PFC Norman A. Asselin KIA Marianas Is, August 16, 1944
Unit Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines 2nd Marine Division, FMF
Hometown: Little Falls, New York
Wife, Mrs. Norman A. Asselin
Service# 913040
Awards: World War II Victory Medal, Purple Heart
Details of career here.
Deployed during January 1942 to American Samoa and detached from the 2nd Marine Division, they participated in the following World War II campaigns:
Guadalcanal campaign
On 4 and 5 November 1942 (D+90) the 8th Marines (1st, 2nd, 3rd BN's) led by Colonel Richard H. Jeschke arrived from American Samoa, landing as reinforcements on Guadalcanal.
The 2d Marines was now relieved and the 6th Marines moved into the attack along the coast while the 8th Marines took up the advance inland. Naval gunfire support, spotted by naval officers ashore, improved measurably. On 31 January, the 2d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. 1st Battalion 8th Marines headed for Wellington, New Zealand.
At noon, 10 August, the 8th Marines became part of the Tinian Island Command, but the mop-up operations continued. On 25 October 8th Marines left 1st Battalion 8th Marines on Tinian and moved back to Saipan. After five months' garrison duty, 1/8 left Tinian and moved back to Saipan on 1 January 1945. For the 8th Marine Regiment securing Tinian came at a cost of 36 KIA and 294 WIA, the highest casualties of the five regiments assigned to the 2nd Marine Division.
Tinian had a strategic significance not fully apparent to the Marines who captured it in July 1944: slightly over a year later, 6 August 1945, the island provided the Army Air Forces a site from which the B-29 Enola Gay carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. From the same field three days later another B-29 carried a second bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki.
PFC Norman A. Asselin KIA Marianas Is, August 16, 1944
Unit Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines 2nd Marine Division, FMF
Hometown: Little Falls, New York
Wife, Mrs. Norman A. Asselin
Service# 913040
Awards: World War II Victory Medal, Purple Heart
Details of career here.
Deployed during January 1942 to American Samoa and detached from the 2nd Marine Division, they participated in the following World War II campaigns:
Guadalcanal campaign
On 4 and 5 November 1942 (D+90) the 8th Marines (1st, 2nd, 3rd BN's) led by Colonel Richard H. Jeschke arrived from American Samoa, landing as reinforcements on Guadalcanal.
The 2d Marines was now relieved and the 6th Marines moved into the attack along the coast while the 8th Marines took up the advance inland. Naval gunfire support, spotted by naval officers ashore, improved measurably. On 31 January, the 2d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. 1st Battalion 8th Marines headed for Wellington, New Zealand.
At noon, 10 August, the 8th Marines became part of the Tinian Island Command, but the mop-up operations continued. On 25 October 8th Marines left 1st Battalion 8th Marines on Tinian and moved back to Saipan. After five months' garrison duty, 1/8 left Tinian and moved back to Saipan on 1 January 1945. For the 8th Marine Regiment securing Tinian came at a cost of 36 KIA and 294 WIA, the highest casualties of the five regiments assigned to the 2nd Marine Division.
Tinian had a strategic significance not fully apparent to the Marines who captured it in July 1944: slightly over a year later, 6 August 1945, the island provided the Army Air Forces a site from which the B-29 Enola Gay carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. From the same field three days later another B-29 carried a second bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki.
Inscription
PFC, US MARINE CORPS WORLD WAR II
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