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Etheridge, Samuel_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

Samuel Norfleet Etheredge was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1914, January the 31st. He grew up in Norfolk, went to school there and then to William and Mary in Norfolk and received his medical degree at the University of Virginia in 1937. Samuel joined the Naval Reserve in the late ‘30s. He reported for duty at the Navel Hospital, told them he was a surgeon, so they promptly put him on the orthopedic service. Within three months, he was assigned to the Fleet Marine Force in North Carolina and was in training there for just a short time in the winter of ‘42. Samuel recalls boot camp as having to crawl under barbed wire with live stuff over them and going through jungle training armed and shooting at moving targets, under supervision and so forth. Also training in night combat going up over the mountain in the rain and sliding down the hill in the mud. Most of this training was in Samoa. Samuel was in a replacement battalion, they came across the country by train and shipped out of San Diego to Samoa and then to New Caledonia and to Guadalcanal. They made up the 3rd Marine Division on Guadalcanal after he arrived there. Samuel was also in the Bougainville campaign as a battalion sergeant and went in on the second wave, about five minutes after the first wave landed. He was there two months, came out on Christmas Day 1943. The battalion then went back to Guadalcanal. Samuel stayed in the 3rd Marine Division, changed from the 2nd Battalion as a battalion sergeant, to the A Medical Company, which is part of the 3rd Marine Medical Battalion and were attached to the 9th Marine Regiment for Guam. Before going to Guam, they were supposed to attack Kavieng, but that was canceled at the last minute. Samuel recalls spending 55 days aboard ship before going to Guam. At one point they were taken to Enewetak to go ashore and swim and get some exercise. Once getting to Guam, the captain was eager to unload them off the ship. They had to land on the reef and wade that last little bit to the beach from their LCVP. On Guam they were landing as a hospital unit. The equipment came ashore, and removed by a Jeep and ambulance and field ambulance in bulk rather than individual, just like a hospital would. On that day, Samuel lost his best friend, fellow doctor, George Butler from Bow Mont, Texas who was hit by machine gun fire while coming in on a boat. That night they dug shallow foxholes on the beach to wait for light and that night lost a corpsman when a Japanese threw a grenade in his foxhole. There were five ABCDE Companies in the medical battalion that were to set up as individual hospitals, to take care of everything that might occur, illness or injury. B and C companies combined to form a hospital in a good area. Not long after setting up, the Japs attacked a field hospital and killed a doctor and a couple other people. The 9th Marines were going to be sent to take Rota and Samuel’s unit were to go to Rota to take care of them. They were just bystanders for that first week, in reserve. Samuels’s first actual surgical patient was a war dog who had been shot. The war dogs would go out ahead and uncover the Japs in concealment to try and save some of the military’s lives. The dogs were trained to sniff out the distinct smell of the Japanese. At that time, the doctors had a little bit of penicillin, 10,000 units, compared to the millions of a dose units they use today. Samuel saw several cases of Marines cleaning their rifles and the guns going off and the bullets almost always hit their spinal column. Samuel was there for the Chamorro’s parade when they had been liberated. They were telling the Marines how appreciative they were of being freed up, because they had been treated pretty miserably. At that time, Samuel’s unit was stationed up near Dededo, which was the furthest north that they could move with the hospital unit. At this point in Guam they were treating mostly injuries and illnesses. In October, they got the news that the doctors that had been out there two years and had been in other campaigns were sent back. Samuel recalls there were about six or eight out of the whole group that went, including some battalion surgeons as well as the hospital surgeons. They flew them from Guam to Tinian and then across to Saipan and had about two days there and then flew home in a big cargo plane. They went to Quadraline or Weetok [sp?] and then to Johnson Island in Honolulu and then home. Samuel got a ship after about four or five days into Seattle, which was where his wife and daughter were. Samuel tells stories of some of his favorite friends out in Guam like Willie Hawkins and Paul Binder. He also recalls a story at Cape Torokina and almost getting hit by fire from a 75 millimeter while coming to shore. Once out of the service, Samuel got the NRO and V-12 unit at the University of Washington. He then finished up at the Seattle Naval Hospital on the surgical service. Samuel went to work at the VA Hospital in Oakland, and then opened his office in Oakland in 1953 and did general and vascular surgery. He was the first vascular surgeon in that area. Samuel was proud of having been a Marine and doesn’t have any regrets. He recites a poem he wrote about Bougainville. He brings his two sons and grandson on camera to introduce them.

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

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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

Sunday, April 6, 2025 1:09:28 AM

Sunday, April 6, 2025 1:09:28 AM

Etheridge, Samuel_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

mp4

2229.6 MB

Historic

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