thedrifter
09-05-04, 06:59 AM
Giant of the Corps: Raymond G. Davis
In 1950, on a trackless azimuth into bone-piercing wind blasts, in knee-high snow through reinforced positions of an enemy that outnumbered it 10 to one, an understrength battalion relieved an encircled company and thus put into Marine Corps history one of the proudest and most honored deeds of our nation's wars.
Then-Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Gilbert Davis led that overland mountain trek. A major in World War II during the first perilous hours of the Battle of Peleliu in September 1944, he relieved and reinforced scrambled Marine lines to fill gaps and block penetrations that would have seriously endangered the still-developing beachhead.
In Operation Dewey Canyon during the Vietnam War, he was able to turn forces tied to static defenses into helicopter-borne assault. A communist spring offensive perhaps more powerful than the infamous North Vietnamese Army "Tet" sweeps of l968 was thwarted.
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret), Director Emeritus, Marine Corps History and Museums, described Davis as "the greatest tactician of the Marine Corps in modern times." General Robert H. Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, said Davis was "a division commander without a peer." As a colonel, Gen Barrow had been chosen by then-Major General Davis to execute Operation Dewey Canyon.
"Of the 50 or so division commanders I have known in Vietnam, General Davis has no peer. He's the best," said GEN Creighton W. Abrams Jr., USA (Ret), Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (1968-72).
"His way is to bring the war to the enemy," said Col Harvey C. "Barney" Barnum Jr., holder of the Medal of Honor for actions during the Vietnam War and currently Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs.
Lieutenant General John N. McLaughlin, when commanding Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, said, "Ray Davis may be the best combat leader the Marine Corps has ever produced."
It is just the kind of introduction that the low-key, retiring Ray Davis would have downplayed, although he revered his Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal, and military and civilian tributes.
His son Miles, a federal magistrate in Pensacola, Fla., was pinned twice as a first lieutenant and platoon leader with the Purple Heart by his father.
"You can be sure that glory, high compliments and fuss were not Dad's options," Miles said. "Modest in everything, even his most critical orders were sometimes given as suggestions. His was a quiet force, bold and absolute. Believe me; I knew it well. He was just as temperate under fire, no yelling, never profane. Really, he didn't need the trappings of high command. What he had was confidence, and you had confidence in him."
No Epaulets
There were no epauletted-portraits on Davis family walls. No relatives in Ray Davis' family wore a uniform. His first firearm was a 12-gauge shotgun for rabbits around the Chattahoochee River. A varsity wrestler at Atlanta Technical High School, he was assured a daily workout with a two-mile walk each way to school. His young reputation was polished by selection to the National Honor Society, and he was the best drill cadet in his high school Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps unit.
Partial to the military but not committed to soldiering as a career, Davis was attracted to ROTC because of its small monetary allowance and free uniform. He stayed with JROTC three years in high school and Army ROTC throughout college.
At Georgia Institute of Technology's commencement, with a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and the college president's Gold Key for scholarship, Davis was named Marine candidate for the class of 1938.
Meeting "Chesty" Puller
The Marines? "To be honest, I wasn't sure what I was getting into, except the Marines had a great reputation. The regular commission on active duty sounded good, so it was the Corps for me," Davis once said.
At the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where the gleaming white cruiser USS Olympia (C-6), flagship of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was docked, Second Lieutenant Davis in June 1938 entered The Basic School (TBS). Much later, after a long career, he recalled how in Philadelphia he was standing on the shoulders of giants.
At the Philadelphia Navy Yard he met Gregory Boyington. The "Pappy" of the fabled "Black Sheep" Squadron of Guadalcanal would become one of the Marine Corps' greatest aviators. Philadelphia was also home to Major General Smedley D. Butler, China Marine and old Corps icon, with two Medals of Honor. Captain Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, Davis' TBS company commander, already a legend from the "Banana Wars," taught small-unit tactics.
"He [Puller] was my first USMC mentor, and our paths would cross many times. Indeed, Puller was a perfectionist. If the toes of your boots were not in line, Chesty would call you on it. Perfection became my goal," the general reflected.
On his first tour after TBS, Davis was assigned to the Marine detachment aboard USS Portland (CA-33). His combat station was high on the foremast where the pitch, sway and gut-wrenching were most extreme. "The next storm was worse. I could only crawl into my bunk and wish for death."
At the same time Davis was serving aboard Portland, Capt Puller commanded the MarDet in nearby USS Augusta (CA-31). Puller said, "It's been years since we've had a war. Might be years before another." But it was still peacetime, and Davis made much of it.
Puller's wistful commentary on a world without war was hardly in keeping with the omens. The Japanese had occupied China's Manchuria. Hitler threatened Poland. Mussolini was in Africa.
Following duty in Portland, the power, technology and math of big guns attracted the Georgia Tech engineer to Base Defense Weapons School in Quantico, Va., 1940-41. However, Base Defense graduates were candidates for war-long commands on golf-course-size atoll bases, most of no interest to the Japanese.
Mentor Puller interjected: "They're forming the First Marine Division down at 'Gitmo' [Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] with a slot for an antiaircraft officer." Davis got the job.
"With good luck and Puller, I began a long association with one of the greatest, toughest and most famous units in the history of the United States, perhaps even the world—the First Marine Division."
In the middle of all this activity was Knox Heafner, a schoolteacher from North Carolina. Calling her the light of his life, Knox would be Davis' confidant for life. Courting was tough on reveille, so they eloped. They were married for 62 years. Whenever they were apart, they wrote each other every day.
War did strike on 7 Dec. 1941, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Davis was at New River, Camp Lejeune, N.C., commanding the lst Antiaircraft Battery.
By July 1942 Capt Davis was in New Zealand. At 0830 on 7 Aug., he was in a Higgins boat headed toward an undefended Guadalcanal beach. Japanese fighter-bombers winged in low. "Shot and shell. It seemed like everybody was shooting at everybody and everything. I felt very uneasy out there, the Japanese aircraft strafing and bombing and our own ships firing. I was happy to get ashore," said Davis.
His command post was on the fringe of Henderson Field. Captured from the Japanese, the field was named for the Marine dive-bomber pilot, Maj Lofton Henderson, killed in the Battle of Midway. Davis ringed the meadow with his antiaircraft armament. He was ready for anything—Japanese Betty bombers at noon or the Japanese battleships at night.
"We were the first American troops in history to be heavily shelled by enemy battleships," said Davis.
"We had no time to build bunkers," he recalled. "Our bombs were just left in the kunai grass. When grass fire threatened the bombs, I ran to extinguish it. Once I lost a boot while running toward a fire. I found myself standing with one shoe and one bare foot on top of a 500-pound bomb to keep the fire off it."
"Oh, the 'skipper' always protected his people," recalled former Sergeant Ronald Cleary. "Once in a bombing, I saw a jeep speeding our way. It was Captain Davis and a corpsman. He wanted to be sure nobody was hurt."
The Terrible Umurbrogol
"They were exciting times on Guadalcanal," Capt Davis wrote in his book, "The Story of Ray Davis." Davis' baptismal fire may have been with antiaircraft gunners, but his heart was with the infantry. After the New Britain campaign later in WW II, Maj Davis approached Col Puller, commanding the First Marine Regiment, saying, "I've been in the special weapons business long enough, and I'd like to get into the infantry."
Davis wrote, "Puller hired me on the spot to be his first battalion commander. Chesty was really a key in my career development through the years and without any design."
At Peleliu, Davis "really joined the infantry," and the initiation came hard on the heels of the amphibious assault. "Ten yards off the amphibian tractor, a mortar fragment pierced my knee. Machine-gun bullets flew from two directions. I'm not proud that my battalion had 71 percent casualties, including me. I was so very proud of my Marines. [They] never faltered or fell back." One of his companies was reduced to 90 men.
"This bold and ingenious man" was instrumental in helping save the whole left flank of the invasion force," said BGen Gordon D. Gayle, USMC (Ret), who had combat commands on Guadalcanal, New Britain and in Korea. As a major, Gayle commanded 2d Bn, 5th Marines. His efforts merited him the Navy Cross.
continued.........
In 1950, on a trackless azimuth into bone-piercing wind blasts, in knee-high snow through reinforced positions of an enemy that outnumbered it 10 to one, an understrength battalion relieved an encircled company and thus put into Marine Corps history one of the proudest and most honored deeds of our nation's wars.
Then-Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Gilbert Davis led that overland mountain trek. A major in World War II during the first perilous hours of the Battle of Peleliu in September 1944, he relieved and reinforced scrambled Marine lines to fill gaps and block penetrations that would have seriously endangered the still-developing beachhead.
In Operation Dewey Canyon during the Vietnam War, he was able to turn forces tied to static defenses into helicopter-borne assault. A communist spring offensive perhaps more powerful than the infamous North Vietnamese Army "Tet" sweeps of l968 was thwarted.
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret), Director Emeritus, Marine Corps History and Museums, described Davis as "the greatest tactician of the Marine Corps in modern times." General Robert H. Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, said Davis was "a division commander without a peer." As a colonel, Gen Barrow had been chosen by then-Major General Davis to execute Operation Dewey Canyon.
"Of the 50 or so division commanders I have known in Vietnam, General Davis has no peer. He's the best," said GEN Creighton W. Abrams Jr., USA (Ret), Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (1968-72).
"His way is to bring the war to the enemy," said Col Harvey C. "Barney" Barnum Jr., holder of the Medal of Honor for actions during the Vietnam War and currently Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs.
Lieutenant General John N. McLaughlin, when commanding Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, said, "Ray Davis may be the best combat leader the Marine Corps has ever produced."
It is just the kind of introduction that the low-key, retiring Ray Davis would have downplayed, although he revered his Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal, and military and civilian tributes.
His son Miles, a federal magistrate in Pensacola, Fla., was pinned twice as a first lieutenant and platoon leader with the Purple Heart by his father.
"You can be sure that glory, high compliments and fuss were not Dad's options," Miles said. "Modest in everything, even his most critical orders were sometimes given as suggestions. His was a quiet force, bold and absolute. Believe me; I knew it well. He was just as temperate under fire, no yelling, never profane. Really, he didn't need the trappings of high command. What he had was confidence, and you had confidence in him."
No Epaulets
There were no epauletted-portraits on Davis family walls. No relatives in Ray Davis' family wore a uniform. His first firearm was a 12-gauge shotgun for rabbits around the Chattahoochee River. A varsity wrestler at Atlanta Technical High School, he was assured a daily workout with a two-mile walk each way to school. His young reputation was polished by selection to the National Honor Society, and he was the best drill cadet in his high school Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps unit.
Partial to the military but not committed to soldiering as a career, Davis was attracted to ROTC because of its small monetary allowance and free uniform. He stayed with JROTC three years in high school and Army ROTC throughout college.
At Georgia Institute of Technology's commencement, with a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and the college president's Gold Key for scholarship, Davis was named Marine candidate for the class of 1938.
Meeting "Chesty" Puller
The Marines? "To be honest, I wasn't sure what I was getting into, except the Marines had a great reputation. The regular commission on active duty sounded good, so it was the Corps for me," Davis once said.
At the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where the gleaming white cruiser USS Olympia (C-6), flagship of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was docked, Second Lieutenant Davis in June 1938 entered The Basic School (TBS). Much later, after a long career, he recalled how in Philadelphia he was standing on the shoulders of giants.
At the Philadelphia Navy Yard he met Gregory Boyington. The "Pappy" of the fabled "Black Sheep" Squadron of Guadalcanal would become one of the Marine Corps' greatest aviators. Philadelphia was also home to Major General Smedley D. Butler, China Marine and old Corps icon, with two Medals of Honor. Captain Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, Davis' TBS company commander, already a legend from the "Banana Wars," taught small-unit tactics.
"He [Puller] was my first USMC mentor, and our paths would cross many times. Indeed, Puller was a perfectionist. If the toes of your boots were not in line, Chesty would call you on it. Perfection became my goal," the general reflected.
On his first tour after TBS, Davis was assigned to the Marine detachment aboard USS Portland (CA-33). His combat station was high on the foremast where the pitch, sway and gut-wrenching were most extreme. "The next storm was worse. I could only crawl into my bunk and wish for death."
At the same time Davis was serving aboard Portland, Capt Puller commanded the MarDet in nearby USS Augusta (CA-31). Puller said, "It's been years since we've had a war. Might be years before another." But it was still peacetime, and Davis made much of it.
Puller's wistful commentary on a world without war was hardly in keeping with the omens. The Japanese had occupied China's Manchuria. Hitler threatened Poland. Mussolini was in Africa.
Following duty in Portland, the power, technology and math of big guns attracted the Georgia Tech engineer to Base Defense Weapons School in Quantico, Va., 1940-41. However, Base Defense graduates were candidates for war-long commands on golf-course-size atoll bases, most of no interest to the Japanese.
Mentor Puller interjected: "They're forming the First Marine Division down at 'Gitmo' [Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] with a slot for an antiaircraft officer." Davis got the job.
"With good luck and Puller, I began a long association with one of the greatest, toughest and most famous units in the history of the United States, perhaps even the world—the First Marine Division."
In the middle of all this activity was Knox Heafner, a schoolteacher from North Carolina. Calling her the light of his life, Knox would be Davis' confidant for life. Courting was tough on reveille, so they eloped. They were married for 62 years. Whenever they were apart, they wrote each other every day.
War did strike on 7 Dec. 1941, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Davis was at New River, Camp Lejeune, N.C., commanding the lst Antiaircraft Battery.
By July 1942 Capt Davis was in New Zealand. At 0830 on 7 Aug., he was in a Higgins boat headed toward an undefended Guadalcanal beach. Japanese fighter-bombers winged in low. "Shot and shell. It seemed like everybody was shooting at everybody and everything. I felt very uneasy out there, the Japanese aircraft strafing and bombing and our own ships firing. I was happy to get ashore," said Davis.
His command post was on the fringe of Henderson Field. Captured from the Japanese, the field was named for the Marine dive-bomber pilot, Maj Lofton Henderson, killed in the Battle of Midway. Davis ringed the meadow with his antiaircraft armament. He was ready for anything—Japanese Betty bombers at noon or the Japanese battleships at night.
"We were the first American troops in history to be heavily shelled by enemy battleships," said Davis.
"We had no time to build bunkers," he recalled. "Our bombs were just left in the kunai grass. When grass fire threatened the bombs, I ran to extinguish it. Once I lost a boot while running toward a fire. I found myself standing with one shoe and one bare foot on top of a 500-pound bomb to keep the fire off it."
"Oh, the 'skipper' always protected his people," recalled former Sergeant Ronald Cleary. "Once in a bombing, I saw a jeep speeding our way. It was Captain Davis and a corpsman. He wanted to be sure nobody was hurt."
The Terrible Umurbrogol
"They were exciting times on Guadalcanal," Capt Davis wrote in his book, "The Story of Ray Davis." Davis' baptismal fire may have been with antiaircraft gunners, but his heart was with the infantry. After the New Britain campaign later in WW II, Maj Davis approached Col Puller, commanding the First Marine Regiment, saying, "I've been in the special weapons business long enough, and I'd like to get into the infantry."
Davis wrote, "Puller hired me on the spot to be his first battalion commander. Chesty was really a key in my career development through the years and without any design."
At Peleliu, Davis "really joined the infantry," and the initiation came hard on the heels of the amphibious assault. "Ten yards off the amphibian tractor, a mortar fragment pierced my knee. Machine-gun bullets flew from two directions. I'm not proud that my battalion had 71 percent casualties, including me. I was so very proud of my Marines. [They] never faltered or fell back." One of his companies was reduced to 90 men.
"This bold and ingenious man" was instrumental in helping save the whole left flank of the invasion force," said BGen Gordon D. Gayle, USMC (Ret), who had combat commands on Guadalcanal, New Britain and in Korea. As a major, Gayle commanded 2d Bn, 5th Marines. His efforts merited him the Navy Cross.
continued.........