A Singular Marine

Most men with combat experience would be glad to escape its brutality. How can we ever adequately honor those who choose to continue to fight? The boyhood hometown of John Basilone keeps his memory alive with an annual parade in his honor. We must never forget.
Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916, John Basilone was the son of an Italian immigrant father and one of 10 children. The family later settled in Raritan, New Jersey. He attended school to the eighth grade and when he turned 18, enlisted in the Army for three years. After completing basic training, Private Basilone sailed to Hawaii and then to the Philippines, where he served a tour of duty in the tropics.
After being honorably discharged in 1937, Basilone worked as a truck driver. Apparently, Basilone missed military life, so he enlisted in the Marine Corps in July 1940. He trained at Quantico, Virginia; Parris Island, South Carolina; and New River, North Carolina—the predecessor of Camp Lejeune. Basilone also served at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before deploying to the Pacific.
On August 7, 1942, American, Australian, and New Zealand forces landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in the first major offensive launched against the Japanese. Their goal was to capture the island and use it as a staging base for future operations against the large enemy base at Rabaul.
The Allies quickly overran the Japanese defenders, even though they’d been on the island for three months. In response, the Japanese sent 15,000 troops to Guadalcanal in early October 1942, planning a major attack on the marines defending the airfield—Henderson Field—the airfield that the Japanese had been building when invaded.
Screaming “Banzai,” about 3,000 Japanese troops attacked on the night of October 24-5, 1942, with an intensity heightened by the darkness. Among the airfield’s defenders was Basilone, then part of Lt. Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller’s 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Basilone led two sections of heavy machine guns––about 16 men. Eyewitnesses remembered him fighting valiantly against the assault. After the enemy destroyed one of Basilone’s gun sections, leaving only two men, Basilone picked up a 90-pound .30-caliber machine gun and tripod ran 200 yards to the silenced gun section and started firing into the charging Japanese. Then, while under constant fire, Basilone repaired another machine gun and manned it, holding his line.
As the Japanese bodies started to pile up in front of his emplacement, Basilone was attacked from the rear. He took out several of these attackers with his pistol. Later that night, as Basilone’s guns were running out of ammunition and his supply lines were cut off, he ran about 200 yards amid gunfire through hostile lines to an ammunition point. There he gathered shells and fought his way back to his gunners with the ammunition they needed. He crawled and ran through enemy fire a second time for more ammunition for his guns and then continued to fight.
Basilone killed at least 38 Japanese soldiers that night. The heat of the machine gun barrel had blistered his hands yet he continued to fire. Said Marine Pfc. Nash W. Phillips, who was in Basilone’s unit: “Basilone had a machine gun on the go for three days and nights without sleep, rest or food…. He was in a good emplacement, and causing the Japs lots of trouble, not only firing his machine gun but also using his pistol.”
Dubbed “Manila John” by his fellow marines who knew of his service in the Philippines, Basilone stayed on the move during the attack, repositioning the .30-caliber machine guns in his weapons platoon, helping gunners clear jams, and inspiring the men in his company to fight on against overwhelming odds.
Basilone’s heroics resulted in his receiving a Medal of Honor citation signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1943. He was the first enlisted marine to earn America’s highest combat award in World War II.
The Marine Corps sent Basilone home and then on a nationwide war bond tour. A homecoming parade in his honor drew 30,000 onlookers and was featured on national news shows and in Life magazine. Basilone became a celebrity and was recognized everywhere he went. Nonetheless, he wanted to return to the Marine Corps—and the war in the Pacific.
But the Marine Corps denied Basilone’s request to return to combat. Instead, the corps offered him a commission as a second lieutenant and an assignment in Washington, D.C. Basilone declined the offer, saying, according to one source: “I ain’t no officer, and I ain’t no museum piece. I belong back with my outfit.”
In late December 1943, Gunnery Sergeant Basilone was assigned to Camp Pendleton, California, part of a unit training to deploy to the Pacific. There, he fell in love with a female marine sergeant, Lena Mae Riggi. They married in July 1944. After a short honeymoon on her parents’ farm in Oregon, Basilone’s unit got orders to sail to the Pacific.
On D-day on Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945, Basilone waded ashore with his platoon on Red Beach II, located on the island’s southern tip near Mt. Suribachi. Basilone served as a machine-gun section leader in Company C, 1st Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division.
Enemy fire from fortified bunkers rained on the men, pinned down on the black sand. Basilone recognized that his men would live only if they kept moving. He yelled at them: “Get off the beach!” Then, he worked his way around the flank, singlehandedly attacking and destroying a Japanese blockhouse with grenades and demolitions, which allowed his unit to capture a nearby airfield.
Later, Basilone helped a Marine Corps tank trapped in an enemy minefield in danger of being destroyed by mortar and artillery fire. Despite shells exploding all around him, Basilone guided the tank to safety. Just minutes later, while moving along the edge of an airfield, he was hit by shrapnel from an exploding mortar. About 30 minutes later, he died of his wounds at age 27.
For his bravery on Iwo Jima, Basilone was awarded a Navy Cross; his widow was presented this decoration and his Purple Heart. The Navy Cross ranks second only to the Medal of Honor as an American award for combat heroism. It is so seldom awarded that Basilone is the only enlisted marine to have received both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross as well as the only Medal of Honor recipient to be killed in action after returning to combat.
Basilone is interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. In July 1949, the destroyer, USS Basilone, was named in his honor. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp bearing his likeness in November 2005. Books written about him include James Brady’s Hero of the Pacific, and Jim Proser’s and Jerry Cutter’s I’m Staying with My Boys. The 2010 HBO miniseries, The Pacific, also portrayed Basilone, played by actor Jon Seda. The town of Raritan, New Jersey, has held an annual parade in Basilone’s honor since 1981.
His widow lived until 1999 but never remarried.