Medal of Honor: Merritt Austin Edson, World War II, September 13–14, 1942

Merritt Austin Edson
World War II
September 13–14, 1942 – Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

On a jungle ridge overlooking Henderson Field, 800 Marines under Colonel Merritt “Red Mike” Edson faced a nightmare. The Japanese came at them in waves—bayonets flashing, grenades hurling, rifles and pistols cracking in the darkness. Outnumbered and nearly overrun, Edson refused to yield. Moving among his men under constant fire, he pulled shattered units back into a reserve line and personally directed the defense through a night of savage, hand-to-hand combat. His leadership was the only thing that kept the Marines from breaking. By dawn, his battalion—bloodied but unbroken—still held the ridge, and with it the airfield that was the key to the entire Guadalcanal campaign.

Medal of Honor Citation

For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty as Commanding Officer of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, with Parachute Battalion attached, during action against enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands on the night of 13-14 September 1942. After the airfield on Guadalcanal had been seized from the enemy on 8 August, Col. Edson, with a force of 800 men, was assigned to the occupation and defense of a ridge dominating the jungle on either side of the airport. Facing a formidable Japanese attack which, augmented by infiltration, had crashed through our front lines, he, by skillful handling of his troops, successfully withdrew his forward units to a reserve line with minimum casualties. When the enemy, in a subsequent series of violent assaults, engaged our force in desperate hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, rifles, pistols, grenades, and knives, Col. Edson, although continuously exposed to hostile fire throughout the night, personally directed defense of the reserve position against a fanatical foe of greatly superior numbers. By his astute leadership and gallant devotion to duty, he enabled his men, despite severe losses, to cling tenaciously to their position on the vital ridge, thereby retaining command not only of the Guadalcanal airfield, but also of the 1st Division’s entire offensive installations in the surrounding area.