Item Description
Original Item: Only One Available. Technical Sergeant Harry Earl Ball Serial Number 449170 first enlisted in the Washington State National Guard on March 7th, 1939. He served with the Searchlight Battery, 248th Coastal Artillery until September 28th, 1942 when he was Honorably Discharged. He then enlisted in the USMC where and served in the Signal Battalion at Camp Lejuene and was sent to the "South Pacific Area" from September 12th, 1943 to December 8th, 1943 where served as a Radar Technician. He then participated in the DThe Battle of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands from the 3rd of February 1944 until the 24th of October 1944.
Included in this grouping are the following items:
- Original USMC Medical Corpsman knife by Chatillon. The top of the wood grip bears Ball's initials which appear to have been branded in place and read HRB. The knife includes a very nice USMC marked 1943 scabbard by BOYT. Blade very good with staining, minor handling. Scabbard also very good with some slight normal aging. The type used by the Marine Corps in the South Pacific, and though not originally intended as a fighting knife the close tactics of the Japanese fighting caused these knives to be heavily relied upon by USMC soldiers and were used in many battles according to the marines that survived.
- Original 1942 Dated USMC Honorable discharge.
- Original 1945 Dated USMCR Honorable discharge in custom leather case which outlines his overseas service during WWII.
- Original 1950 Dated USMCR Honorable discharge in custom leather case.
- Original Separation record from U.S. Army National Guard dated 1942.
- Leather USMC zip document case.
- Original Wartime photo ID badge of Ball in overseas garrison cap.
All in all a very compelling set from a USMC soldier that served and fought in the Pacific during WWII.
The Battle of Kwajalein was fought as part of the Pacific campaign of World War II. It took place from 31 January-3 February 1944, on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Employing the hard-learned lessons of the battle of Tarawa, the United States launched a successful twin assault on the main islands of Kwajalein in the south and Roi-Namur in the north. The Japanese defenders put up stiff resistance, although outnumbered and under-prepared. The determined defense of Roi-Namur left only 51 survivors of an original garrison of 3,500.
For the US, the battle represented both the next step in its island-hopping march to Japan and a significant morale victory because it was the first time the Americans had penetrated the "outer ring" of the Japanese Pacific sphere. For the Japanese, the battle represented the failure of the beach-line defense. Japanese defenses became prepared in depth, and the battles of Peleliu, Guam, and the Marianas proved far more costly to the US.
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