Captain David C Gibson
David Caldwell Gibson was born on October 22nd, 1920 in Hickory Grove, South Carolina to William Gibson and Margaret Smith. Three years later, he was joined by a sister named after his mother. David attended local schools while growing up and was accepted into Wofford College, a liberal arts school in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he would graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1941. Immediately after, David enrolled in the Platoon Leaders’ Unit, 6th Reserve District on May 14th, 1941, a two summer long, twelve week program for college students that would commission them as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps Reserve upon completion. Unfortunately, Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 that plunged the United States into WW2, brought about the abrupt end to that program, and Private Gibson was moved to the Officer Candidates’ Class located in Quantico, Virginia on January 26th, 1942. The Candidates’ Class’ goal of providing new Marine officers became all the more crucial with the outbreak of war, and Private Gibson did not shy away from this drastic turn in his life.
After three more months of rigorous training and instruction, eleven months spanning both programs, Gibson completed the course and accepted his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the reserves on April 3rd. His training did not stop there. The Marine Corps was suffering from a lack of well trained, specialized officers in a number of different fields, one being Ordnance. So, 2nd Lt Gibson was selected to attend Bomb Disposal School located at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. beginning on the 9th of July, and after completing instruction, joined the 2nd Replacement Battalion in September to await deployment to the Pacific. Shortly after, he boarded the USS Zelin in late October to join the ongoing battle of Guadalcanal that began three months prior.
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Guadalcanal
2nd Lt Gibson arrived on November 11th and joined Service Company, 1st Marine Division as an officer with its ordnance platoon. By this time however, the battle was drawing to a close due to Marine efforts in the previous months, but the push to capture the west of the island and Japanese attempts of landing reinforcements were still ongoing. This was completed by the end of the month, and shortly afterwards, the 1st Marine Division was relieved by Army units and began leaving the island. Although 2nd Lt Gibson was a new arrival on Guadalcanal, he left on December 9th aboard the USS President Adams to Brisbane, Australia on the 14th for the division’s rest and recuperation process. Unfortunately, conditions in the Pacific were detrimental to his health and caused him to be sent to the 4th General Hospital in Melbourne for a month, just four days after arriving. When he returned on the 18th of February, he rejoined his unit and had his MOS changed to a salvage officer in April. The next month in Australia saw 2nd Lt Gibson detached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 17th Marines for engineer training, but yet another sickness confined him to a hospital for most of June and July. Upon returning, Gibson accepted a temporary promotion to 1st Lieutenant on August 17th and was sent back to the 1st Marine Division’s 1st Service Battalion in October, but this time in its Ordnance Company as a Bomb Disposal specialist.
Cape Gloucester
During their time in Australia, the division was rigorously preparing for the invasion of Cape Gloucester, and with the invasion date approaching, 1st Lt Gibson was temporarily sent to the Headquarters Company of the 7th Marine Regiment, the unit that would spearhead the assault on the island. To practice their assault landings, the division left Australia for Oro Bay, New Guinea before leaving on December 23rd to congregate off the coast of the island. Three days later, the battle of Cape Gloucester would begin. At 6:00 AM on the 26th, naval ships let out a terrific bombardment of Japanese positions and an hour and forty five minutes later, 1st Lt Gibson and the 7th Marines landed on the Yellow Beaches. The Japanese commander incorrectly assumed that the Marines would not land in this location as the beach led directly into a swamp, and therefore the assaulting force encountered very minimal resistance. Incidentally, lives were saved by the error of American planners who misinterpreted the swamp as a damp flat, but the tradeoff was waist deep mud and water that slowed down the advance inland towards the crucial airfield.
Once the service troops arrived later in the day, 1st Lt Gibson returned to his Ordnance Company and followed behind the advancing Marines who eventually captured the airfield on December 29th. As they pushed onward, skirmishes left behind allied and enemy equipment which required specially trained troops to dispose of it. For the remainder of his time on Cape Gloucester, 1st Lt Gibson disposed of hazardous, unexploded ordnance bypassed by the Marines until being whisked away on February 4th, 1943 to Goodenough Island, New Guinea, and then to Brisbane, Australia. Here, he was enrolled in the Mobile Explosive Investigation Unit #1, a US Navy run unit that trained and provided mine and bomb disposal teams to the Pacific Theater. 1st Lt Gibson and his classmates learned how to break down and analyse Japanese explosives, and pass on intelligence about enemy ordnance to disposal teams on the front lines. After the 32 day course, he left Australia and rejoined his unit back at Cape Gloucester on March 28th. With his new specialized training, he was better prepared to carry out bomb disposal duties on the island until the division retired to Pavuvu Island on April 28th.
Peleliu
For the men who had just fought through extremely tough and uncomfortable terrain, Pavuvu proved to be more miserable than combat. The island was bare of structures, electricity, supplies of fresh food, and plagued by a huge population of rats and crabs. The already exhausted Marines had to build their own rest camp while living in constant misery, and many angrily said that they would rather be in combat than stationed on the tiny island. That day came a few months later. In late August, the 1st Marine Division left Pavuvu to meet up with the rest of the invasion force for landing exercises, and where Gibson would be promoted to Captain just a few days before moving out to their objective: Peleliu.
After three days of heavy naval bombardment of the island which was later discovered to be ineffective, the 1st, 5th, and 7th Marine Regiments led the assault on their respective landing beaches, with Captain Gibson trailing behind. Unfortunately, Peleliu was not like any of the division’s previous amphibious assaults, and the Marines immediately began taking heavy casualties from a deadly combination of Japanese small arms and artillery that halted some sections of the advance. These well emplaced defenses were meticulously cleared and the Marines pushed near the outskirts of the airfield where they were subject to multiple ineffective counterattacks. While the 7th Marines mopped up the southern part of the island two days later and the 5th Marines took the airfield, Captain Gibson was busy disarming enemy ordnance left behind in the advance, and there was plenty of it. Booby traps, unexploded artillery shells, and leftover aerial bombs littered the battlefield, and the workload only multiplied as the Marines struggled to advance against unusually hard resistance. The 1st Marines suffered the most with 59% casualties, and were shipped back to Pavuvu in ten days, and the 5th and 7th Marines followed suit soon after. Captain Gibson continued to dispose of enemy bombs until he too left with the rest of the division on October 29th and arrived back at Pavuvu on November 7th. This would be his last time spent with the 1st Marine Division.
Returning Home
On the 7th, Captain Gibson was transferred to Headquarters and Service Battalion, Fleet Marine Force and left Pavuvu on the 14th to return to the United States. Arriving in December, he moved around with a few units until attending the Ordnance School in Quantico, Virginia on May 13th to take Officers’ Course #22 for the next 6 months, during which Japan announced its unconditional surrender to the allies on September 2nd, 1945. After completing the course, Captain Gibson joined the 6th Marine Reserve District in Charleston, South Carolina and was awarded his first Good Conduct Medal there in January of 1946. He remained in the Marine Reserves for the next eleven years, including the Officer’s Volunteer Reserve during the Korean War, but was inactive beginning in 1952. Finally, Captain Gibson retired in December of 1957 after sixteen years in the Marine Corps. Not much is known about David’s civilian life other than he briefly moved to Miami, Florida before passing away on April 10th, 2003 in York, South Carolina and is buried at Hickory Grove Cemetery.
2nd Lt Gibson arrived on November 11th and joined Service Company, 1st Marine Division as an officer with its ordnance platoon. By this time however, the battle was drawing to a close due to Marine efforts in the previous months, but the push to capture the west of the island and Japanese attempts of landing reinforcements were still ongoing. This was completed by the end of the month, and shortly afterwards, the 1st Marine Division was relieved by Army units and began leaving the island. Although 2nd Lt Gibson was a new arrival on Guadalcanal, he left on December 9th aboard the USS President Adams to Brisbane, Australia on the 14th for the division’s rest and recuperation process. Unfortunately, conditions in the Pacific were detrimental to his health and caused him to be sent to the 4th General Hospital in Melbourne for a month, just four days after arriving. When he returned on the 18th of February, he rejoined his unit and had his MOS changed to a salvage officer in April. The next month in Australia saw 2nd Lt Gibson detached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 17th Marines for engineer training, but yet another sickness confined him to a hospital for most of June and July. Upon returning, Gibson accepted a temporary promotion to 1st Lieutenant on August 17th and was sent back to the 1st Marine Division’s 1st Service Battalion in October, but this time in its Ordnance Company as a Bomb Disposal specialist.
Cape Gloucester
During their time in Australia, the division was rigorously preparing for the invasion of Cape Gloucester, and with the invasion date approaching, 1st Lt Gibson was temporarily sent to the Headquarters Company of the 7th Marine Regiment, the unit that would spearhead the assault on the island. To practice their assault landings, the division left Australia for Oro Bay, New Guinea before leaving on December 23rd to congregate off the coast of the island. Three days later, the battle of Cape Gloucester would begin. At 6:00 AM on the 26th, naval ships let out a terrific bombardment of Japanese positions and an hour and forty five minutes later, 1st Lt Gibson and the 7th Marines landed on the Yellow Beaches. The Japanese commander incorrectly assumed that the Marines would not land in this location as the beach led directly into a swamp, and therefore the assaulting force encountered very minimal resistance. Incidentally, lives were saved by the error of American planners who misinterpreted the swamp as a damp flat, but the tradeoff was waist deep mud and water that slowed down the advance inland towards the crucial airfield.
Once the service troops arrived later in the day, 1st Lt Gibson returned to his Ordnance Company and followed behind the advancing Marines who eventually captured the airfield on December 29th. As they pushed onward, skirmishes left behind allied and enemy equipment which required specially trained troops to dispose of it. For the remainder of his time on Cape Gloucester, 1st Lt Gibson disposed of hazardous, unexploded ordnance bypassed by the Marines until being whisked away on February 4th, 1943 to Goodenough Island, New Guinea, and then to Brisbane, Australia. Here, he was enrolled in the Mobile Explosive Investigation Unit #1, a US Navy run unit that trained and provided mine and bomb disposal teams to the Pacific Theater. 1st Lt Gibson and his classmates learned how to break down and analyse Japanese explosives, and pass on intelligence about enemy ordnance to disposal teams on the front lines. After the 32 day course, he left Australia and rejoined his unit back at Cape Gloucester on March 28th. With his new specialized training, he was better prepared to carry out bomb disposal duties on the island until the division retired to Pavuvu Island on April 28th.
Peleliu
For the men who had just fought through extremely tough and uncomfortable terrain, Pavuvu proved to be more miserable than combat. The island was bare of structures, electricity, supplies of fresh food, and plagued by a huge population of rats and crabs. The already exhausted Marines had to build their own rest camp while living in constant misery, and many angrily said that they would rather be in combat than stationed on the tiny island. That day came a few months later. In late August, the 1st Marine Division left Pavuvu to meet up with the rest of the invasion force for landing exercises, and where Gibson would be promoted to Captain just a few days before moving out to their objective: Peleliu.
After three days of heavy naval bombardment of the island which was later discovered to be ineffective, the 1st, 5th, and 7th Marine Regiments led the assault on their respective landing beaches, with Captain Gibson trailing behind. Unfortunately, Peleliu was not like any of the division’s previous amphibious assaults, and the Marines immediately began taking heavy casualties from a deadly combination of Japanese small arms and artillery that halted some sections of the advance. These well emplaced defenses were meticulously cleared and the Marines pushed near the outskirts of the airfield where they were subject to multiple ineffective counterattacks. While the 7th Marines mopped up the southern part of the island two days later and the 5th Marines took the airfield, Captain Gibson was busy disarming enemy ordnance left behind in the advance, and there was plenty of it. Booby traps, unexploded artillery shells, and leftover aerial bombs littered the battlefield, and the workload only multiplied as the Marines struggled to advance against unusually hard resistance. The 1st Marines suffered the most with 59% casualties, and were shipped back to Pavuvu in ten days, and the 5th and 7th Marines followed suit soon after. Captain Gibson continued to dispose of enemy bombs until he too left with the rest of the division on October 29th and arrived back at Pavuvu on November 7th. This would be his last time spent with the 1st Marine Division.
Returning Home
On the 7th, Captain Gibson was transferred to Headquarters and Service Battalion, Fleet Marine Force and left Pavuvu on the 14th to return to the United States. Arriving in December, he moved around with a few units until attending the Ordnance School in Quantico, Virginia on May 13th to take Officers’ Course #22 for the next 6 months, during which Japan announced its unconditional surrender to the allies on September 2nd, 1945. After completing the course, Captain Gibson joined the 6th Marine Reserve District in Charleston, South Carolina and was awarded his first Good Conduct Medal there in January of 1946. He remained in the Marine Reserves for the next eleven years, including the Officer’s Volunteer Reserve during the Korean War, but was inactive beginning in 1952. Finally, Captain Gibson retired in December of 1957 after sixteen years in the Marine Corps. Not much is known about David’s civilian life other than he briefly moved to Miami, Florida before passing away on April 10th, 2003 in York, South Carolina and is buried at Hickory Grove Cemetery.