A Fathers’ Day story
Art sends us a link to the story at the Daily Beast about Peter Richmond whose father was a 26-year-old Captain on Guadalcanal in 1942. His father died at a young age twenty years later and the son went looking for his father’s story;
“Through two nights, all hell broke loose,” one of his lieutenants told me about the Ridge. “And after that thing was over, some kid who had been through all of that, he said, ‘Oh–here’s a grenade, I’m going to move it so nobody kicks it accidentally.’ With that, we all screamed at him, and it went off and killed him. He survived two days of hell, and he tried to do a good thing, and he died.”
It occurs to me that, while the odds are long, the hand grenade at my feet could very well have been thrown by my father, the 26-year-old captain and commander of G Company, Second Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, First Marine Division (G-2-5). He lost 30 men on this ridge.
It’s a long article, so I’m not stealing it from the Daily Beast, but you should read the whole thing.
Category: Who knows
What a mess.
Granted, this young son (now an old man), lost his father at an early age. NO mention of how or why the father died.
But much of it reads as a whining, self-pitying screed.
This is something that should have been read to his psychiatrist, and then tucked in a drawer, to be read by HIS son when his son is grown.
The father died in a commercial airline mid-air collision. It is mentioned at the end of the story.
It was the repeated mention of the .45 service revolver that ruined it for me.
Except that there actually was such a thing. Both the Colt M1917 and Smith&Wesson M1917 were chambered in .45ACP and used half-moon clips to keep the rimless rounds in place. They were produced during WWI, when production of the 1911 wasn’t keeping up with demand and making a .45 revolver was quicker than retooling the entire line for 1911s. Both models were still in inventory during WWII, and many were carried by Marines on Guadalcanal. His dad very well might have had an M1917 for his sidearm.
I know what you meant with your last line. This was more of a personal account for him and his family than anything else. I guess that explains the father’s day angle.
Regardless of how the article read to me, Peter Richmond’s father Tom, served as a Marine on Guadalcanal and several other island campaigns. For this, I offer my utmost respect and thanks to Captain Tom Richmond.
As a son of a WWII combat vet (Hurtgen Forest/Bulge/Rhine, etc) who died young after the war, I have always maintained he was killed in WWII but didn’t keel over until 20 years later. I think that describes a lot of combat vets.