Bob Hope on performing for the First Marine Division on Pavuvu

Crowd of Marines for Bob Hope's show on Pavuvu

Bob Hope performed for the First Marine Division on Banika and Pavuvu in mid to late August of 1944.  In an interview later in life, he shared how much that show impacted him.

12th AAA War Diary Entry : August 19-26

Beginning today, I will be updating the blog with the unclassified war diary entries of the 12th AAA from these dates in 1944.  I was able to make copies of these documents in August of 2009 at the National Archives.  There are quite a few dates with nothing substantial, but some are quite interesting, and especially so once the unit lands on Peleliu September 15.

June 9, 1944 - Banika

Daddy, and his battalion were transferred to Guadalcanal, then Banika Island in June 1944.

In His Own Words : A Lesson On Stills From The USMC

What do Marines do when they are bored?  Anything they can think of.

Sid Phillips on his reunion with Eugene Sledge on Pavuvu and the conditions there

Sid Phillips (author of You'll Be Sor-ree!: A Guadalcanal Marine Remembers the Pacific War and major character in the HBO mini-series The Pacific) recalls seeing his good friend from Mobile, Alabama after being separated for months.  Sledge had just arrived in the Pacific and Phillips had fought at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester and was about to go home.  He also mentions, towards the end of the clip, the terrible conditions the Marines had to put up with on Pavuvu.

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.

May 1, 1944 - Letter From Cape Gloucester

This was the last letter from Cape Gloucester.  According to his date book, Daddy arrived on Pavuvu May 20, 1944.

The 1st Marine Division departed in two echelons on 6 April and 4 May. Left behind was the 12th Defense Battalion, which continued to provide antiaircraft defense for the Cape Gloucester airfields until relieved by an Army unit late in May. Cape Gloucester : The Green Inferno by Bernard C. Nalty