Hour 3: Memorial Day Special 2024 - The Battle of Savo Island

Lighting up a ship like a Christmas tree in the middle of the night. The Japanese assault of the US navy during WW2 in the Solomon Islands.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show. It is The Jesse
Kelly Show. Final hour of The Jesse Kelly Show on
a Memorial Day, honoring the fallen with all three hours today,
no politics, no food talk, just history stories, reading the
names of the fallen. In case you're just now joining us,

(00:32):
I'm in the middle of a story about the Battle
of Tsavo Island, so that's kind of what you miss.
The Japanese or they've taken over a bunch of stuff
in World War Two, we're just now starting to fight back.
We're trying to get into Guadalcanal. We get on Guadalcanal
and then the Navy has to take its aircraft carriers
and leave because it's worried. And that's where we're gonna

(00:55):
get back to in a second. Let me read a
couple more names here. Joseph W. Morrell, World War Two,
Europe Senior Airman Richard Galilei, Galilei Training Accident Staff, Sergeant
Rusty Hunter, Christian Kia, Operation Enduring Freedom. We will continue
on with those names and stories throughout the show until

(01:18):
we finish here. Now, let's go back to the Battle
of Tsavo Island. So they drop our Marines at Guadalcanal.
The aircraft carriers leave, and now our marines don't have
that much in the way of naval support, but there
are still ships there, cruisers and things. We still have
a navy presence, and the naval ships that are there,

(01:41):
they are definitely aware of their predicament. And here's their predicament.
There's a place it's called Ruball. Ruball. It was really
Japanese Pacific headquarters during World War Two. They built the

(02:01):
thing up into being this juggernaut. That's where the Navy
would go and refit and refuel, and the planes at
Rueball was everything to them. The reason so many Americans
don't know its name is we never invaded it. The
reason we never invaded it was we ended up taking
so many and taking so much control of the sea

(02:23):
that we figured it would be too hard to invade it.
Just cut it off and then I'm all starved to death,
and that's pretty much what we did anyway. But Rubaal
is still hot and heavy right now. They are going
And what's happening is the Japanese are close enough. Ruball
is close enough that they're already launching air attacks from
Rubaal and they're recawnings. This is part of combat that

(02:47):
we don't think about as much. It's very human nature
not to think about this. Where are they? How many
are there? These questions are always on people's minds, and
we don't automatically know those things. Even today with the
planes and the satellites and the pictures in the internet.

(03:09):
Where's the enemy? How many of them are there? What
kind of equipment do they have? In the Pacific? Now
picture the Pacific Ocean. Just there's nothing out there, and
then there's islands, and then there's nothing out there and
there's islands. You have to go find them. They're not
radioing you ahead of time, letting you know where they are.
The Japanese begin to launch all kinds of reconnaissance planes

(03:32):
from Rubaal. What are we dealing with with the Marines
on the island, What are we dealing with as far
as the navy? What kind of ships do they have
out there? And remember, just because you launch planes doesn't
mean the planes will see them either, And that's going
to come into play really here. Just because you're on
a recon mission, whether you have a ship out there
doing ricon or a plane out there doing ricon, trying

(03:54):
to find the enemy. Just because you're doing one doesn't
mean you're going to find them. The Pacific Ocean all
it is a huge place, and you can lose entire fleets.
You can go right, you can be within twenty miles.
I want to not see it. It's hard to find
things in the ocean. Honestly, that survivors were ever found

(04:14):
in World War Two in the water after they went
in the water, that they found the USS Indianapolis guys
at all is a miracle. It is. You don't find
things anyway. So the Japanese they're deciding they're launching all
these recons and they figure out, hey, we have these
Marines on Guadalcanal, let's get them off Guadalcanal. Still, they

(04:37):
think they can fight the Marines off, and so they
try to start reinforcing Guadalcanal. They're sending troops down there. Well,
one of these troop transports, the Japanese send, has over
three hundred Japanese troops on it, heading towards Guadalcanal, and
it runs into a US submarine. It didn't know was

(04:58):
there submarine. A couple torpedoes into its side. Three hundred
Japanese troops go to the bottom of the Pacific. They
never get to Guadalcanal in order to reinforce their guys
and fight the Marines off. All right, the Japanese have
had about enough of this. They believe, they believe that

(05:21):
they can wound the US Navy and sweep us off
the sea. Their goal is get our naval vessels that
are parked outside of Guadalcanal, get them gone. And the
Japanese were huge believers in surprise ambush, night attacks. They

(05:45):
were huge believers in decisive battles. They were so bold. Honestly,
if it wasn't for their inhuman brutality during World War Two,
it would be hard not to just admire a lot
of their military philosophy. They would take big, big, big chances.
And here's what they decide to do. After the American

(06:07):
carriers leave. Now the Navy's sitting there, we lost the
troop transport. What if we took a bunch of ships
under one of our greatest generals, and what if we
launched a surprise night attack against all the naval vessels
that are left around guatdal Canal. After all, it's the

(06:29):
US Navy. We're better than them. They don't see it coming.
So here's how we're going to set this up. Just
in your mind. You know, you're probably driving or cooking
or working out or doing something. So I just want
to do this image. If you have a piece of paper,
you can write it down. If not, it's fine. Just
do it in your head. So just draw a circle
in the piece of paper. All right, See that circle,
narrative circle on your piece of paper. That's guattal Canal.

(06:50):
It's very much not shaped like that I need to
point out, but anyway, for our purposes, that's where it is.
The top of the circle, go up top. The northern part.
That's the ocean. I know it's an island. It's surrounded
by ocean. Just stay with me. The northern part is
the ocean where our navy is patrolling. The Marines are

(07:10):
on the northern part of guatdal Canal. The US Navy
is patrolling off of the guattal Canal shores, Rubaal, this
big Japanese military base. As you're looking at the piece
of paper, it's on your left. It's out west. Okay,
it's not critical that you understand that, but it will

(07:31):
help kind of visualize where it's from Rubaal is west.
There's Guadalcanal. We landed on the northern part of at
the top of it, and our navy is patrolling on
the top of that. Now the navy has to figure
out they have to figure out how they're going to
secure this kind of an area so that they will

(07:52):
know if the Japanese Navy is coming their way, if
reinforcements are coming their way. How exactly do you go
about that? You know, you can't just put your ships
ten miles off shore and park them all there. You've
got to go out and you've got to look. You've
got to go look for the enemy. You have to
set up ships in little corridors where you think the

(08:13):
enemy might come. You've got to figure this thing out.
And this is honestly, this is just some all time
bad luck occurs here, a couple of different in a
couple different ways, some all time bad luck. Here. One,
we send the Australians. The Australians are part of this
whole thing that we're working with their navy. Okay, we're

(08:35):
working with the Australian Navy. We take the Australian dude
and we send him west, all right, and we just
send him west and we say, hey, admiral, Australian guy, good,
I mate, you go west. I'm not insulting them. The
Australians were awesome and World War two they're great fighter's
great military history. You go to this little part out

(08:56):
west and you give us a heads up if any
of these jap and these Navy ships start coming our way.
That's your job is to patrol this area and watch.
All right. So we send him west, and we send
one of our guys and again just a little ship.
We send him northwest. Hey, I believe he was in
a destroyer. You go up there and watch, all right,
see you with me. We have guys watching west. We

(09:19):
have guys watching northwest. And then bad luck happens, and
bad luck is just one of those things. So this
Japanese admiral, he's leaving Rubaal and he's got these heavy
cruisers and destroyers. He's got this little Navy attack ambush force.

(09:42):
I want to make sure I give him credit where
credit is due. He is a slick, smooth operator. He
understands that there are US attack subs in the area.
He understands that there are American reconplanes in the area.
Some not many, but there are some in the area,
and he understands the element of surprise is critical, so

(10:04):
he launches this little ambush at the right time. He
does get a little bit of luck courtesy of mother
nature where there was super low, thick cloud cover that day,
so his little attack force is extremely hidden, and he
understood where the patrols were, and he kind of did

(10:25):
some pretty slick operating to avoid these patrols. But he
is heading towards that western patrol where the Australian Admiral is.
So why didn't the AMRO intercept him? In time? We'll
talk about that next truth Attitude. Jesse Kelly. It is

(10:47):
the Jesse Kelly Show on a Memorial Day, telling about
the telling the story of the Battle of Tsavo Island,
honoring the phone as best we can all three hours today.
A few more names for you, Sean Patrick Grimes, Operation
Iraqi Freedom, PFC James Edward Tobin Korea, David Nelson Fox Vietnam.

(11:11):
Get to some more when we get back, some more
from other things. We're going back to the Battle of
Tsavo Island. I'm gonna try to wrap this up here
so I can tell a couple other little stories, some
Air Force cross Siitasian silver star stuff, some other cool things.
But before I do that, So the Japanese, this admiral,
he manages, he gets the advantage of low cloud cover
and he starts sailing towards the Americans and he intends

(11:35):
to ambush them off of Guaddalcanal. Luck is just one
of those things. Bad luck visits you when good luck
visits you. The Australian admiral who was sent to do
the patrolling in the west so he would see any
Japanese who were coming and give everyone a heads up.

(11:59):
On the night he gets called to a meeting, pulling
him away from that area that happens to be the
night where the Japanese ambush is coming through. We pull
the abrol in charge of that particular area away for
a matter of hours so he could come to a

(12:19):
meeting to decide what to do next, and boom, that
Japanese navy goes cruising on by when he gets pulled
off of his post. All time bad luck. Now, the
Japanese Navy has the element of surprise on their side.
They have experience on their side. Our navy is not

(12:41):
experienced yet. We are very green, very fresh. And the
Japanese they train to fight at night. They're famous for
this in World War Two, both on the land and
in the sea. They believe it gives them an advantage
because they love fighting at night. They trained to fight
at night. Other people, other armies don't like to fight

(13:04):
at night. They're always looking for any little advantage. Again,
it's a really cool thing. They did this to the
point where they had extreme testing for the eyesight of
their people in the navy and in the army, and
you had special postings if you could see better at night.
They were obsessed with scopes. Who could see things at night?

(13:25):
They would flare you, they would light you up. And
this is what happens to this naval group just off
the coast of Guadalcanal. Right as the Japanese are approaching,
getting ready to ambush them in the inky black night
of the Pacific Ocean, aircraft, Japanese aircraft start dropping aircraft

(13:47):
flareres over the top of the US Navy. So our navy, now,
it's not as if our guys are sitting there picking
their nose. They were. They knew they could be in danger,
but they had no idea. You would have no idea.
And because the Australian guy got pulled off his post,
no one told him it was coming of a sudden.

(14:07):
It's the middle of the night and boof, your ship
is lit up like a Christmas tree, and the Japanese navy,
who has trained for this, begins dumping ammunition into your sides,
and US sailors start dying. And again, I have a

(14:29):
lot of fun poking fun at the other services, just
because it's fun to do that. It makes me laugh,
makes everyone laugh, everyone enjoys that, everyone who was in
enjoys it. I have such an inhuman amount of respect
for fighting navy sailors, guys who've been in naval combat,
because every part of it, I'll be honest with you,
terrifies me to the point I don't know that I

(14:51):
could do it. When I say lit up in the
middle of the night. How many sailors were asleep and
the bows of these ships when they were awakened to
artillery shells blowing them up. How many guys died in
the dark, burned, death, drown How many guys were blown

(15:18):
off the ships, drowned in the water. Maybe the sharks
got him. It was naval combat is so horrible. You're
in a gigantic ball of shrapnel. It's all armor and
steel and stuff that gets really hot, it blows up,
it kills you. The ship is full of fuel, the

(15:40):
ship is full of ammunition, and you're shooting at other
ships and they're shooting at you. While you're doing this.
The Southern group that gets ambushed right here takes a beating.
And you should feel really good about yourself, though, because
while we did definitely we lacked experience at this point

(16:03):
in the war, the Japanese navy was better. They had
better commanders, more experienced, their ships were great, and things
like that. But be very, very proud of yourself if
you're an American, because the Americans they may have lacked
the skill, but they did not lack the grid. While
we were taking a beating from these things, we were

(16:23):
hitting back with everything we've got. Everything we've got, we're
launching it back in the Japanese they're taking hits too.
Now they're not taking the hits we're taking. They have
all the initiative, they had, everything was on their side.
They are brutalizing us. I don't want to act like, oh,
it could have gone either way. No, no, no, we got
our butts kicked really bad. But they dive in on

(16:45):
the Southern group. They essentially wipe out the Southern group,
and they know there's a northern group that's a little
further north off Guadalcanal. They turn and head towards the
Northern group because they're gonna make this two fer while
they still have the advantage of the darkness in the night.
They're gonna go dive onto the northern group and see

(17:07):
if they can't sweep the navy off the seas. I'll
tell you what happens next next. Feeling a little stocky,
follow like and subscribe on social at Jesse Kelly DC.
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Memorial Days.
Finishing up the story now of the Battle of Tsavo Island,

(17:29):
and then I'll get to a couple more of these
citations before we leave here, and I'll leave you to
the week and I'll be back in a week. So,
Battalisavo Island, Japanese navy just ambushed a group of our
naval vessels and beat them up very very badly. And
then they turn north because they're going to go attack
the Northern Group and attempt to finish us off. Now

(17:51):
I'm not gonna name his name because I feel horrible
for the guy, the Southern Group commander, for whatever reason,
and I don't know the reasons I dug into this.
I dug into a lot of it yesterday trying to
come up with some sort of an explanation, and I
didn't get one. Maybe he was confused, maybe he was sick,

(18:12):
I don't know. But he gets ambushed by this Japanese
group that beats him up badly, and he doesn't he
doesn't relay the information to the Northern Group. He doesn't
tell anyone. He just got ambushed by this Japanese navy
group that nobody knew that were there, and he doesn't
tell anybody. And the reason I'm not going to say

(18:35):
his name is he was so torn up with guilt
after this that a couple months later he committed suicide
and he killed himself. He couldn't live with himself after
what he'd done or didn't do. You know, that's part
of combat too. Either way, they get to the Northern
Group and because no one had told them they were
coming again, the Japanese had the element of supply surprise

(19:00):
on their side, and they again beat our guys up.
And once again I need to clarify the bravery of
the US Navy when they were taking this beating. It
was amazing some of these ships. One ship in particular,
it was pretty much done for, it was on fire

(19:20):
and probably going to sink, and the ship still turned
into the Japanese convoy just so they could fire some
more shots at them as they were going down into
the water. Really just gripped an admirable amount of grit.
Now we got guns too. It was awesome, it was amazing,
but we lost it. We lost badly, badly. Men are dying,

(19:42):
men are burning, men are drowning in the middle of
the night in the Pacific. By the grace of God.
The Japanese they got worried about daylight coming, They got
worried about American reinforcements. You know, you never know where
the other guy is. They didn't, They didn't have a
transponder letting them know that the rest of our name,
he was off somewhere. So this admiral decides he's not

(20:03):
going to press his luck and he's going to leave. Well,
remember how I was talking about luck and all time
bad luck. And remember how I was talking about the
different patrols that were out there, and I told you
there was this destroyer in the northwest and his job
was just to kind of patrol and make sure the
Japanese never attacked. Well, as the Japanese leave, they run

(20:30):
into this poor destroyer who's just out on patrol, has
no idea what's going on, has no idea the Japanese
are even there. He's by himself, and the Japanese ambush
patrol happens to basically trip on him on the way
back to Rubaal, their base, and of course they just

(20:51):
blow him right out of the water too. Now, I
do want to put one little good bow on this
story before we honor the rest of these navy guys
that fell and whatnot. The Japanese didn't have all the
good luck in the Battle of Tsavo Island. They did

(21:11):
happen to run into a US submarine they didn't know
was there on their way back, and this submarine sent
a Japanese naval vessel to the bottom of the Pacific
Ocean with the torpedo. So, believe me, we got some
of ours. But the Battle of Tsavo Island was horrific
in so many ways. And if you've ever seen have

(21:32):
you ever seen the mini series The Pacific when they
land on Guadalcanal and there's a couple scenes. I haven't
seen it in a while, but they essentially wake up
one day and the Navy's gone. Then the Marines on Guadalcanal,
they just landed there and they're looking around and hey,
where are the support vessels, where's our where's our food,

(21:54):
where's everything? Well, the Battle of Tsavo Island swept the
Navy off the set and around Guatdalcanal. This Battle of
Tsavo Island is the reason the Marines were left on
Guadalcanal without any support at all. And you know, again

(22:17):
we talked about that last hour when we were talking
about the Civil War. Those are seventeen year olds, eighteen
year olds. I'm forty two years old. Here I am today,
forty two years old, got a job, I love family,
I love forty two. Seventeen eighteen, they gave all that

(22:39):
up and they died in the dark waters of the
Pacific that long ago. They gave all that up. And
I just think that is I don't know, I find
it very hard to know. The best way to honor them,
To be honest with you, I think it is so
sad but awesome and admirable that these men, I mean

(23:00):
all of them, that they've given up so much for US.
Pfc Michael Metcalf Operation and Enduring Freedom, Zachary Golli EOD
training accident, SAVA, Sergeant Albert Hoover plane malfunction. They give
up so much. And you know, let's let's do a

(23:21):
couple other readings here before we check out, because there
are a couple other things I want to get to.
Someone sent this one is this one in Captain Edward
Ewan November two thousand and four and January of two
thousand and four. Ed was deployed to Iraq in the
spring and summer of two thousand and four. Task Force
two to two Infantry that Ed was part of fought
in several cities, including Bakuba, Mazl and Madiah. During the

(23:46):
summer of two thousand and four, ed was promoted to
executive Officer of Company A. For those who don't know,
that means he's the second in charge of Alpha Company
Company A. He's a big he's a big done. On
November two thousand or November fifth, two thousand and four,
Ed's infantry company moved to Camp Fallujah to take part
in the Battle of Fallujah, also called Operation Phantom Fury.

(24:09):
On November twelfth, Ed's task force found itself in the
middle of a complex ambush. Ed was fatally injured when
his Bradley fighting vehicle was struck by a rocket propelled grenade.
Ron Kamarda was with Ed at surgical Bravo anointed him
with Holy Oils. Father ron Kamarda anointed him with Holy

(24:30):
Oils and sang, Oh, Holy Knight. As life as we
know it left him. Ed was awarded the Purple Heart
and Bronze Star for his actions. He was also promoted
to captain after his death. These are the stories, the
stories we have to tell. Here's this guy. Air Force Cross, Vietnam.

(24:52):
President of the United States of America, authorized by Title ten,
Section eight seven four to two United States Code takes
pride in prison, presenting the Air Force Cross posthumously to
Captain Charles Edwin Engle, United States Air Force Reserve for
extraordinary heroism and military operations against an opposing armed force

(25:12):
as forward air controller and pilot of an one aircraft
of the fifty six Special Operations Wing Oudorn Royal Thai
air Base, Thailand, and action in Southeast Asia on the
twentieth of July nineteen seventy. On that date, while attempting
to pinpoint a downed pilot's location, Captain Engle's aircraft was

(25:34):
met with a hail of gunfire which severed the fuel line,
drenching the aircraft in the pilot. With complete disregard for
his own safety, Captain Angle continued his efforts to suppress
ground fire positions. When the pilot was located, a pickup
was attempted. During the attempt, the rescue aircraft helicopter received

(25:55):
heavy automatic weapons fire. Realizing that the rescue aircraft was
extreme danger of being shot down, Captain Angle, again with
complete disregard for his own safety, dove his aircraft between
the gun position and the helicopter, thereby allowing the helicopter
to safely break away. After the ground fire was suppressed,

(26:17):
other aircraft moved in for a successful pickup. Through his
extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness in the face of
the enemy, Captain Angle reflected the highest credit upon himself
in the United States Air Force. We have one segment left,
and then we're leaving. Okay, hang on, I've got on

(26:38):
aima inside on me, says Jesse Kelly. You're listening to
the Jesse Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Show.
Final segment of The Jesse Kelly Show. On a very special,
very sacred Memorial Day, as every Memorial Day is, today's
the day just to honor the fallen and the families

(27:01):
they leave behind. We don't do politics this day. We
don't take the day off, we don't do ads. This
is just a day to honor the follow and we
don't do another show all year like this day, and
it's just something we want to do. So we're going
to read a few things here as we finish us
up a few Silver Stars, distinguished service things, as much
as I can possibly fit in before we leave. This

(27:23):
one is a Patrick Bryan Olson Air Force Gulf War
for February nineteen ninety one Silver Star. The President of
the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress
July ninth, nineteen eighteen, takes pride in presenting the Silver
Star posthumously to Captain Bryant. Captain Patrick Bryan Olsen, United

(27:44):
States Air Force for gallantry in action while engaged in
military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force, in
action as pilot of an A ten Thunderbolt, and action
against Iraq and Kuwait theater of operations Operation Desert Storm.
On the twenty seventh of February nineteen ninety one, while

(28:06):
attacking the Medina Division of the Republican Guard, Lieutenant Olson's
aircraft sustained severe battle damage with the complete loss of
hydraulic pressure. He transitioned to manual reversion flight controls and
maneuvered his crippled aircraft back to friendly territory. Captain Olson
lost his life on landing while attempting to save a

(28:28):
valuable aircraft. By his gallantry and devotion to duty and
dedication of his service to his country, Captain Olson has
reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions
of the United States Air Force. It's another thing we
don't talk about when it comes to pilots and aircrew.
How dangerous of a job it is. Flying's dangerous enough

(28:52):
flying when people were shooting at you. Mechanical failure, things
are going wrong every time these guys get in there,
those planes and go up. Whether it's in training or combat.
It might be their last time. You want to read
heartbreaking stories, read stories to speaking of the ballgunner, we've
told these stories before. Ballgunner be seventeen. The hydraulic lines

(29:15):
get shot out, so he can't move the ball. Therefore
he can't get out of the ball because there was
only one position where you could get out of it,
out of it and get up into the plane, and
the ship's land or the plane's landing gear won't go down,
so he knows when he lands he's going to get
mashed into a pancake. He knows this for hours. He's

(29:37):
flying home knowing he's dead. What are those moments like?
What's that like? Shly, The President of the United States
of America takes pride in presenting the Silver Star posthumously
to Staff Sergeant Ryan Augusto Tejada, United States Marine Corps

(29:58):
for conspicuous gallantry, intrepidity, and action against the enemy as
Platoon Sergeant, second Platoon, Company K, third Battalion, fifth Marines,
Regional Combat Team, five, first Marine Division, first Marine Expeditionary
Force in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom
from the twenty first of March to the eleventh of

(30:21):
April two thousand and three, Staff Sergeant hee Hada aggressively
and fearlessly led his marines gosh, just saye this one.
On the third of April two thousand and three, his
company came under intense small arms fire from entrenched Republican
Guard positions outside the city of al Isaiah. With complete

(30:44):
disregard for his personal safety, Staff Sergeant de Hata exposed
himself to the enemy fire and charged into the enemy fortifications.
Leading his patoon's assault on enemy positions, he single handedly
cleared one position, killing two Republican Guard soldiers. He then
led a fire team to destroy a second enemy position.

(31:08):
On the eleventh of April two thousand and three, while
conducting a foot mobile combat patrol in the Ur district
of Baghdad, his patom was ambushed from multiple directions with
small arms and rocket propelled grenades. Taking charge at the
head of the formation, he inspired his marines and directed
them to positions to counter the enemy's attack. While bravely

(31:32):
leading and fighting beside his marines, he was struck by
enemy fire, immortally wounded. By his bold leadership, wise judgment,
and complete dedication to duty, Staff Sergeant Tehata reflected great
credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the
Marine Corps and the US Naval Service. And I will
tell you this from people who know that was a

(31:54):
full grown man right there. That was a man. He
was an awesome Marine Center five brother. This ones from
Richard Dick Bong, Army Air Force, World War II Pacific,
eight days before Japan's surrender, for conspicuous gallantry. This is
a medal of honor and intrepidity in action above and

(32:14):
beyond the call of duty and the Southwest Pacific area
from the tenth of October to the fifteenth of November
nineteen forty four. Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor
and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major
Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request, engaged in

(32:36):
repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over borneo and
in the Laity area of the Philippines. His aggressiveness and
daring resulted in his shooting down eight enemy planes during
this period. There are look, I could read silver stars.

(32:57):
I mean, look, I'll just do another one here. One more.
Hermi Johann Friedrich Baucher, President of the United States of America,
authorized by Act of Congress July nineth nineteen eighteen, takes
pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Captain then
Staff Sergeant Hermann Baucher, US Army for extraordinary heroism in
connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving

(33:20):
with one hundred and twenty six Infantry Division thirty six
Infantry Division in action against enemy forces from the fifth
to the eleventh of December nineteen forty two in the
vicinity of Buna, New Guinea. During an attack on enemy positions,
Captain Baucher led a unit which cut off communications between
Japanese garrisons at Buna and Buna's Mission government station. Later,

(33:42):
during a simultaneous attack by both enemy garrisons, Captain Baucher
calmly stood up and threw hand grenades at the advancing troops.
Although wounded in this action, he stayed with his unit
until relieved. His outstanding leadership and personal heroism repeatedly inspired
his men and was primarily responsible for the success of
their defense and exemplify the highest traditions of the military

(34:05):
forces of the United States, and reflect great credit upon himself.
The thirty second Infantry Division in the United States Army,
and to that gentleman and every man and woman who
has given their life on behalf of this country. We
pray for your families that you leave behind. We just
want to say thank you. There's nothing else to say,

(34:27):
nothing else is worth saying, but thank you. Thank you
for what you gave up for this country. That's all