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Finally! The holy grail of WWII USMC dog tags-for me that is.


bellasilva
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I'm extremely happy with this one. I've been looking for a tag with this sort of history for a long time now. Paul H. Doll served with Weapons Company, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division as an Antitank Gun Crewman at Guadalcanal and Tarawa. He was wounded in action (right ankle), I'm not sure where though. His muster rolls list him as active as of January 1944 and wounded in April 1944. As of April 1942 he was aboard the USS Mccawley, and I believe this tag was made up while en route to the Pacific. The picture with "Footnote E" was attached to his name on the muster rolls. Enjoy as much as I am!

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That type of tag is 'Acid etched'...the process of making these involved some type of acidic formula

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I've got a question for you guys. In the last picture, where it shows he was "WIA, WGS, Right Ankle", what does the WGS stand for?

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Very nice tag, if he served on Tarawa he may have been a reinforcement from the 2nd Marine division during Guadalcanal or transferred from the 1st to the 2nd after the Canal. This makes this tag even more special...great find.

 

Cheers

 

Sean

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I've got a question for you guys. In the last picture, where it shows he was "WIA, WGS, Right Ankle", what does the WGS stand for?

 

Wounded, Gun Shot or some times GSW.

 

Cheers

 

Sean

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Wounded, Gun Shot or some times GSW.

 

Cheers

 

Sean

Thanks! What a great history behind it. The things it must have seen!

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Very nice dogtag indeed ... glad you find your holy grail B)

 

On the early war muster rolls, you often find some pretty interesting informations like you did.

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I've never seen an acid etch Marine dog tag before; is the tag made of aluminum?

 

We did this to make an aluminum tray for Mother's Day when I was in the Boy Scount a long time ago; it's an interesting process. What you want on the metal, the dog tag in this instance, is written on the metal with an acid-resistant "paint" which protects the metal under it. It is then dipped briefly into a vat of acid, them washed off. When the paint is removed, and the data stands proud of the rest of the tag.

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Great stuff. Rare to find an acid etched indeed. Along with his participation in Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Makes a great find. Thanks for sharing.

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I just realized Pvt. Doll served with the 7th Marines on Guadalcanal, the same regiment as John Basilone and Chesty Puller. Sweet!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
bellasilva

Well gents I received PFC Doll's personnel file from Golden Arrow Research today and all I can say is wow..it shed a lot more light on his service. I found that he was with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines on Guadalcanal, and went for rest and refit to Melbourne with the rest of the division after the campaign. On December 26th, 1943 he landed on Cape Gloucester where he was shot in the right ankle and evacuated on January 10th. I included some of my favorite shots from his file. Particularly heartbreaking is the medical report, which if written today would show that he had PTSD. It also states that he was "taken prisoner by the Japanese and severely beaten but escaped during a strafing attack". Enjoy gents and if you'd like to see anything else from his file I'd be glad to share it.

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bellasilva

I can't find any at the moment and unfortunately he passed away in 1977 of a major heart attack, or as his file states "Myocardial infarction, acute, severe, as a result of atherosclerosis". I did just find an article quoting him as saying that the "first 14 days and nights of the Cape Gloucester campaign were much tougher than any phase of the Guadalcanal campaign" while he was still hospitalized at the USNH in California.

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Bellumbill

Great tag and history - Kudos to your efforts to acquire it and to then acquire the excellent history associated with it. FYI, the print on the rear of these early war USMC tags, whether stamped or acid etched, is actually the right index finger, not a thumbprint.

 

Very difficult to find USMC tags of a marine who actually was in combat! I have been checking ebay rigorously and then running the names via Ancestry and have found in the last year and half probably 75% of the tags I can find info. on represent marines in Air Wings, then the next 20% are various non-combat assignments or I can find no info. on. I would say only about 5% represent marines in actual combat units. Of course, others are on to this too and those 5% command the highest prices - between $200 to $350. So, you have gotten yourself quite a nice little piece of history there.

 

Thanks again!

 

Very best,

Bill K.

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bellasilva

Great tag and history - Kudos to your efforts to acquire it and to then acquire the excellent history associated with it. FYI, the print on the rear of these early war USMC tags, whether stamped or acid etched, is actually the right index finger, not a thumbprint.

 

Very difficult to find USMC tags of a marine who actually was in combat! I have been checking ebay rigorously and then running the names via Ancestry and have found in the last year and half probably 75% of the tags I can find info. on represent marines in Air Wings, then the next 20% are various non-combat assignments or I can find no info. on. I would say only about 5% represent marines in actual combat units. Of course, others are on to this too and those 5% command the highest prices - between $200 to $350. So, you have gotten yourself quite a nice little piece of history there.

 

Thanks again!

 

Very best,

Bill K.

Bill, it sounds like we spend our time doing the same thing, running names on ancestry! I agree with you, most tags to be found on ebay are almost always air-wingers (although there's nothing wrong with that, I've got a couple pretty interesting ones). I would say since I have begun focusing on dog tags I've come across only 4 or 5 to actual combat vets. I'm not sure if you saw one of my recent posts, but about a month after I picked up this tag from a seller here in the US, PFC Doll's matching acid-etched tag came up for auction from a seller in Australia. Unfortunately the seller probably didn't believe me when I told him I had the matching tag and requested a buy it now because he ignored me messages, and it went for a very reasonable price although still out of me league. It sounds like when he was wounded and evacuated to Brisbane, he either lost or left that other tag there, and mine made it home. Now that I know that you are interested in USMC tags I'll keep an eye out for you. Even if the price is fairly reasonable I have to budget myself so I try to steer clear of a lot of auctions. Also, just thought I would share another shot from his personnel file documenting the bombardments PFC Doll endured. No wonder he had the shakes and couldn't stand loud noises after the war..

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