Download Edward Ahrens

1st Marine Raiders
Edward Henry Ahrens
Private First Class
USMCR
Company A
1ST Marine Raider Battalion
Fleet Marine Force
Entered the Service from: KY
224 Second St.
Dayton, KY
Son of Albert and Marie Ahrens
Brother of Dorothy and Lillian Ahrens
Grandson of Edward Ahrens
KIA Tulagi (Solomon Islands) August 7, 1942
From the Cincinnati Enquirer September 18th 1942
Two Killed, Five Wounded From Greater Cincinnati, Navy
Department Discloses
The Navy Department’s twelfth casualty list, issued yesterday, contained the
names of one Cincinnatian reported dead and four others missing or wounded.
Two residents of Northern Kentucky also were on the list. Eugene Fenton Morris,
seaman second class, son of Earl Morris, 309 Division Street, Bellevue, was
reported killed and Private First Class William Ahrens, Marine Corps, son of Mr.
and Mrs Albert Ahrens, 224 Second Street, Dayton, wounded.
Morris was killed in action when serving in the Pacific. His family was informed
that his body was not recovered. He was 18.
Private Ahrens, 21, was believed to have been serving in the Solomon Islands
when he was wounded. A former Dayton High School student, he was employed
by the Wadsworth Watch Case Company before enlisting in the Marines.
Marine Raiders Who Were Awarded the Navy Cross During WW II (2-2 p15-17)
AHRENS, Edward H.
PFC 1A
KIA
Tulagi, BSI, 7-8 Aug 42
Other Marine Raiders Awarded the Navy Cross:
http://www.usmarineraiders.org/navycross.htm)
LINKS:
About the USS Ahrens:
http://www.navyhistory.com/DE/Ahrens.html
http://www.overmyer.com/1944_log.htm
http://www.geocities.com/rbackstr2000/1stMarDiv.pdf
Tulagi
Island
Edward Henry Ahrens--born on 4 November 1919 in Dayton Ky.--enlisted in the
Marine Corps on 3 February 1942 at Cincinnati, Ohio, and underwent boot camp
training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. He transferred to
the Marine Barracks, Quantico, Va., on 16 March 1942.
In early summer of 1942 the Japanese commenced a consolidation of positions
on the eastern coast of New Guinea and on the island of Guadalcanal in the
southern Solomons. Harbor and airfield construction was begun, and aviation
and ground troop garrisons installed to prevent the Japanese from gaining too
strong a hold in the latter area, the United States undertook an amphibious
operation in which it was planned "to occupy and defend Tulagi and adjacent
positions (Guadalcanal and Florida Islands) and the Santa Cruz Islands (Ndeni) in
order to deny these areas to the enemy and to provide United States bases in
preparation for further offensive action." This operation was carried out by forces
of the South Pacific Area, with support from Southwest Pacific forces in the form
of operations aimed at interdiction of Japanese naval, air and submarine activity
in the Eastern New Guinea-Bismarcks area.
On 7 August 1942 the United States counteroffensive in the Pacific was begun
with the landing of the reinforced First Marine Division in the Tulagi-Guadalcanal
area of the Solomon Islands
Assigned to Company "A", 1st Raider Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, soon
thereafter, Ahrens landed with that unit from Little (APD-4) at Tulagi, Guadalcanal,
British Solomon Islands, in the second assault wave on 7 August 1942. With
Company "C", 1st Raider Battalion, securing the right flank on the beachhead,
Company "A" moved inland and down the right slope of Tulagi'
s central ridge.
Initially, the marines were not opposed.
That evening, Company "A" took positions for the night west of a cricket ground
on the island, as part of the defensive line extending along the ridge. The
Japanese later launched a fierce nocturnal counterattack which drove a wedge
between the two Raider companies. Isolating the latter near the beachhead, the
enemy concentrated his efforts on Company "A" in an attempt to sweep up the
ridge toward the residency, a former British government building serving as a
Raider battalion command post. The Raiders, however, stood firm.
During the savage battle that ensued, Ahrens, in a security detachment assigned
the task of protecting the Raiders'right flank, single-handedly engaged a group of
Japanese in hand-to-hand combat as they attempted to infiltrate the Raiders'rear.
Although painfully wounded in the groin, the gallant young marine killed at least
three Japanese (including the attacking unit's senior officer) and aided materially
in stopping their infiltration.
For his part in stopping the enemy, Ahrens--who died of his wounds on 8 August-was posthumously awarded a Navy Cross as well as a share of the Presidential
Unit Citation earned by the 1st Marine Division
"In the early hours of August 7, 1942, the First Raider Battalion (Edson’s Raiders)
attacked Tulagi as a part of the first amphibious ground counter offensive against
the Japanese Empire.
At Tulagi not a single landing craft of the first wave was able to set its
passengers directly ashore. All of them hung up on coral formations at
distances varying from 30 to well over 100 yards from the beach line, and
the assault personnel of raider Companies, B and D waded ashore against
no opposition, through water initially from waist to armpit deep
The First Raider Battalion, a rugged, intensely trained unit, went ashore on the
Northwestern tip of 4,000-yard-long Tulagi on the morning of August 7, and
meeting no immediate opposition deployed from shore to shore of the island and
pushed southeast parallel to the ridge that spines two-thirds of the island. At the
narrow ravine where the spine ends the Raiders bivouacked the first night. Soon
after dark, the Japanese came sneaking through, penetrating deep into the Marine
lines. And Raiders like Private First Class Edward H. Ahrens fought the Japs off.
Although the Japanese sliced and tore at Ahrens with knives and bayonets,
mortally wounding him, he killed their officer and two other soldiers."
Abbreviated Log 1944
Full Excerpts from War Diary where noted.
February 12 - The USS Ahrens was commissioned at 1630 hours at the
Bethlehem-Hingham shipyards in Hingham, Mass. The ship was named for
Private First Class Edward H. Ahrens, USMCR, of Dayton, KY, a Tulagi hero.
USS Ahrens
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