3560f919-45e6-4e09-91d3-212cc8b20c55

Jorgenson, Walter_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

Walter Ernest Jorgensen was born in New York. Brooklyn, New York on June 5th, 1921. His dad was a sea captain and operated on the trans-Atlantic run, and he was transferred to the west coast to San Pedro, California. Walter’s father was Alfred and his mother was Christine. He was one of three boys. When he was nine, Walter was friends with a man who was a skipper on the USS Algorma, a fleet tug. San Pedro was very diverse with a big Slavic group from Yugoslavia, Croatians and Slovenes. Walter originally planned on joining the Navy, but then decided to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserves when he was 17 in 1938. He attended Naval Academy. He was also enrolled in a platoon leader’s class, which was a Marine Corps Officers procurement program that was in the effect prior to World War II. Walter attended Occidental College for two years and then went to platoon leaders class in ‘40 and then the second class was in ‘41 and finished training in August of ‘41 at the San Diego Marine Corps Basin. When the war was declared, he was ordered on active duty immediately. Walter was home for the weekend from college, when he heard about Pearl Harbor. A week later he was ordered to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to report April, ‘42. He took the train to Philadelphia for a last class of basic school which was peace time Marine Corps Officers Training School and after his class, it dissolved the whole school and from that time forward, all the Officers Candidates went through Quantico. Walter spent three months in Philadelphia. Afterwards, Walter was sent to Camp Elliot at San Diego, assigned 2nd Battalion 6th Marine Easy Company and trained there and put the regiment together. The 6th regiment had just come in from Iceland and they filled it out with personnel and went overseas in October ’42, he was Executive Officer of Easy Company; second lieutenant, at 21 years old. He then headed to Wellington, New Zealand for heavy training. The standard weapon at that time was the World War I 1903 Springfield rifle. From Wellington to Noumea and then Noumea into Guadalcanal where they encountered their first combat. The battle had been going on for two to three months when they landed in December of ‘42. Walter went up on the President Jackson which was an APA, an attacked transport. His battalion relieved the whole 8th regiment. They attacked and went north to Cape Esperance and finished the campaign off. They swept up the beach on Guadalcanal and then ran into an Army mule train outfit who worked for them. In Guadalcanal, they were a newly formed element of the 2nd Division, there was no 3rd, 4th or 5th or 6th Division at that time. They finished up at Guadalcanal and Camp Esperance and the same ships came in and picked them up. They had been there for 60 days. Almost all the men came down with malaria, including Walter. He wound up in a Naval Hospital in New Zealand, Mob 8, with malaria. From there, they went from New Zealand to go to Tarawa in November of ’43; Walter’s battalion was a division reserve, 2nd battalion 6 Marines with Ray Murray, who was a Major at that time. They stayed aboard ship on D-day. Because of the reef conditions there, a lot of people were killed at sea, because they stepped off the boats and some drown and some were shot in the water. Walter’s battalion was ordered to make a forced march up the chain of that atoll, which was a 30 mile hike. They killed about 500 Japs and lost 34 and about 80 wounded in an hour and a half battle. They stayed there for a couple of months with no comforts, living in the sand. They then we went aboard ship to Hawaii, went through the camp at Camp Kamuela, and trained for Saipan. At that time, there were 12 people were in the regiment and they were all promoted to Captain. So there wasn’t room for 12 Captains, they didn’t have that many vacancies. So they took two or three and sent the other nine home. The colonel called Walter and told him he was going to keep him as his loading officer for his battalion, 2nd battalion, 6th Marines. He loaded the ship, the Sheridan in Hilo and disembarked the troops in Saipan as a TQM – transport quarter master. And then when the ship was unloaded, he was supposed to go back to Pearl with them and go home. However, all TQMs were ordered ashore for replacements. Walter came in at about D plus 3, all alone at 9:00 at night with his khakis on, no dungarees or steel helmet. He was ordered to report to Division headquarters, General Watson’s headquarters, for assignment. He landed on Red Beach 2. The next morning he reported to Division Headquarters and was assigned to replace a Captain who had been killed on Charlie Company, 1st battalion, 29th Marines, which had been designated the second independent assault battalion before the campaign and later was re-designated the 29th Marines. They were attached tactically to the 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division. And operated as their 4th battalion. Walter joined them on the side of Mt. Tapochau and took over the Company that really had been in some very rough fighting. They took Tapochau and swept down into Garapan and in two weeks they secured the island. They stayed there about 60 days. By this time they had about 70 men out of 220. The Church of Garapan was headquarters, and they were an independent battalion, detached from the 8th Marines and Walter stayed in Garapan as a Company, not a battalion and was surrounded by the 27th Division and reported tactically, and administratively to his battalion, which was down by Aslito. The Japanese had buried a lot of 100 and 500 kilogram bombs upside down – dig a hole and stick the fuse out, pull the pin, put a piece of tin over it and if you walked on the tin, off you went. It was after the island was theoretically secured but a lot of people don’t realize that roughly 4 or 5,000 Japanese were killed after the island was secured. In Tanapag, the Seabees battalion, underwater clearance battalion, their job was to clear the harbor for shipping and build docks. And they had two enormous stacks of dynamite. The Japs came in one night and wired ‘em up and one went off. Walter had a Jeep and a trailer and two machine guns, two mortars, a couple BAR men, and went up to see and they restored order and calmed everything down. Walter tells a story of a Seabee officer named Bennett, who was the accountable officer and had signed for 10,000 cases of beer and then men had drunk 2,500 cases. He told Walter that he would have to pay for it and Walter helped him by taking up a collection and buying 2,500 cases of beer for twice the price. Walter came back for the first time for the 50th. He made a lot of new friends. There were about 90 of them at the 50th anniversary memorial.

U.S. National Park Service, War in the Pacific National Historical Park

This digital asset is in the public domain. This digital version was made possible through the National Park Service by a grant from the National Park Foundation through generous support from the Mellon Foundation. When using this asset for any purpose, including online, credit 'Courtesy U.S. National Parks'.

Public domain

Video

War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Code: WAPA

Guam , Guam
War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Guam , Guam
Latitude: 13.3905000686646, Longitude: 144.654006958008

ICMS (Interior Collection Managment System) : WAPA-00246
NPS Museum Number Catalog : WAPA 4170

War in the Pacific Oral Histories

2025/03/07

T. Stell Newman Visitor Center, Collections room, Safe and Shelf SLF D-01

Public Can View

Rose Manibusan, Jennifer Craig

Organization: American Memorial Park
Role: Chief Interpretation
Address: Micro Beach Road, Garapan, Mp 96950
Email: wapa_interpretation@nps.gov

Saturday, April 5, 2025 2:52:39 PM

Saturday, April 5, 2025 2:52:39 PM

Jorgenson, Walter_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

mp4

873.0 MB

Historic

NPGallery Main Search