Pictured is the USS LaSalle -the troop ship that brought Dad to the Fourth Marine Division's first of four invasions on ROI-NAMUR

The Fourth Marine Division set three new records on its first operation: It became the first division to go directly into combat from the United State; it was the first to capture Japanese mandated territory; and it secured its objective in a shorter time than that of any other important operation since the attack on Pearle Harbor. For weeks the coming battle had been known only by its code name, “Operation Flintlock.” Not until the big convoy had passed the Hawaiian Islands was its destination revealed to all hands -- the twin islands of  Roi - Namur in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. Simultaneously, the U.S. Army’s Seventh Infantry Division was to invade the island of Kwajalein in the same atoll.

In many ways, Operation Flintlock would be the most important of the Pacific War to date; it would constitute the first offensive strike against the enemy to secure a base for operations. Heretofore, our strategy in the Pacific had been largely to keep the Japanese from expanding their gains, to keep them out of Australia, and to secure our own flank in the South Pacific in order that we might drive straight through the Central Pacific for the knockout blows that were eventually to bring Japan to her knees. The invasion of the Marshalls was to be the spearhead of this drive, and the Fourth Division shared the responsibility for its initial success.

After the Roi-Namur invasion, Dad kneels with a captured Japanese flag beside his 30cal. water-cooled machine gun he nicknamed 'Irish'.