This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Pamela LaVerne Jeans-Historian
to remember
Marine SSgt William Howard Stacy (Bill).
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Contact Info
Home Town Van Lear, Kentucky
Last Address Lake Havasu City
Location of Interment Lake Havasu Memorial Gardens - Lake Havasu City, Arizona
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Serial Number 815784
From 1950-1952 he had reenlisted in the US Army
Other Comments:
SOURCES: Public Records, Newspaper Clippings and Family and Friends. Ancestry.com FindAGrave.com
1944-1945, 345, 1st Defense Bn
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The unit, formed at San Diego, California, deployed to the Pacific as one of the Rainbow Five, the five defense battalions stationed there in accordance with the Rainbow 5 war plan when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Under Lieutenant Colonel Bert A. Bone, elements of the battalion arrived in Hawaii in March 1941. The unit provided defense detachments for Johnston and Palmyra Islands in March and April of that year and for Wake Island in August. The Wake Island detachment of the 1st Defense Battalion received the Presidential Unit Citation for the defense of that outpost �?? which earned the battalion the nickname "Wake Island Defenders" �?? and other elements dealt with hit-and-run raids at Palmyra and Johnston Islands. In March 1942, the scattered detachments became garrison forces and a reconstituted battalion took shape in Hawaii. Command passed to Colonel Curtis W. LeGette in May 1942 and to Lieutenant Colonel John H. Griebel in September. Lieutenant Colonel Frank P Hager exercised command briefly; his successor, Colonel Lewis H. Hohn, took the unit to Kwajalein and Eniwetok, in the Marshall Islands, in February 1944. The following month found the battalion on Majuro, also in the Marshalls, where it became the 1st Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion on 7 May 1944, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jean H. Buckner. As an antiaircraft unit, it served as part of the Guam garrison, remaining on the is land through 1947.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Wake Island
Johnston Island
Palmyra Island
Marshall Islands
Mariana Islands
Guam
Other Memories Special Weapons Group, First Defense Battalion, 5Thac.
Headquarters and Service Battery, First Defense Battalion, V Amphibious Corps.
Headquarters Company, Twelfth Force Motor Transport Battalion, (Prov), Fleet Marine Force, Pacific C/O Fleet Post Office San Francisco, California
MOS 345 and 348