Comments on: ANDY MALANOWSKI, USMC

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:42:05 +0000

FROM Gene Leslie: “My name is Gene Leslie and my Father Dale Leslie was the SBD pilot who spotted H-E-L-P spelled out with skivves on Hill 84 on Guadalcanal and radioed back to “Chesty” Puller that his 3 companies of 1/7 Marines were surrounded and in danger of being wiped out. Daddy is mentioned in most accounts of that action but some completely omit him. The whole rescue started with him, since they were w/o radio comm. . . . Your Uncle Andy and my Father were both awarded the Navy Cross by [Chesty Puller], the Marine’s Marine, holder of 5 Navy Crosses and an Army D.S.C. . The word HERO is bantered around way too much these days. But I know what a Hero looks like and sounds like. I grew up with one. But he never thought of himself as a Hero , because he had been there and he knew what a Hero was . It was men like Sgt. Andy Malanowski,Sgt. Robert Raysbrook and Major Bailey. Thank you for sharing, Jamie.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:25:04 +0000

FROM Ewan Stevenson: “I knew about your uncle’s exploits 20++ years ago, and always thought what an incredible fellow! I was born on Guadalcanal in the old US Army hospital there in 1972….our home was on the North side of Hill 84 towards the Western end. We did not call it Hill 84, rather it’s locally known as “Lengakiki” ridge. . . .It’s just great that the memory of your uncle is still around and hope it will be for a long time. He did a great thing, that is for sure, incredible bravery…Malanowski should be remembered…memoralised. It’s been a real pleasure to see Malanowski’s name come forth again.”

By: Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:01:48 +0000

FROM Ewan Stevenson, historian: “It was the USS Monssen that provided gunfire support that day, not the Ballard. I corresponded with Rich Frank of this fact, and he confirmed it by the War Diary of the USS Monssen. This makes sense since the guns (pitiful 3-inch) on the seaplane tender wld not have been very effective in land bombardment.”

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:41:17 +0000

FROM my kinsman Dave Powell, husband of my cousin Christine: “I felt that I should correct one fact though and that is that Andy was born in 1915 not 1914. I have attached a copy of his baptism entry from Holy Rosary records for your files.” In the xeroxed copies of Andy’s service record, his birth date is listed three times, and on two of those occasions, whoever copied the documents managed to cut off the last digit. On the other appearance it lists 1914, but Dave is probably correct. It’s a funny thing for Andy not to have corrected, though; other hand-corrections appear among these papers.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:28:18 +0000

FROM Peter Flahavin: “Every time I stay on the Canal I stay at the KING SOLOMON HOTEL, which is built on the side of Hill 83 where the Battalion was trapped. a cable care goes up to the various room levels. There isn’t a trip I don’t think of Malalowski and his BAR holding off the Japs as the guys retreated to the beach.”

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:27:06 +0000

FROM Jeffrey McMeans: “In the history of the 1st Marine Division, they took the 7th, your uncle’s outfit and put all the “old breed” guys in it, the guys who were the best and had been in a lot of those banana wars of the 20′s and 30′s and sent them to Samoa. That just came to me, remembering that your uncle was one of the best of the best. That made General Vandegrift not a happy guy, because he had all the just out of boot camp recruits, leavened with some other old breed guys, but that the best were where he couldn’t get at them in time for the Guadalcanal landing. By the way, here I want to introduce you to the site of Peter Flahavin who has made many trips to Guadalcanal. It’s at http://guadalcanal.homestead.com/ You will enjoy his site and I encourage you to email him. I am sure he has taken photos very near where your uncle died.
Just reading in my copy of A Special Valor to refresh myself, I saw that that was the mission where the Marine fighter pilot went by and saw the t-shirts made into the word Help and that was how Chesty learned about it.
Yes; it says your uncle got the MOH and he should have.
Semper Fi!

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:24:40 +0000

FROM Jeffrey McMeans: No, I do not know your uncle Andy, but I read your blog and am a WW2 amateur Pacific War historian and I know of the boondoggle that occurred on that ill fated venture. I loved reading your account and will pursue reading more about that. Any man that was there was a hero as far as I am concerned, and I don’t use that term lightly, but, hell, they had been abandoned by the Navy, with little air support, although by the time your uncle got there, that was being remedied, but it was always a close run thing on The Canal. Semper Fi!
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey McMeans, USN 1961-1963
son of “Bud” McMeans USN 1943-1945) My Dad was in the Sea Bees, the US Navy Construction Battalion, serving on Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, The Russells