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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 For additional information: