t the only Devils walking into Agana that day.
Landing craft returning to their transports, after landing Marines near Asan Beach, Guam, on 21 July 1944. National Archives 80-G-248260
For some, it would be a homecoming.
Official Caption: “5 August 1944. Home Again – Col. Merlin F. Schneider (kneeling, left), Commanding Officer of the Marine unit that recaptured the Marine Barracks on Orote Peninsula, Guam, holds the plaque that was removed by the Japanese when they took possession of the barracks and the island nearly three years earlier.”
NHHC Photograph Collection, from the “All Hands” Collection, September 1944.
The three Marines, who located the plaque and presented it to the Colonel, stand behind it. They are (left to right): Privates First Class John C. Brown; Carmen J. Catania; and Corporal Joseph J. Mannino.
Others also got into the act of posing with the recovered sign.
Col. Merlin Schneider – 22 Marine Rgt., Lt. Col. Alan Shapley – 4th Marine Rgt., Brig. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd- 1st Prov Marines, Lt. Gen. Holland McTyeire “Howlin’ Mad” Smith,
Today, the Guam Barracks plaque is in the collection of the U.S. Marines Museum.
