A MARINE AT GUADALCANAL

Roy H. Elrod was born in 1919 and grew up on a farm near Muleshoe, Texas, that his widowed mother operated. He managed to save enough money, even during the Great Depression, to attend Texas A&M, but in 1940 he dropped out of college to enlist in the Marine Corps, where he rose through the ranks rapidly. By the time his 8th Marine Regiment was sent to Guadalcanal in November 1942 he was commanding a platoon of 37mm antitank gunners.

As he and his fellow marines moved through the jungles of Guadalcanal on January 15, 1943, Elrod engaged a particularly deadly Japanese machine gun emplacement and disabled it by crawling to the front of the nest and jerking the red-hot barrel out of the enemy’s hands. He then killed both gunners. For his combat leadership, he received a Silver Star and a battlefield promotion to lieutenant colonel.

Elrod’s last and final combat was at Saipan, where he was severely wounded by Japanese artillery fire. He was awarded the Purple Heart for his action there.

“The longer we stayed, the more the men suffered. It wasn’t just sickness.”

Elrod died in 2016 at age 97. The narrative that follows is We Were Going to Win, or Die There—With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan