Hubert Alton LeGuin
First Sergeant
Company A - 1st Battalion - 3rd Marine Regiment - 3rd Marine Division
China Marines
The growing tension between Japan and the United States put the China Marines such as Hubert LeGuin in a dangerous position. The young Marine from Pachuta, Mississippi was on his first overseas deployment as part of the Marine Detachment stationed in Peking, which had been under Japanese occupation since 1937 (1). Hubert had arrived in May of 1939 after having served in various Guard Companies around the U.S. since enlisting in 1938. Those posting had been relatively straight forward but when he set foot in China, he was thrown into a chaotic situation that threatened to turn dangerous at any moment. The Japanese forces in the city held great hostility towards the various Westerners there, which was put on full display when they surrounded the international areas with barbed wire in June of 1939 (1). The task of the Marines was to protect the U.S. government buildings and expats in the city, which had become even more difficult as the U.S. army withdrew the 15th Infantry that had guarded the Embassy only a few months before Hubert arrived (1). Now the defense of the U.S. Embassy also fell on the already greatly outnumbered kelly helmet clad Marines (1). If the potential of confrontation with a superior force of Japanese wasn’t enough, August of 1939 saw extreme perciptation in the region, which led to the flooding of their barracks (1).
During this miserable period, Hubert continued to perform his duties and would be promoted to Private First Class in December of 1939. He was then transferred to the Headquarters Company in May of 1940. Here he was eventually given the opportunity to prove his leadership and management skills with a temporary promotion to Corporal and assignment as the assistant manager of the Privates Club. This small club provided the men with a place to buy meals and drinks and was one of the small luxuries enjoyed by the Marines (2). The following July of 1941 saw Hubert transferred back to the States to Mare Island California, a far less stressful assignment than Peking. He was temporally promoted to Sergeant and transferred to the Marine Guard Company in Quantico, Virginia in 1941. He was performing his duties here when the Japanese launched their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December. Immediately after this attack, Japanese forces in China encircled and captured all 203 Marines who were stationed in Northern China, some of whom Hubert certianly knew (1).
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The Next Generation
Fate had spared Hubert from spending years in a Japanese POW Camp and he immediately found himself one of the few experienced Marines available for deployment. He was temporarily promoted to a Platoon Sergeant in April of 1942 and was sent to New River, North Carolina to train the masses of new recruits that were streaming into the Corps. Though he was only Twenty-Two years of age, to the fresh recruits that joined Company B of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, he was an ‘Old Salt’. As with his previous postings he proved himself worthy of his rank and became committed to training the men under his command. When his enlistment period ended in July, he barely even contemplated leaving and immediately reenlisted the very next day despite having just beem married the month prior to his wife Annie Davis. His dedication and excellence in leadership were recognized with temporary promotions to Gunnery Sergeant and later to First Sergeant. By July of 1943, his Regiment was a well-trained and functional unit that received orders to ship out to the Pacific as part of the 3rd Marine Division.
Hubert was among the Regiment when they shipped out East, this not being his first time doing so of course, though he had never seen combat. The 1st Battalion would initially arrive at American Samoa where they practiced amphibious landings and honed their skills. They were then sent to Auckland, New Zealand from where they boarded the U.S.S. President Adams that was bound for the Solomon Islands. They arrived at the infamous island of Guadalcanal which had by now been secured, though remnants of the battle remained in the form of rusting ship wrecks that surrounded the island. Hubert and the other Marines would conduct further practice amphibious landings in preparation for their eventual assault which was to be on the island of Bougainville on November 1st. |
Bougainville
The assault opened as most did in the Pacific, with an awesome show of the U.S. Navie's might as their big guns and planes wreaked havoc on the shore (3). It was an impressive display and likely gave some confidence to Hubert and his men of A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, who were going into their first action (3). A swathe of thoughts likely passed through Hubert’s mind as he stood packed in with his fellow Marines in their landing craft. Regardless of what may come to pass he knew he had to hold himself together and give off an inspiring presence to the many young Marines under his command whose eyes peered nervously from under their camo covered helmets. He was part of landing team #7, Combat Team #3 and was bound for the extreme right of Torokina Point in Empress Bay (3). The enemy was supposed to be small in number and the landings mostly uneventful, which was true for almost every other unit. But Hubert and the others found themselves moving straight into the sights of a Japanese “75mm gun” that was surrounded by an extensive network of defensive positions which remained intact despite the “bombardment” (3). The heavy gun went to work firing on the hopelessly exposed Marine filled Landing Crafts (3). It would manage to strike “14 landing craft of which 4 sank” (3).
Some of them did manage to reach the shore and when Hubert landed, he found the 1st Battalion in a disorganized state due to the many casualties taken and heavy fire from Japanese positions (3). The Officers of the 1st Battalion managed to get their men moving and a pitched battle against the Japanese emplacements began (3). The actions of Sergeant Roberts, a fellow Officer from A Company, resulted in the destruction of the deadly artillery piece, though his brave actions would cost him his life (he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor) (3). The surviving men of the Battalion would continue to fight well into the “afternoon” and eventually disabled all the positions via courageous assaults and “hand-to-hand combat” (3). Hubert and the survivors emerged combat veterans after this trial by fire and had faced the stiffest resistance of any unit that day (3).
The men now moved inland into the mountainous, swamp infested, jungle that was Bougainville (3). The Japanese were determined to keep this mound of uninhabitable muck with foliage and deployed further troops for a counterattack (3). The 9th Regiment would bear the brunt of it and managed to chase them back a fair amount until they were relieved by Hubert and others in the 1st Battalion on November 7th, not far from the Laurma River (3). The following day, Hubert and the rest of the 1st joined in a united offensive against the now dug in Japanese defenders (3). It was a miserable grind through swamp land, though they did receive the support of tanks (3). The fighting was as ferocious as ever, but the Marines managed to inflict heavy casualties upon the Japanese (3). For nearly 2 months Hubert and his fellow Marines in the 1st Battalion continued to slug it out with the Japanese in the sometimes near impenetrable jungle (3). Casualties remained high and when they emerged out of the Jungle in December of 1943, they were far fewer in number and emaciated from the cruel conditions in which they had fought for so long.
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Hubert's time with the Regiment would come to an end in January 1944 when he was shipped to New Caledonia and then to California. It was likely hard to say goodbye to the remaining men he had led, fought, and bleed with, though he could rest assured that they were tough and very capable of looking after themselves. Hubert spent some time in a hospital in Oakland but was soon fit for service and attached to a Guard Company at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in El Torro, California. He was temporarily promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in December of 1944 and finished out the war in El Torro. He was returned to the rank of First Sergeant once his discharge date approached and this time he chose to retire from the Corps in February of 1946. He left the Corps at the age of 26, a true member of the ‘Old Breed’. Interestingly, he would later rejoin the military, this time with the USAF from which he would one day retire as a Major.
Sources:
(1) “A Chronology of Selected Events Associated with Marine Corps Activities in China.” The China Marines > Chronology, DHAIG, 2014, www.chinamarine.org/Chronology.aspx.
(2) "Souvenirs and Ephemera.” The China Marines, DHAIG, 2014, chinamarine.org/SouvenirsandEphemera.aspx.
(3) Diamond, Jon. “Battling for Bougainville.” Warfare History Network, 31 July 2020, warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01/13/battling-for-bougainville/.
(1) “A Chronology of Selected Events Associated with Marine Corps Activities in China.” The China Marines > Chronology, DHAIG, 2014, www.chinamarine.org/Chronology.aspx.
(2) "Souvenirs and Ephemera.” The China Marines, DHAIG, 2014, chinamarine.org/SouvenirsandEphemera.aspx.
(3) Diamond, Jon. “Battling for Bougainville.” Warfare History Network, 31 July 2020, warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01/13/battling-for-bougainville/.