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| PFC Sam Scott served with the 1st Marine Division in Guadalcanal. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23765164/sam-hoey-scott https://padresteve.com/2016/08/11/the-guadalcanal-campaign-a-wave-top-view-of-a-forgotten-yet-epic-battle/ |
Sam Hoey Scott never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Announcement: Later this month we will be starting a project that will result in the stories of all 400,000 plus of the World War 2 fallen at one online location. There will be an accompanying smart phone app to allow users visiting any war memorial to scan the fallen serviceman's name and be linked to his story. Watch this blog or join the WW2 Fallen 100 Facebook page to learn of upcoming details.
He was born on January 24, 1920 in North Carolina. His parents Sam and Victoria were also both born in North Carolina. His father worked as a farmer until he died in 1932. Sam had two older brothers and three older sisters and one younger sister. By 1940 Sam had completed two years of high school and was living with his mother. He worked as a hosiery mill seamer.
He joined the US Marine Corps in January 1942. He became a Private First Class in Company H, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. His unit arrived on Guadalcanal on September 18, 1942, providing much needed assistance to the other 1st Marine Division leathernecks who had been there for six weeks.
During the month of October, the Japanese Tokyo Express delivered thousands of reinforcements. As the end of October neared the Americans and Japanese were pretty equally matched in numbers. The Americans had to spread their men around to guard all possible approaches, even the beaches. The Japanese had the advantage of using the jungle to hide their troops and concentrate their battalions to overwhelm one part of the line. They chose to attack on the night of October 24/25, 1942. This was the engagement where John Basilone earned his Medal of Honor and was depicted in the HBO miniseries The Pacific.
The next night the Japanese attacked again. During the early hours of October 26, 1942, they even managed to break through the line at one point, only to be pushed back. PFC Scott, an assistant machine-gunner, was killed during this engagement. There would be no more Japanese assaults that month.
His grave is at Glen Alpine Cemetery in Glen Alpine, North Carolina.
Last year on this date I profiled Okinawa fallen Leslie Banks, also from the 1st Marine Division. You can read about Leslie here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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