Imperial Valley Press

Guadalcanal
Sees
Heroic
Actions
WITH
THE
UNITED STATES
MARINES
ON
GUADALCANAL ISLAND,
Sept. 3.—(Delayed)—(U.P.)—Within
the last busy 24 hours a lost detachment of Marines
came back from the dead and the
United States air force planes knocked out 33 Japanese planes without loss.

Twenty-four of the enemy planes,
23 out of 25 bombers and one out
of 19 escorting Zero fighters, were
downed yesterday afternoon.

Second Lieutenant Dale M. Leslie,
Madison, Fla., and his gunner,
Private First Class Reed Ramsey,
Beleview, Mo., (Belleview?)
were flying their dive bomber at about 1000 feet over an isolated part of the north shore of Guadalcanal when they saw some white spots near the beach.

Leslie went down to investigate
and saw the single word:

"Help."

To put the word into letters a
group of Marines, cut off from all
sides by the Japanese, had taken
off their shorts and spread them
on the ground.

Leslie reported to headquarters
and sent his plane shrieking down
again and again, while Ramsey kept
the machine guns hot, to help the
Marines fight their way through
to the shore.

From headquarters, two rescue
boats under Coast Guard Signalmen
Firstclass R. J. Evans, Seattle, and
Douglas A. Munroe, Cle Elum,
Wash, were speeding up the coast
with a destroyer.

The destroyer swung into the
coast and started shelling the Japanese
inland with everything it had.

A group of the Marines ashore
had made the beach, thanks to Leslie's
dive attacks, and they started swimming
the mile and a half to the destroyer. Leslie dropped
flares near them and a destroyer
boat picked them up.

JAPS OPEN FIRE

Evans and Munroe started direct
for the beach. Leslie was only a
few yards over them, the plane's
guns blazing.

The boats ran into a curtain of
machine gun fire from Japanese
so well concealed their positions
could not be fixed.

Bullets smacked into the bows
of the boats. Two men aboard
went down. Twice the boats went
in without contacting the isolated
men ashore. They lay to 100 yards
off shore, under steady fire, and
drove in the third time. That time
they got off the entire party.

The rescuers had little to say:
"It was funny," Evans said. "It
wasn't until we got out of range
that we found anybody had been
hit."

"It gave me a funny feeling,"
Leslie said, "to see that word help
down there."

NEW AIR ATTACKS

Leslie's flying mates said he had
been up more than 90 hours in
the last 20 days, most of the time
on dangerous low level bombing
and machine gunning missions
against enemy landing parties.

The Japanese started a new series
of air attacks two days ago
after a 10-day lapse.

The first day they sent over 18
bombers and 13 fighters and lost
four bombers and five fighters.

Yesterday was the big day when
23 out of 25 enemy bombers and
one out of 18 fighters were downed.

It was the second time that more
than 20 enemy planes had been
brought down in one day. It is
estimated now that the enemy has
lost around 600 of its best fliers
since the Marines landed and that
about 150 Japanese planes lay
shattered in the jungles of Guadalcanal
or the water off shore.