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2 Marines of Item Co/22nd Marines


USMCman01
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A couple months back I acquired a group belonging to Albert E. Biscanin of Item Company/22nd Marines who served at Eniwetok and Okinawa. (Not sure about Guam)

 

The group included some paper items and unpublished photos of Medal of Honor recipient James Day.

 

A newspaper article showed he was in a semi famous photo of marines after Eniwetok drinking coffee. The newspaper also had a "reenactment" of the original photo

years later. I thought that was very cool.

 

 

Even more recently I acquired a dog tag worn by William Floyd Roberts who also served with I/3/22 and was wounded on Sugar Loaf Hill on May 14th.

 

Biscanin also saw action on Sugar Loaf and it makes you wonder if they knew each other.

 

 

Enjoy.

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Wow so you have the overcoat of the guy from that photo? I have seen that pic many times! Such an emotional photo.

Yes, that's his coat.

I was even more surprised to see Biscanin and Roberts where in the same company.

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Wow so you have the overcoat of the guy from that photo? I have seen that pic many times! Such an emotional photo.

Yes, that's his coat.

I was even more surprised to see Biscanin and Roberts where in the same company.

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A terrific find. Love the newspaper reenactment. Terrific. The BLT 3/23 boys were in slogging through Eniwetok, operating from USS ARTHUR MIDDLETON. The photo was taken at the same time as the famous one of Ted Miller in "K" Company off Engebi.

 

 

________

 

In case you would find interesting a follow-up, our boys of BLT 2/23 were to inherit the ship from these boys when they got back from this operation. The ship returned to Pearl the next month (March '44) but was ravaged by a dysentery outbreak amongst the crew -- nearly 120 of them hospitalized in Pearl. The ship was scrubbed, sanitized, repainted -- then put into port in Kahului, Maui and our boys from BLT 2/23 prepared to board for some amphibious training in April. Fox Company's Gunny headed a 100-man working party to combat load the ship's holds. But the Chief Medical Officer for the 4th Marine Division also went aboard and made it clear to the ship's medical officer that the battalion was not coming aboard until he and his own staff could check the ship. They got busy and, sure enough, overnight another 15 of the crew tested positive for dysentery. At 0100 the skipper got a dispatch to sail back to Pearl by 0700. So the Gunny was awakened and told that his working crew had to get everything unloaded immediately. Talk about a group of highly motivated Marines. They got it done in a hurry. CMO Baty probably saved the battalion from an outbreak just before the Saipan-Tinian operations.

 

Life was not easy aboard those transports out there.

 

_______

 

I apologize for the oversized image. I could not delete and re-attach it.

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  • 2 months later...

I just purchased Albert's uniform from his estate today. Let me me know if you would like to reunite the grouping.

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