WW2 Guadalcanal Fallen - Richard Alexander, 1st Marine Division

Pvt. Richard Alexander served in the 11th Marine Regiment at Guadalcanal.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/133018941/richard-kershaw-alexander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Marine_Regiment#World_War_II 

Richard Kershaw "Duke" Alexander never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database. We are going to need a lot of volunteers. Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Richard was born on June 10, 1920 in Pennsylvania. His parents Nathanial and Gertrude were also both born in Pennsylvania. His father worked as an electrician foreman for the Reading Railroad and later worked as a salesman. Richard had one older brother. He was a record holding track star in high school. By 1940 Richard had completed four years of high school and was still living at home.

He enlisted in the US Marine Corp on March 4, 1942. He became a private in the HQ and Service Battery, 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. This was an artillery unit that provided critical support for the leathernecks on the frontline protecting Henderson Field from Japanese attacks.

Pvt. Alexander died on September 11, 1942. This was a couple of days before a major Japanese attack, but not a day marked by any action I could find. He may have been killed by one of the regular Japanese bombing attacks on Henderson Field.

His grave is at Locustwood Memorial Park in Cherry Hills, New Jersey.

Thank you Pvt. Alexander for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Duke.

This is one of the final 100 (85) stories to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.


Last year on this date I profiled Normandy fallen Albin Pocivasek, 30th Infantry Division. You can read about Albin 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.

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“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org