Edmund Durocher was born in Manhattan and moved to Queens when he was eight years old. He graduated from high school in 1941. Durocher was working on Wall Street when he decided to join the Marine Corps. He had dreamed of being a soldier since he was little. His father had fought in the First World War. Durocher's parents were reluctant to sign off on it. Eventually he convinced his mother to do so. Durocher entered the Marine Corps on 2 December 1941. He was in boot camp when Pearl Harbor was hit but it was difficult to get much information. All he knew was that the United States had lost more people in one day than ever before. In boot camp Durocher believes he had an excellent drill instructor. He believes one unarmed combat lesson saved his life. He went up to Quantico to be trained as a field telephone operator. He did not like it at first. It was a two month course. They were broken up by alphabetical order and Durocher was sent to join the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division]. They had some training and many men were being brought in to fill out the division. They were supposed to train in New Zealand for several months. They left San Francisco in June 1942. They went across the country on a train and it took six days to cross the country. Durocher found it interesting because he was able to pass through Philadelphia and Washington DC as he made his way towards Parris Island. Because he joined before Pearl Harbor he was sent down in a Pullman car. They were aboard the USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) for 62 days. When they arrived in Wellington, New Zealand they decided that they were going to do something to check the Japanese advance. They did not get much information while on the ship or in San Francisco. Many people were confident that the war would only last six months. It was only once they got into the fight that they realized the disparity in strength was much more even then they originally assumed.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] While on New Zealand they were tasked with building a permanent camp. The combat gear was on commercial ships and the camp gear was on the Navy ships. They had to unload the Navy ships then unloaded the combat gear. It took them ten days to unload the ships. While they were down there they received a couple four hour leaves. When they set sail they did not know where they were going. They tried a practice landing at Fiji but the waters had not been sounded and several ships had their bottoms torn out by the coral. Then, they headed for Guadalcanal. Three days out they got a bulletin telling them what the mission would be. Durocher had actually heard of the Solomon Islands before. No one knew how to pronounce Guadalcanal before they got there. They landed in the initial wave on 8 August 1942 [Annotators Note: 7 August on the other side of the International Date Line]. No one knew that much about the resistance on Guadalcanal, but they did expect some. Durocher was sent topside to check the communications gear. While up there a shell flew in and hit the turret of the nearest cruiser. The cruiser turned its guns and fired and there was no more fire from the shore. Shortly thereafter they began to offload the landing craft. While on New Zealand, the booms they used to open the hatches were from the dock. On the Elliott [Annotator's Note: USS George F. Elliott (AP-13)], between the pilot's bridge and the stack was a hatch. They realized that they did not have a boom and were forced to leave some communications equipment behind on the ship. They were forced to take combat wire for the first time. Combat wire was much less heavy duty than the typical stuff that they had used. The other wire had cotton over the rubber as an insulator. When they made the landing it was quiet. People were walking on the beach. When Durocher hit the beach his group spread out and then they began to move through the coconut grove. The unusual flora was striking to Durocher. They went through part of the jungle and out into a kunai field. It was extremely hot. Durocher carried not only the combat reel but the mortar men were given aprons with the shells in them. Durocher had to carry a bandolier of BAR ammunition around his neck. Because of the excess weight they had difficulty keeping up with the platoon. When they caught up with the platoon a lieutenant sent Durocher and another guy, Joe French, into the kunai grass to look for opposition. French had a better sense of direction and he led them back to camp. As they returned to camp they were distraught to realize the platoon was moving out.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] There was a fear that the Japanese had poisoned the water and their mission was to find the source of the Lunga River. When they got back into the jungle the stream was up to 100 feet wide and the officers would not let anyone drink the water. Some guys dragged their hands through the water and licked their hands dry. The machine gunners solved this by drinking the water in their barrels and refilling them with river water. At night, when they came to a halt, Durocher only had half a canteen and he shared it with seven others. On the third day they were allowed to refill their canteens. Durocher was sent to refill the canteens. On the first night in the jungle, Durocher heard some strange noises that kept him awake. It turned out to be tiny mice inside the trees but he did not know it at the time. Colonel Edwin A. Pollock ordered two machine gunners to take up positions on the river. Pollock chose Johnny Rivers for one of the spots. Rivers was a boxing champion before the war and many of the men boxed him just so they could go home and say that they had. On the fourth day they made their way back with all of their gear. Durocher was carrying 158 pounds of gear. The only food that they had was what they had gotten when they went over the side of the Elliott [Annotator's Note: USS George F. Elliott (AP-13)]. They were not aware that the Elliott had been sunk on the first night during the Battle of Savo Island. They could hear noises from inside the jungle but Durocher thought that it was just thunder. When they returned to the shore an officer came up with a can of Vienna sausages. Each man got less than a full piece. Eventually they delivered shipments of Japanese rice. The rice was infested with worms and the medical teams told them to grind them up because otherwise there would be no food for the Marines to eat. The farmers among them said that it was bull weevils. Durocher ate it because the grubs provided them with some protein. All of the leather was attacked by a fungus. They had climbing axes with leather straps that eventually disintegrated. They had to wrap communication wire around the strap. The fungus would also attack the shin bone and ulcers would form on the leg. The corpsman was kept busy removing scabs from these ulcers. Eventually, the Japanese started scouting with planes. They were looking for strong points. When they found them they started bombarding the area.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] On 21 August [Annotator's Note: 21 August 1942] the Japanese attacked and the Battle of the Tenaru began. The Tenaru River did not go to the sea, it stopped. The Japanese came across a spit of land but were stopped. Others forded the river. Durocher knew that there was a drum of wire between their position and the ocean so they decided they were going to link up the wire to the phone to send out a signal. They were unaware that a Japanese mortar had already knocked out the wires. When they reached the observation post they discovered that French had taken the phone to try and troubleshoot the line. The guy Durocher was with, Joe Gallagher, asked Durocher to exchange weapons as he wanted Durocher's pistol. As they were swapping weapons a machine gun opened fire on them. Durocher pulled Gallagher down. He could see the bullets hitting the sand and saw a hole appear in Gallagher's helmet. He thought their helmets could stop anything. Durocher eventually got Gallagher conscious and into the hole for safety. The machine gunner was content to keep them in the hole. Durocher bandaged up Gallagher. Another soldier picked off the machine gunner and a couple corpsmen came and picked up Gallagher. Durocher passed a pit when a guy was hit in the chest and started vomiting blood before asking which way the sickbay was. He never made it there. Durocher saw many bodies on the ground and was stunned at how often they were all American. Durocher discovered an alligator tank that had been firing on their position and decided to take it out by himself. He convinced himself that there was no one inside but as he was climbing down it the tank's turret opened fire. Durocher was ordered to stay outside of the tank and wait for the arrival of Lieutenant Benson. Benson was ordered to bring the platoon up to within sight of the Japanese. While waiting for the mortar platoon the Japanese attacked their position with mortars. Something hit him in the back and he bounced off of the ground. He thought he was paralyzed at first but discovered his gun belt had saved him but his wire was cut. Durocher had to strip the wires with his teeth in order to splice them together. A couple guys started calling to him. He looked up and a bullet passed right by him but he did not notice. The guy who called his name saw it and decided to leave him alone. Durocher saw a Japanese soldier playing dead popping out of the water and then tried to knock the pin out of a grenade. Durocher saw this but he did not have any confidence in the .45 [Annotator's Note: M1911 .45 caliber pistol] for accuracy. They took the rifles from the communications people and gave them to the officers so they would not stick out so much. They thought that the communications people had less need for the rifles. Durocher doubted he could shoot the Japanese soldier from that distance so he planned to wait for him to throw the grenade and then he would close with him and shoot him. Durocher told everyone to get back but a rifleman just shot the Japanese soldier. After that they called in fire orders from the mortars.

Edmund Durocher had been in Headquarters Company but was transferred out ten days before they left New River [Annotator's Note: Durocher was transferred from Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion to Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division]. They were not doing any soldiering at the time because they were too busy packing up the division to get it ready to move. The mortar platoon and the communications platoon had no experience with each other. They had to use telephones, semaphore, and runners to communicate. This led to confusion among the mortar team as they continued getting further and further from hitting the target as they repeatedly corrected in the wrong direction. Eventually Lieutenant Benson ordered the runners and the semaphore operators to get down and ordered the telephones to handle the communication. From there they started hammering the Japanese positions. The mortars would fire eight or nine rounds and then move so the enemy could not track the shell's path. After the mortar strikes, the tanks came in. Durocher was 35 to 40 yards from the tank and saw a Japanese soldier who was playing dead jump up and put a mashed potato grenade [Annotator's Note: potato masher is a slang term for the Japanese Type 98 grenade] in the tread of the tank. The grenade blew the tread off the tank and it started to run in a circle. They had to send riflemen out to cover the tank crew as they came out of the tank. Durocher later read a report about this event in the Old Breed magazine. The colonel who wrote the article reported that the tank had hit a mine but there were not any mines in the field. Durocher has a lot of respect for that soldier. He thinks that if that Japanese soldier was an American knocking out a Japanese tank he would have been awarded a Navy Cross and maybe even a Medal of Honor. At the time, Durocher did not like the Japanese but now he is able to see how courageous they were. A white flag was raised up and Colonel Pollock ordered a ceasefire. A Japanese soldier came out with a white flag and his own people started firing on him and he was hit in the arm. They took six prisoners that day. The Marines killed 1,604 out of the 1636 Japanese troops there. Only 26 of the enemy escaped. Many of the Japanese soldiers were of Mongolian descent and many of them were much bigger than Durocher. One thing that made a big difference was the placement of a 37mm antitank gun. The Japanese kept charging the gun and were pushed back every time it fired. The shell blew the Japanese soldiers' faces off. The Japanese came in with flags, bugles, and sabers and a couple of men were killed and one had his leg cut off. When the battle settled down Durocher realized that he had been awake for 60 hours. He got two hours of sleep before he had to get to work repairing the lines. Another Marine offered Durocher a cup of coffee and he discovered that it came out of the iron ration. After the battle, Durocher saw bodies stacked three or four feet high. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] just kept coming over and over again. They refused to wait for the guns to be knocked out.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] After the Battle of the Tenaru River they continued to go out on patrols. They lost 12 men during a bombing raid on 12 September [Annotator's Note: 12 September 1942]. They were also shelled from the sea but lacked the equipment to fire back. Before the Tenaru, Durocher was caught in a strafing run on the Lunga River. People were bathing in the river and a Japanese Zero [Annotator's Note: Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, also known as a Zeke or Zero] flew right down the river firing his 20mm cannon. The Marines were playing leapfrog until the Zero passed and then Durocher and French started trying to make their way back to their camp. On his second pass, the Zero caught sight of them and just before the Zero opened fire they leapt off of the pontoon bridge and into a hole that a native was hiding in. The hole was about seven feet long and there was a tense moment in the hole before they eventually smiled at each other and sat down together until the Zero went away. In early November the camp was attacked early on a Sunday morning. The American planes were not as maneuverable because they were more heavily armored than the Japanese aircraft. Durocher saw a F4F Wildcat open up on the underside of a Zero and the Japanese pilot just fell out of the bottom of the aircraft. Durocher and others watched the pilot fall. Durocher also saw a bomber crash into the ground not far from their position. Destroyers were unloading supplies nearby and the Japanese sent torpedo planes to attack them. The destroyer that Durocher was closest to shot the torpedo plane and the plane just went to pieces. One day, a Stuka [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju87 dive bomber, known as the Stuka] dive bomber attacked their positions but the antiaircraft artillery knocked it down. On 12 September, Durocher and French were sent out to string wire 25 feet up in the banyan trees. A condition red came up while Durocher was in the tree. All of a sudden some bombers passed by carrying antipersonnel bombs that the Marines called "grass cutters." French started screaming at Durocher to get down and into the hole. Durocher was forced to pull his hooks out and slide all the way down the tree. He just barely got into the hole before they hit. Another guy in the hole had made a makeshift oven and was worried about his biscuits. After the attack ended, Durocher got out of the hole and saw all of his work undone by the bombs. A couple of other platoons were caught in a ravine by a bombing raid. There were 12 men killed in that attack.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] In October [Annotator's Note: October 1942] the Japanese sent battleships to shell their position in force. The Japanese started raining 14 and 16 inch shells on the Marines' positions. When the shells hit coral they would explode and it felt like the whole island was shaking. When they hit soft soil they stayed intact for a bit before exploding. Durocher kept waiting for them to run out of ammunition but they never did. On 12 October, the 164th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard outfit from North and South Dakota arrived. They came ashore but only made it as far as the beach. They were going to stay there for the night before making their way inland and got caught in the shelling that night. The Japanese were as concerned with taking out American personnel as they were with taking out the aircraft at Henderson Field. After the Japanese lost their four carriers at Midway, Henderson Field took on an even greater importance for the Japanese. They were desperate to regain control of the field but were content to deny its use to the Americans if necessary. Durocher could see the Japanese ships coming in near the Lunga River. The Japanese ran ships ashore and started offloading supplies and men on the beach but the Marines could not do anything about it until the Army brought in its Long Tom artillery pieces [Annotator's Note: 155mm howitzers]. The Japanese sent about 30 bombers right at them. One time Durocher stood on a ridge watching the bombers approach. The Japanese accidentally dropped their bombs on their own people and a cheer went up among the Americans. Once, when they were returning to the destroyer, a Japanese cruiser came in and started taunting the men on Guadalcanal. Out of nowhere a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] showed up and spotted the cruiser. The B-17 circled around and dropped a bomb that knocked out the fantail. The cruiser just circled wildly for an hour before they got it fixed and made a retreat. While on the Tenaru, Durocher and the others were shelled by ships. After climbing out of the hole, Durocher saw three shells within 15 feet of the hole. The Japanese would fire star shells over them at night. One time they split the battalion to spread out the mortars. They had four mortars per platoon and two were sent to a new position along with Durocher. Eventually the Army arrived with their 155mm field guns and they started to fire. While the men gathered for chow one time a piece of shrapnel fell between an officer's two fingers as he was gesturing towards the men. The officer looked at the piece on the ground and then started talking again.

Edmund Durocher landed on Guadalcanal weighing 156 pounds and left weighing 126. He had no socks because they had rotted away. He had a bayonet but no scabbard. He had no ammo belt. The fiber helmet liner had unraveled. Durocher was able to climb the net onto the ship but many men could not. When they arrived in the Hebrides Islands almost everyone came down with malaria. Durocher was one of the few who didn't. They had pyramid tents but no cots. Mosquito larva would eat holes in their blankets. There were 12 men in each tent and ten of the men in Durocher's tent had malaria. Durocher later got it in Melbourne. Durocher believes that 94 percent contracted malaria at one point or another. Jaundice and jungle rot were also frequent problems. One day after watching the Japanese accidentally bomb their own positions, Durocher went down to the stream for water. They would take two cans down and by the time they got back to camp they had sweated so much that several flies had drowned in their clothes. In the same stream, Durocher went out with another guy to wash up when a sniper opened up on them. They were able to forget about these things because they were young. When they first arrived in Melbourne the people came out to see them. In the Hebrides everyone, including the US military, wanted them off the island because of the malaria outbreak. In Melbourne they were stationed at the cricket grounds. They were put on trucks after leaving the docks. Everyone was surprised by the appearance of the Marines because they were all under fed. The churches started to run affairs and they would send in a request for people and the Marines accommodated them. When Durocher came out of the hospital for malaria, two families brought him into their homes. The group that Durocher was with treated him very well. The Australians had several misconceptions about American life. They thought everyone lived on an estate with a maid and a chauffeur. They also thought Americans only ate salads and Durocher had to break their illusions. The American GIs often became talking pieces for the Australian families that took them in. In the cricket grounds, they cut the bunk beds' legs short so it would fit on the steps. It never got too cold in Melbourne. They were treated like kings while in Melbourne and Durocher thinks of his time there as one of the highlights of his life.

After some time in Melbourne, Edmund Durocher and the other Marines [Annotator's Note: of the 1st Marine Division] were reequipped and began training for their next campaign. The Springfield 1903 rifle was replaced by the M1 Garand. The Marines received Thompson submachine guns and also got some of the Reising submachine guns but Durocher hated those. He was given a Thompson. They did not receive any of the newer, shorter bayonets. During basic training they were taught trench warfare techniques with the bayonet fixed to the rifle. Durocher's unit [Annotator's Note: Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division] left Melbourne in October 1943. They headed through the Great Barrier Reef and landed at Goodenough Island. There was nothing set up for them there when they arrived. They went ashore around dusk and went into a kunai field as far as they could. Durocher was always amazed to find that the jungle and the kunai grass never intermingled. They were ordered to set up pyramid tents in the jungle but that proved impossible. The next morning Durocher woke up covered in moisture because the kunai grass is always damp. A native family came out of the kunai field. The natives were working for the Australians and the Army. The natives started hollering to get a path clear through. Later they started hacking away at the jungle. After five hours trying to set up one tent they gave up and went back into the kunai field. One good thing about Goodenough Island was a large stream that ran through the rocks. Many of the men used the stream to wash up. The natives frequently watched them because they had been told that white men were gods and the scene was very interesting to them. Typhus was rampant on Goodenough. Durocher's unit had 59 cases of typhus but the Army unit that came in later was hit very hard. When the Marines were passing through they stopped the convoy and the Army came out and made sure that no one stepped into the quarantine zone. Durocher saw some of the men who had typhus after he returned home and was amazed at how they looked 30 years older than they actually were. Typhus is transmitted through a tick. The tick would get on a mouse or a rat and these animals would find their way into camp. It got worse when they went to Pavuvu.

To Edmund Durocher, New Britain was just as bad as Guadalcanal. They went to New Guinea before they landed on New Britain. The first time they landed on New Guinea it was to get them used to LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. The second time was to get them some practice with the LST, and the LCI [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Infantry]. On New Guinea, the maneuvers called for them to move across the beach. The Marines could see the natives get close enough to see them but they would take off if the Marines got too close. At the end of the beach all of the natives were together with a priest. The priest reassured the natives that the Marines were not a threat. During the landing on New Britain Durocher rode in an LCI. Durocher put all of his communications equipment into a cart. There was no beach where Durocher landed. There was chest high grass immediately and the jungle started shortly thereafter. The strongest man he ever knew, a guy named Robert Miller, was needed to get the cart onto the shore. There was no opposition there because they took them [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] by surprise. Some people had been dropped off ten days earlier to reconnoiter the island. They had landed at night near the same village that Durocher landed near. They set their mortars up in the hollow of a ridge. They also set up their lines on the ridge on 26 December 1943 at a place known as Coffin Corner. On 30 December the Japanese attacked. The ridge made a V shape. The Japanese attacked from the jungle. Before the attack, heavy monsoon rains hammered the American positions for well over an hour. The Japanese slipped in across the ridge during the storm. They were preparing to make their charge when someone heard them and spoiled the surprise. One Marine, Paul LeBlanc, caught a Japanese soldier and cut his throat. The Japanese soldier let out a scream that alerted Durocher and the others to the situation. After getting out of his pup tent, Durocher saw what looked like a firefly but he knew that it was grenade fuse. The wire drum was dropped behind the tent. The grenade landed underneath the drum and threw a lot of shrapnel into a gunner named Robinson who was running toward them. Robinson went down about six feet from Durocher. Durocher knew Robinson was dying and put his hand on him to ease his pain. Then they went back into the tent to get their equipment. After they got their equipment, Durocher heard another Marine asking for help. The cry had come from the rifle pit. When Durocher arrived he saw the Marine holding a Japanese soldier down with his foot while bashing him with his rifle butt. The soldier had been hit across the jaw and was angry. Durocher was told to spray the pit but when he went in the barrel [Annotator's Note: of his weapon] got stuck. A Japanese soldier had grabbed it. Durocher remembered a tip he learned in basic training and used it to wrench his gun free. Then he opened fire on the pit and killed five men. After this, a corporal named Diamond ordered everyone back to their positions. Durocher's hole looked down the ridge but the Japanese attack was coming from the side. Durocher turned and saw a Japanese soldier about six feet from him and gunned him down. After that the fight started for real.

Edmund Durocher was alone for a while [Annotator's Note: on a ridge on Cape Gloucester, New Britain known as Coffin Corner]. The phone had been brought up and placed in one of the machine gun pits. People started coming into the hole after a while. They didn't know what the situation was because it was dark. When one guy got in the hole he did not recognize Durocher. He grabbed Durocher by the neck and put his carbine at the back of his neck before another Marine stopped him. While he was in the hole, people came and went so Durocher was occasionally alone. Durocher thought that the Japanese had taken over one of the American machine guns after one of them started firing on Durocher's position. After a long burst, Durocher fired on the machine gun trying to knock out the trigger mechanism. After shooting at it, the machine gun fired back. The second time he opened fire, another Marine named Grogan also fired on the machine gun. The gun opened fire for a third time and Durocher started getting desperate for a solution. After the third burst they fired again and this time the gun did not fire again. One man was killed and several more were wounded. Durocher saw a Japanese soldier coming up. He saw the soldier leap over the parapet and perfectly roll into firing position. Durocher was impressed by the grace of the man until he realized that he was in the Japanese soldier's sights so he stopped admiring the enemy and shot him. Another man came into Durocher's view and he called out to get an ID before firing. The response was a grenade that landed right in Durocher's trench. Durocher dove out of the trench and dragged another man out with him. The entire hole was filled with a blue flash when the grenade went off. Durocher took out the grenade thrower. Eventually, Durocher went for the telephone but found a Japanese soldier also grabbing for it. Everyone in the firing pit was either wounded or dead. Durocher interrupted two Japanese soldiers trying to plant a mine on the phone. He lost the tug of war but grabbed his Thompson and shot them both.

A call went out for volunteers and Battery H, 11th Marine Regiment sent five people to the front to help out. Three of them went into Edmund Durocher's hole. Before they arrived, other Marines came in including Marty Grogan, Blue Dougherty, and one other Marine. They started hearing someone tapping a rifle butt. After seven taps someone started chanting. The chant grew in frequency until someone shouted banzai. They charged the Marines who opened up on them and stopped them. Everyone hopped out of the hole and got behind it. No one wanted to be trapped in a hole during a banzai charge. Gunnery Sergeant Giuliani walked up and spoke to him. Durocher felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck when the banzai call came up. Durocher later told his buddy that he did not run because he was afraid of running into Colonel Masters. Giuliani told Durocher to get back into his hole and then gave him a grenade to throw. By that point the Marines were running low on ammunition. Durocher had used a couple insecticide bombs to scramble the Japanese in order to give them enough time to gather ammunition. When Durocher went to pull the pin on the grenade it slipped out of his hand and landed between him and Giuliani. Giuliani's eyes got wide as he saw this unfold. Durocher dove for the grenade and scooped up a handful of dirt with the grenade inside it and threw it over the side of the hole. Another Japanese soldier was approaching from the side of the trench when the grenade caught him in the stomach. A Marine by the name of Bernie Mag [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] came up with a case of grenades and asked Durocher if he needed any ammunition. After this, the 11th Marines came up and three of them got in Durocher's trench. Many of the Japanese officers had gone to school in the United States and they were familiar with football. One Japanese officer shouted out asking who was playing in the Rose Bowl that year. This annoyed the Marines. Giuliani came up cradling a machine gun and asked them for something to shield his hand from the barrel. Someone gave him an Army hat with ear flaps that he used to wrap around the barrel. Giuliani was trying to cover several positions. Eventually Giuliani asked Durocher to get ready to make a charge. Once the ammunition arrived, Durocher got the guys from the 11th Marines to load the clips for his Thompson submachine gun and once everything was ready they charged. When Durocher reached the parapet the Japanese dropped a mortar shell on them that hit the Marines and Japanese troops as well. Durocher was wounded in the jaw and the leg. The man next to him was killed and the one on the end of the line lost his leg. When Durocher tried to fire his gun it jammed. He discovered that one of the guys from the 11th Marines had loaded all the rounds in reverse. Durocher started calling to Giuliani who was busy firing on the Japanese. Durocher thought that Giuliani was aiming too high and noticed a Japanese soldier getting close under the line of fire. Durocher took him out with the butt of his Tommy gun. When Durocher got hit, he thought at first that Giuliani had punched him in the face. When he noticed that Giuliani was busy firing he put his fingers to his face and was able to feel his teeth through the hole in his chin. He reached around and felt for a hole in the back of his head. He was annoyed that the Japanese could not do a better job of wounding him. Eventually, a call came up for more ammunition and Durocher volunteered to go pick it up. By the time he reached the area, however, they had already brought it up very close. Suddenly, Durocher's leg gave out and he realized he had been wounded in the leg. Once that happened, his battle was over. Durocher had to be taken down a steep ridge and the corpsmen did not think that a stretcher would make the trip. Durocher's immediate superior overheard their discussion and volunteered to carry Durocher down the ridge. He put Durocher on his back and carried him down. By the time they reached the bottom Durocher had bled all over the sergeant's helmet and everyone thought that he had been hit. Durocher had lost his helmet when the mortar hit. They did not wear the chinstraps on their helmets. During the battle the Japanese used Roman Candles in an attempt to burn the Marines off the ridge. It set some of the kunai grass on fire but the mud managed to keep them safe.

When they reached the field hospital, Edmund Durocher was put on a stretcher in the mortar platoon area. At the bottom of the ridge the insects were terrible. The insect problem was worse on New Britain than it had been on Guadalcanal. There was only about an hour's reprieve from the insects every morning. The doctors covered Durocher with a blanket to keep him warm in case he went into shock. Because of all the blood on his face Durocher was swarmed by flies. He pulled the blanket up over his face to protect it from the flies and other Marines who saw him assumed that he was dead. This rumor was repeated and eventually made its way to the United States. He showed up in the Queens' local paper as being killed in action. His family did not see it but other people did an alerted Durocher's family to it. The paper eventually learned of its mistake and retracted it. When dawn came, Durocher saw a tangle of bodies around three Nambu machine guns. He thought he had only been firing at one gun but actually there were three. This was before the charge. The charge was made in daylight. Durocher heard later that when Paul LeBlanc took out the Japanese soldier with his knife, the screaming of the dying Japanese brought a machine gunner, Robinson, to his position and this gunner accused LeBlanc of jumping to conclusions that he had caught a Marine. To prove his point, LeBlanc struck a match which illuminated the body of the dead Japanese as well as several live enemy soldiers trying to sneak up on their position. Robinson made his way back to the camp but the Japanese caught him with a grenade. It took about two months for Durocher's leg to heal. He stayed in the outfit the entire time. He spent four days in the hospital on the cape [Annotator's Note: Cape Gloucester on New Britain]. Durocher's unit [Annotator's Note: Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division] was separated from the division. They had been sent in to stop reinforcements and to trap a retreat. The outfit that attacked them had been ordered to take the beach that Durocher's unit had landed on. While Durocher was in the field hospital, the order came down that anyone who could use their arms was to be brought up to the line because they could stay in the hole and keep firing. At first, Durocher would go to the field hospital each night to have some gangrenous flesh removed. This was done over a two month period without any anesthesia. One day, after they had rejoined the division, the Japanese attacked and Durocher had to leap into a hole and landed hard on his leg. His jaw healed more quickly. The doctor tried a new drug but they were unable to stitch it closed. Durocher was pulling pieces of shrapnel out of himself for 17 years. He lost a number of teeth over the years because of it but he sees himself as fortunate because the company had several amputees and a few people rendered blind.

[Annotator's Note: Edmund Durocher served in the US Marine Corps as a radio telephone operator in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.] After they left Cape Gloucester they went to Pavuvu to rest. They were situated on the plain and the rains would flood the camp. The water would rise to just below their cots and people frequently lost their rifles. The mice infestation was another problem and it got to the point that the Marines had contests to see which company could catch the most mice in a week. One company won with about 625 mice. Land crabs were also a problem just as they had been on Guadalcanal. Once, when taking over the switchboard in a hole on Guadalcanal, Durocher found a land crab in the hole with him, staring at him. He tried to stab his bayonet near it to get the crab to move but the crab caught the blade with his claw and started moving the rifle even as Durocher was holding it. When Durocher was in the hospital on New Britain, there were a couple other guys near him. One was blind and the other had been shot in the stomach. They were told to never give him water. There were also a couple of Japanese prisoners in the tent with them. One of the Japanese prisoners had also been shot in the torso and the other had had many of his toes blown off. When French [Annotator's Note: Durocher’s friend Joe French] came to visit, he asked Durocher if he needed anything. Durocher told him he was uncomfortable with the two Japanese soldiers being so close and asked French for a weapon. French gave him a Japanese bayonet for protection. Durocher never had to use it and thinks it is probably still where he left it because he forgot to take it with him. When a line goes out at night, the communications person has to go out to fix it. They could tell if the line had been cut or if it shorted out by how the phone cranks. If there is an opening the crank is easy to turn. If there is a short it is difficult to turn. Durocher realizes today that anyone tasked with cutting the communications will not stick around after the job is done. Still, he was always afraid of being attacked while repairing the line. Doing that at night was fraught with difficulty. Anyone repairing the line had to do it quietly because the Japanese would try to stop them if they were aware of the repair efforts. Durocher was occasionally fired upon by his own people when he was out on the lines. The different jobs had their own struggles that were unique to the job. One time Durocher was creeping through the shadows at night, hyper aware of every shape in the dark. He needed to work quickly but quietly because the longer it took the more vulnerable the position was and the more noise he made increased the potential that Japanese patrols might hear him.

Edmund Durocher spent three months on Pavuvu. The Marine brass cut the division [Annotator's Note: the 1st Marine Division] strength down by a couple thousand men. The machine gunners joined the rifle companies. The mortars were directly under the division commander. Two of the eight men in the communications section were no longer needed. Communications made up its own unit. Durocher's sergeant held up a deck of cards and said that each of the men must draw from the spades to see who would get relieved. Durocher drew the two. He thought that they were headed back to Melbourne so he wanted to put his card back but the old man of the company, Gallagher, told him that they were not going back to Melbourne and told him to hold on to his card. Durocher returned home and stayed there until the end of the war. When Durocher joined the Marines he was asked if he wanted to join the regulars or the reserves. He was told that the regulars served four years plus six months at the government's convenience and the reserves served until the end of the national emergency. Durocher thought that if the United States did not get into the war it would last twelve years so he chose the regulars. The war actually ended three months before his term was up. Durocher was discharged at Camp Lejeune. Durocher broke his wrist getting off the ship and spent two months in the hospital. He was sent east based on the results of his IQ test. Because of his scores he was sent to take a competitive exam for telephone electrician school. It was a five month course and this led him to his postwar career. After the course was over Durocher was shipped overseas again but never got further than Hawaii. While Durocher was in Hawaii the war ended. The order came down for 93 men to be sent to Japan. They were to be put on a carrier. Their truck was stopped and five men were pulled off because there was concern that there would be trouble. Durocher was ordered to return to the United States. Durocher received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for his actions at Coffin Corner. No one interviewed him about it because he was recovering from his injuries. He never would have received anything more than a Silver Star because Giuliani was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions and they do not give out duplicate awards for the same engagement. Durocher remembers some other men that he believed deserved to receive medals. One man named Schaefer went out the front of his trench during the Japanese attack on the machine gun pits to tell Holder to get the back plate out of the machine gun before the Japanese overran his position. The back plate held the firing mechanism. As Schaefer made his way towards Holder's position he ran into a Japanese soldier. The Japanese soldier mistook Schaefer for one of his own and actually helped him reach Holder's position. On Guadalcanal, one guy had a cot behind his pit. Everyone else slept on the ground. One morning, after taking the late watch, he climbed out of the pit and found a Japanese soldier sleeping on his cot. He was so surprised he startled the man awake and he fled back into the jungle before anyone could catch him.