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This Remembrance Profile was originally created by MGySgt Scott Welch - Deceased
Contact Info
Home Town Marlborough
Last Address Marlborough, New York
MIA Date Nov 23, 1943
Cause KIA-Died of Wounds
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Location Kiribati
Location of Memorial Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Captain Orlando Palopoli who was born in Marlboro, New York in 1918, who had been mortally wounded in Tarawa. The viewer said that Palopoli had been shot in the abdomen and would die from his wounds. According to the viewer, Palopoli was transported back to a Navy ship by landing craft for medical treatment. The viewer added that Capt. Palopoli had written a poem in September 1943 that was published in their local newspaper. It was entitled, "Remember Me". The viewer never actually knew Palopoli, but mentioned that many of the veterans in Marlboro, including his late father, used him as a role model. Every Memorial Day since he was thirteen, the viewer has read Capt. Palopoli's poem for himself, his father, and for his country, and most of all to remember him.
The following is a copy of the poem Remember Me:
Remember me, beyond this lurid day
Of hate and laughter brimming deep in tears
Remember me beyond this narrow way
Of darkness, pressing darkness and of fears
The clinging mire wrapt so close to earth
One day will vanish with the mist and rain
And out of hate will come a new rebirth
Of shining glory tempered deep in pain
The Shattered hopes the tyrannies deny
Will grow again to bolster harried men
And lift their hearts in music singing high
The shackled dreams will gambol once again
In surging freedom through the wide blue sky
And all I ask is "You remember then"
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Guadalcanal Campaign (1942-43)
From Month/Year
August / 1942
To Month/Year
February / 1943
Description The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
On 7 August 1942, Allied forces, predominantly American, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten the supply and communication routes between the US, Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Allies overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands since May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Powerful US naval forces supported the landings.
Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November 1942 to retake Henderson Field. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles (five nighttime surface actions and two carrier battles), and continual, almost daily aerial battles culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November 1942, in which the last Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field from the sea and land with enough troops to retake it was defeated. In December 1942, the Japanese abandoned further efforts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by 7 February 1943 in the face of an offensive by the US Army's XIV Corps, conceding the island to the Allies.
The Guadalcanal campaign was a significant strategic combined arms victory by Allied forces over the Japanese in the Pacific theatre. The Japanese had reached the high-water mark of their conquests in the Pacific, and Guadalcanal marked the transition by the Allies from defensive operations to the strategic offensive in that theatre and the beginning of offensive operations, including the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Central Pacific campaigns, that resulted in Japan's eventual surrender and the end of World War II.