Today is September the 26th, 2002. I'm
interviewing Mr. Dick Russell. The interview is taking
place in Fredericksburg, Texas at the National
Museum of the Pacific War. This interview
is in support of the Center for Pacific War
Studies Archives for the National Museum of
the Pacific War of Texas Parks and Wildlife for
the preservation of historical information
related to this site.
Mr. Russell, welcome to Fredericksburg.
I'd like to turn it over to you now and have
you give us some of your
background and then take us into your
experiences, please.
Thank you very much.
My name is Richard H. Russell, more commonly
known as Dick.
I was born in Canada on August 7, 1922, and my
parents moved to the
Detroit, Michigan area six years later, and so
I became a
citizen at that time.
I attended school in the Detroit area, and
after high
school I went to Adrian College for a year and
a half, and
that ended with Pearl Harbor, which was
December 7, 1941.
I left school, obviously, and on January 7th of
1942, I joined the Marine Corps.
I went to boot camp at Parris Island.
Excuse me, did you volunteer or were you drafted?
I volunteered and became part of the regular
Marine Corps.
As I said, I went to Parris Island boot camp
and went to
boot camp in about, let's see, I'm trying to
think, about
March of 1942, I was assigned to the 1st Marine
Division and
moved to Norfolk, Virginia.
And on Easter Day, in April, which was
somewhere around April 8th, 9th,
something like that, we boarded a transport and
went down through the
Panama Canal and had a nice 30-day cruise to Samoa.
And that was the entire 7th Marines went to
Samoa because there was
danger of the Japanese going that far.
So we garrisoned that island, or those islands,
I should say, and had a nice time.
That was a very enjoyable experience because
there was no combat and the people were nice.
But on August 7th, the 1st Division, less the
7th Regiment, invaded Guadalcanal.
We stayed on Samoa and about the 1st of
September we left Samoa, boarded a ship, and headed
for Guadalcanal to reinforce the rest of the division.
The trip to the canal was rather quite an
experience, I should say, because we traveled
mostly by night, and in the daytime we would
dodge into different islands to seek refuge.
And when we got into New Hebrides, we saw an
aircraft carrier there with a great big
hole in its hull, which was rather interesting
because at this point we had not seen any combatants.
Do you know which aircraft carrier that was?
No, I do not.
We kept going. It must have taken us two weeks
to reach the canal. I'm not sure of the time,
but because we were just dodging in and out of islands.
And the canal means Guadalcanal.
We finally landed there on about somewhere
around the 18th of September, and after we
got there, the people there had gone through
two real extreme battles, I know of, but for
The first part, our duties were more patrol.
We would patrol, we would go around patrols,
just reconnaissance patrols.
And it was, to say the least, it was hot there.
It was hot, and we'd get a lot of rain, and
then heat.
And on these patrols, you would sometimes
you'd just feel like collapsing, because the
heat was so
On the first part of October, we went on a, how
do I express it, on a, well, we went to
engage them, that's what that was.
The first Marines and some of the other troops,
I don't
They were going to make an advance on the
Metanakau River.
I was in E Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines,
and our
battalion's job was to cross the river upstream
and go, I don't
know how far, but it was many hundreds of miles
beyond that river and you were to
go in and then drive there straight to the
ocean to cut off any of the gaps
that might decide to retreat. What was the name
of this river again? Metanakau.
Can you spell that or am I putting you on the spot?
Well, let me try it.
It's M-A-N-I-T-A-K-A-U-A.
That's okay.
That's close enough. Metanakau.
Go ahead.
So we were to go behind the enemy and drive to the
And our first, well, we were going to go behind the
We were to go behind the enemy and drive to the ocean.
And our first battalion, I was in the second battalion,
first battalion was to go several hundred miles,
several hundred yards beyond us and drive to
the ocean.
Because we knew there was another batch of Japs
behind there which were the reserve.
How we knew this, I have no idea.
I was a private.
And the generals had that information, not I.
Anyway, they put the drive to the ocean.
So everything went fine.
We started driving, and we had numerous casualties,
some snipers mainly.
And then we ran into some either artillery or mortars,
probably mortars.
And we lost a lot of casualties there.
we lost a company commander, and we lost a
gunnery sergeant, which was our highest
enlisted man in the company,
and several other at the headquarters. The
mortar landed right in the mouth.
A number of casualties, I cannot tell you.
Anyway, we drove to the river,
And that bunch of Japanese that were trapped
between us and the 1st Battalion engaged and
had quite a battle with them.
Eventually that entire group of Japanese was
wiped out.
After we were ready, we were there one or two
days, I suppose, and finally we had orders
to go to the ocean and give up our line, go to
the ocean, and I don't remember how we
got out of there.
I don't know if we marched back to the front
lines or whether we got on ships.
I just don't remember.
I do remember this, though, that we had a
couple of destroyers out there
that were firing on either side of our line
because we were really in a single file.
They were firing both on the right and left of
us to give us cover
So we could get out of there without nothing
more, because there were still a lot of Japanese.
We didn't, by any means, break up the main body.
And so that was the end of that little breakage.
After that, we went back to patrolling.
And then, in my time's frame, I said that was
the 1st of October, so several weeks later,
probably towards the, maybe the 3rd week of
October, we were on this place called Edson's
Ridge or Bloody Ridge,
which they had a big battle before us, and some
raiders were the ones who defended that.
And I was not, we were not on the island at
that time.
But we were up on the ridge.
Our 1st and 2nd Battalion moved to 7th Range,
and our battalion was ordered to leave that
the first battalion defend that ridge alone
because there was another bunch of
Japanese coming down between there and the
Matanikau River and so we left and
we took up positions on that ridge and I guess
it was about the second night we
were on that ridge the Japanese struck. They
struck really deaf coming. We didn't have
many casualties at all. But F Company got hit
with a large number of Japanese. And they
broke through. They broke the line and got
behind us. And our major, our
executive officer, Major Connolly, gathered
together a group that he
could and he was a sergeant from the H company. Our
machine guns and mortars were in a separate
company and assigned to the
rifle companies. At that time they didn't
change that.
So you were in the rifle company?
I was in the rifle company. But there were a
bunch of
machine guns in that particular area where the Japanese
folks. Connolly got together and he whisked
this Sgt. Page, got Crooks and
everybody else they could, and pushed back and
got them off of there. I didn't
witness this, I just know that it did happen.
Sgt. Page ended up getting the
Congressional Medal of Honor as a result of
that action and he ended up
retiring as a colonel on that Marine Corps.
After the breakthrough, just the enemy down
there, the chaps were kind of
scattered down there. We stayed there for
several days and I went down I think one time
to get some water to put a bunch of canteens
down. I was coming back and I could see one
area where the Japs were, the Japanese with a
machine gun and about six others were just
mowed down there.
Apparently they got ambushed some way at night
time and they just scattered along the trail.
Also at that same time when I was coming back
with that water, a Japanese bomber had been,
they were fighting up above us and a Japanese
bomber got shot down and he came down right for
us, in flames,
It came down right for us and I thought, sure,
the chute was going to land right on top of us.
But he apparently landed above us, so many
hundreds of yards from us.
So it crashed. Yeah, it just crashed on us.
There was a big explosion and all that stuff.
And it was just an interesting little thing
that happened.
So anyway, that battle ended, and we went back
behind the front lines and resumed our normal
patrol, because our job there was constant patrol.
Our lines were maybe three or four miles along
the coast and maybe a mile or two, and that is
all we had of this great big island.
We really had only a toehold at that time.
That is all we ever really had on the island.
That is all we could depend on.
Of course, we had the airfield in there and
that is why we landed there to take that airfield.
As I say, we were just constantly patrolling,
that's the way we defended this, to find out
where the Japanese were.
And our third big battle I was involved in
occurred shortly after the first part of November.
We had word, and of course, again, I'm a
private, a general, so this information is not
me, but we were informed that the Japanese were
going to land east of our line, something like
15 miles, and so our battalion got the job of
going out and stopping the landing,
So we went out and marched along that sandy
beach for about 15 miles, and I tell you,
that was a terrible thing, just marching in
that loose sand.
We were kind of beat up anyway.
Our food was not great.
We didn't have a lot of it.
And it was hot.
So we get out there and we dig in in the sand,
ready to meet them.
Well, they did, the ships came in and they
landed, but they landed on our right.
There was a small river just on our right and
they landed on the right of us, the other side
of that little river.
So they made their landing, and we didn't get
to engage them, but F Company did, and
they were on that flank right along the river,
and they did meet some of them.
They had a little rifle fight with a few of them.
And our colonel ordered us to withdraw, and so
we did, and we pulled back, I don't know
how far, but we pulled well back, and they were
throwing what seemed to be like 37-millimeter
shells at us, or maybe they were mortars, I
don't know, but they were shelling us.
And our radios went out, so we couldn't contact
the division headquarters.
At least, that's the story I was given.
So we did withdraw at a distance, and then we,
as I am told,
they called for, finally, I guess, in the
middle of the day,
we did get through the division.
And we called for air support.
So the fighters came in and strafed them.
But they strafed us instead of the Japs.
And fortunately, their aim was terrible
because we didn't have a casualty as a result
of that.
But we went, one of our men went out
waving an American flag at him.
And I guess, anyway, the strafing stopped.
So, our first division was called to join us,
first battalion, and I'm the second
battalion, so the first battalion came to join
us, and at this time our battalions consisted
There were about 1,000 men originally, and we
were, I guess, probably
at the time maybe had, well, 500 men at this
time, because of casualties,
both from enemy fire and from malaria.
There's been a lot of malaria cases.
So they joined us and they were going to
establish a line coming from the Ocean Inland
and we
went inland and went around the Japanese, we
went way inland and got on the other side
of them and we were going to drive into them
and there was a battalion of
army that was supposed to come out and block the
inland portion.
We were going to form a line to the ocean
driving from the east to the west, and
the 1st battalion was going to stay on that
western flank and the army was going
to guard the inland portion, and we were going
to engage them.
So we did go around the dam and did drive from
our side
and engaged them in a battle on a lagoon or
small river,
whatever, body of water that was about 10 feet wide.
And we got into quite a rifle fight with them.
We finally, just a matter of interest, our
lieutenant in charge of our platoon got up
and said, we are going to cross that river, and
just as he got up and said that,
we made it, and he went down, so our platoon
sergeant took over our platoon, and
did cross the river and we did continue
fighting. There was a bunch of muck in the
trees, too.
And so our machine guns were raking those trees
to get them to eliminate that part.
And we didn't get them all because the Army
didn't get there in time. They were able to
inland. So that battle lasted from very early
in the morning through most of the day,
in the middle of the afternoon I guess. And
they brought out some hot chow for us
through Higginsville. I guess hot chow was a
bit unusual. Well, when you're out there, yes,
living on K rations and C rations. But they did
bring us out just because we had the capacity.
And so this was just a matter of interest. We
were sitting eating this chow and somebody
got a hold of one of these Japanese machine
guns. And there's a big difference between
the sound of a Japanese machine gun and one of
our artists goes boom, boom, boom, and
the other goes ta-ta-ta, a big difference.
Well, we had about finished our job,
fortunately, but I had laid my rifle, very
foolishly, about
ten feet away from me, and somebody with this
Japanese machine gun was just playing with
So he let off a bunch of bursts of it, which
was all right, except I thought that it was
Japanese with that gun, and boy, my chow went
flying and I went for the rifle, and so that
was the end of my chow, but you know, it was
mostly, mostly, anyway, but it was just one
of the humorous things that do happen in the
midst of a battle.
And then afterwards, I was called to do
security for the graves people, people who were going
to pick up the bodies, so I had to go back
across that river with the graves people and
Nothing happened. We were just there in case. I
don't know how many bodies we recovered
the other side of the river of our own, but
there was a lot of cases. We lost a lot of men
on both sides of the river.
And we just left, so we just got on Higgins'
boat and went back on the lines and that was
the end of battle as far as I was concerned.
The army was moving in to take over and several
of us fellows were called on to take the army
out on patrol.
Another fellow and I, we've done several Army
patrols, we just went out as point patrols.
It was interesting because when we were
patrolling, we knew, let me
rephrase that, we were quite certain there were
no Japanese there, so we could
be bolder than we could and maybe show it off a
little bit in front of the
because they were on test.
We did several patrols like that.
Then we just hung around the island after that.
The Army took over and it was after, let's see,
We stayed on that island until after the end of
the year, probably the first week of January.
Did you get any exposure to other Allied
soldiers, Australians or any of that while you
were there in Guadalcanal?
We did run into one group of Australians, yes.
We saw them when we were out on patrol one
time, never was with them in combat.
I can't speak other than I saw them.
We got on the ship and we went down to
Melbourne, Australia.
I had a wonderful time.
Nine months.
You have to remember we were pretty well decimated.
We got on the ship and we went down to
Melbourne, Australia and had a wonderful time,
nine months.
You have to remember we were pretty well
decimated and those of us that were, our
company, let
me back up.
We went to the cemetery just before we left to
pay the steps for the
place that didn't make it.
The cemetery at Guadalcanal.
At Guadalcanal.
And one of the fellows counted - we had a lot
of replacements, you
know, came in all the time.
But one of the fellows, when we were standing
there at the
cemetery in formation, counted the number of
original ones of us that
that landed down there, and he had 20 some,
counted 20 of us, 20, oh, a little over 20,
probably 200. So we were, some of those were
malaria casualties, you know, not all battle
casualties, but 90% of it. That's pretty high percentage.
That's the old blast that you were a survivor of.
We got on ships and went down to Melbourne and
had nine months down there and the people
there were wonderful and treated us very, very
nicely, had a lot of liberty, and then
got laid into August, September, then we had to
get back to Krakenau.
What kind of housing did you have in Melbourne
when you stayed in Elkinson Stadium?
What was the weather like in Melbourne?
Melbourne was a temperate climate. We landed
there in January, well that's their summer.
And so when it got to July, it wasn't really
too cold. There was no snow.
After we got back organized and had a few
maneuvers and so
far, in September we got back of our ship, went
up to New Guinea.
And this is firmly New Guinea, places that had been
We were staging there to invade Cape Gloucester and
We went up there in September, and on Christmas
Day in the U.S., which was December 26th there, we
landed on Cape Gloucester.
And my stay on Cape Gloucester, well, we landed
and we drove in about a mile, or we met our
first resistance.
We had one man hit and we just stopped there
and dug in.
And we stayed on those positions for four or
five days and then we moved out a little
bit further and established a little better
position with our right flank on our riverbed.
And I was out there nine days, and we didn't
have any action.
I could hear different action along the line,
but right in front of me, there was no action
until August.
It was the eighth day.
And we faced a bayonet charge from a bunch of Japanese.
I say a bunch, I mean maybe thirty. I didn't
count them, but no more than that.
And they had snuck up within, I guess, thirty,
forty feet of our line and came up with their
bayonets and sabers.
And we nailed them before they got to the line.
It was not much of a battle because it lasted
three or four minutes.
Then after that, not knowing what was going to
happen, I was sitting on my boxhole with
my feet on the edge, sitting on top of the
hole, and with my head between my legs, just
searching, being very alert. And as I was doing
that, either a mortar or a
killer shell landed right dead in front of me,
and it smacked me in the
knee. Fortunately, my head was between my
knees, so I was lucky. But it
got me in the knee and it knocked me back into
my hole. And I didn't even
you know I was hit, because the concussion was
so great.
And so I, for some reason, I reached down and
touched my knee, pulled my hand
back, and it was all blood.
So I said, I've been hit.
And a corpsman came over and dressed my wound.
And I went back to a aid station and was the
next day
evacuated from the island, went over to New
Guinea on an LST
ambulance ship, and then from New Guinea I was
flown to
Brisbane, Australia, and I was hospitalized
there in Brisbane in an Army
hospital for a lot of months. I lost a loose
track of time in that
And they dressed me with just a cast, put my
leg in a cast, and I was that way for several months.
Well, I was already cast, but I was not walking
for several months.
And then they determined that that didn't do
the job, so they decided they had to go
in and dig that shrapnel out of my knee, which
they did.
And just being in an army hospital, they had to
send me back to the Marine Corps
to determine what they were going to do with me.
So they flew me back to Guadalcanal, which is
by now very secure.
I was surprised that we had two little strips
before, and this was a big, big base now,
big air base.
Anyway, they flew me back there, and then they
put me on a ship and went over to the
Russell Islands, which is where the 1st Marine
Division was staging.
That was our rest camp, if you could call it
that, because it was really a miserable
And so I reported to the company and they
reported to the doctor.
And the doctor said, well, we are staging to go
and hit
Taylorhook in September and lift it by the
start of August, but you
cannot go.
And I did not argue very much with them.
This would be 1944, yes, and it's like I think
September 15th, we
landed - not we, they landed on Peleliu, but I
was sent back to the U.S.
And then I went to Camp Perry, Virginia, and
just did guard duty at a
And then they decided that they didn't need me
anymore, and a month before the war ended I was discharged.
So what was the transportation back to the
States that was on a troop ship of some sort? Right.
Well, that's an interesting story that you've
got there.
What is probably your most emotional memory of
that whole period where you were in combat
and in the islands?
Probably the thing you remember the most.
Well, probably the bayonet charge because
that's getting pretty personal.
All of the others are just rifle fights where
you saw a little bit of the enemy, but not much.
Here you saw the whites of their eyes.
That's correct. And the yellow of their skin.
So that would have to be the most scary or
whatever words you want to get to.
What, on the other side of the coin, what is
the most humorous recollection that you have
from all of your time over there?
Well, I mentioned one, and that strikes me
probably as the most humorous.
Yeah, this is the one where the Japanese
machine gun was put off by the...
By one of our men.
By one of the G.I.s.
You lost your child as a result.
What about your commanding officers? What do
you remember about them? Were you close to any
of them?
I was not close to them, no, because the Marine
Corps protocol kept you from being close to them.
But the colonel in charge of our battalion, lieutenant
colonel, excuse me, Hannikin, first name was
Harold or Howard,
I'm not sure, but his last name was Hannikin.
He was a congressional Medal of Honor winner in
the Nicaragua,
long before the war, of course.
And he was one that I think everybody
respected, and then our major, Connelly, was fine.
Some of the second lieutenants were not, had a
little bit to be desired.
went through. No, we only went through. We only had
two lieutenants. I told you about the one that died.
He had a lieutenant that replaced him
afterwards. But as
I mentioned, we were through combat then. We
were just
This new lieutenant was up trying to do, we
were up, I was up on the point I think then, or
close to it, and he was up there trying to tell
us what to do, but we knew what to do, and one
of my good friends who later got killed in
favor of it, by the name of Bob Darby, he used
some profanity that I won't repeat, but he said,
He said, in effect, why don't you get your ass
back to the back of this column where you
belong, which was rather humorous because we
just didn't talk to lieutenants that way, but
he was so exasperated with him that he just
threw up the handle and the guy went back
there, went back where he belonged and he
didn't give us any more trouble.
Did you have any close buddies or special
friends that you may have mentioned one just in
passing or just before, and if so, are you
still in contact with him?
Well, this one I mentioned, I said he was
killed. I have another good friend still with
us, Frank Mack, was also killed in Paris.
No, I don't. I have contact with none of them.
As a matter of fact, I have a roster of our
company on the canal in the case of those
wounded and those still active. I went through
that. I've gone through it several times, but I
went through it fairly recently and
tried to place names of people. Two hundred
people, you get to know them pretty
pretty well. You know, you've been with them
that long. I had a hard time placing
basis with those names. Several of them I did,
but most of them I didn't.
And that was a long time ago too.
Yes it is.
What about contacts back home with family and
friends during that period?
I was single at 19 years old, I think, when I joined.
So I wrote to my mother regularly and she wrote
to me regularly.
And you got regular mail that they managed to
get there?
Yes, but I wouldn't say regular. As the ship
would come in there would be a bunch of mail on
it. You might get two or three letters at one
time, but that wasn't a problem to us.
We had more important things to worry about
than the mail.
Did you ever actually have any contact with the
Japanese other than in combat or seeing
the bodies of the Japanese in the actual fight
or prisoners of war or anything like that?
Well, most of those prisoners that we took on
the canal were Koreans.
I think they were laborers on the airfield.
That it had been crushed into service by the Japanese?
That I believe to be true.
I wouldn't swear to that, but I believe that to
be true.
No, I had no contact with the Japanese.
What's your opinion of the quality of the
medical care that you got when you were hospitalized?
Any experiences in the hospital that you want
to relate to? How was that for you?
I didn't have no problems with it.
I couldn't comment one way or another.
I just, everybody took care of me fine.
And they got you all fixed up, you don't have
any problems now with the media?
No, I don't have any real problems now.
Just, you know, you're getting older, and it rains,
the laryngitis flares up, but no real problems.
What was the return home like? Was it what you
expected it to be or were there any surprises
that you came home?
Well, I came home, let's say, alone. The war wasn't
over with yet. But we came home and landed at Camp
Pendleton in San Diego, which is a Marine base. And
stayed about three days there. That was about
Thanksgiving time.
Then I got on a troop train. I was going
cross-country because I was from the Detroit area.
One fellow said they had a bunch of drinks on
the train, people bought bottles and had them
on the train.
And one guy said, I remember very clearly,
he said, boy, it sure feels good to wake up
feeling bad in the morning.
So there was a little.
That felt like a good hangover after what you'd
been through.
That's right.
There was a little drinking on that train.
I had everything that was certain.
I got to Chicago, and then took another train
to Detroit.
Met my family, and of course, they
were just my mother and father there. My other
brothers were in the service too.
And after the war you returned to civilian life
and got married and had a family?
I didn't go back to school, which I probably
should have done, but I did not.
I worked in the insurance business and it was
fairly successful.
Q. Do you remember when you heard that the war
was over?
Where were you?
How did you feel?
A. It's very funny, because that was my first
day of work.
I went to work for this insurance company in
downtown Detroit, and I got there about 8.30 in the
morning, I suppose, and I think it was about noontime.
But the announcement came that the war was
over, and
That was the end of work for that day, for everything.
Yeah, that was a big celebration.
Right, right.
OK, Dick, are there any other recollections or comments
that you'd like to make here?
I think this has been an interesting story that you've
put forth.
It's not often you get to talk to people who
were actually
hand-to-hand with the Japanese.
What else did you have to mention here?
I think I've told you about everything I can.
It's one of those things that you wouldn't want
to have to do again, but you wouldn't trade the
experience for anything.
I'll add this, that I think the Marine Corps,
my experiences did a lot for me.
I think the discipline in the Marine Corps was great.
We had, as I was saying, those drill
instructors were the tough guys.
But they taught us real discipline.
I, being 19 years old, needed that.
And that served me very well when we had to
face combat.
And then we had to face tough ordeals other
than combat such as those patrols.
When you're out there and the water's short and
you're hot,
and you are just taught to stick it out and do it.
And it just served me well then and I think
even through the rest of my life.
I think the Marine Corps experience was really
a peak war, but a wonderful experience.
And I say a war, I don't know them again now.
I haven't seen a war in months, because that
was enough.
With that, I think I've told you about all I can.
Thank you for your time, Sir.
I appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Thank you, Gene, I appreciate it.