The Old Breed of Marine: A World War II Diary

On Friday, August 7, 1942, at 1300, after a furious cannonading by the Navy fighting vessels slamming salvo after salvo into the shores, 36-year-old Marine Sergeant Abraham Felber jumped from a Higgins boat onto Beach Red in the first-wave assault on the deadly jungle island of Guadalcanal. Felber was responsible for writing the Record of Events for his unit, and recorded in meticulous detail the fighting that wrested Guadalcanal from the enemy in the skies, off the shores, and in the muddy jungles.

This work is part of the diary that Abraham Felber kept during his service in World War II. It begins with January 7, 1941, and ends with December 31, 1945. As the 1st Sergeant of Headquarters Battery, 11th Marines, Felber dealt with both officers and enlisted men, which exposed him to the perspectives and insights of both. Felber was also granted the unusual privilege of taking photographs during the Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester campaigns, some of which are published here for the first time. Felber’s accounts of his unit’s role in the combat at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester; his time at Guantanamo Bay, Parris Island and Camp Lejune; daily life, and other experiences are presented here as he recorded them.

The late Abraham Felber lived in East Windsor, New Jersey. His son, Franklin S. Felber, is a physicist in San Diego, California. William S. Bartsch, a prize-winning military historian, lives in Reston, Virginia.