May 20, 1944 - Pavuvu

May 20 marks the day that Daddy arrived on Pavuvu, the largest of the Russell Islands located northwest of Guadalcanal.  The 1st Marine Division (which included the 12th Defense Battalion) had been sent there for encampment, training and R&R prior to their next engagement (which turned out to be the Battle of Peleliu.)

Pavuvu was intended to be a rest area for the 1st MarDiv, to recover from the bitter jungle warfare of Cape Gloucester, and previously, Guadalcanal.  It turned out to be nothing of the sort.

The island had been a coconut plantation until 1941, when the native people abandoned the island after Japan began sweeping through the Pacific islands.  By 1944, after the island had been retaken by the United States, rotten coconuts were everywhere.  This attracted land crabs and rats, which the Marines had to endure their entire time on the island.

Coconut groves were abandoned 3 years prior to the Marines' arrival.  One of the docks has been constructed in this photo.

From With the Old Breed, at Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge :

I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in WWII, The Pacific Theater, the Marine Corps or any and all of the above.  Sledge's recounting of his experiences provide a unique and at times, quite alarming view of what Marines endured, both in battles and, as he detailed Pavuvu, just every day life.

This book was also one of the primary sources of HBO's mini-series The Pacific, which I also highly recommend.

Similarly to Eugene Sledge at this point in the war, Daddy was a fresh recruit, and had only had training and occupation duty while on Cape Gloucester.

More to come in the following days of Daddy's comments on the islands and how some of the Marines he knew passed the time...