{"id":143217,"date":"2023-06-23T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=143217"},"modified":"2023-06-22T12:22:14","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T16:22:14","slug":"valor-friday-230","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=143217","title":{"rendered":"Valor Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Siwash the Marine Devil Duck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately this has been a very busy week, so I don’t have time to dedicate to my usual article. I don’t want to leave you empty handed. Therefore, you’re getting a little peek on an unknown character of the Pacific War. It’s been more than three years now since I did my series on animals of valor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Air Force Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

On Nov. 20, 1943, 18,000 Marines were met with withering fire, poured out by elite troops of the Imperial Navy\u2019s Special Naval Landing Force.<\/p>\n

The attack on Betio, the largest and southernmost island in the Tarawa atoll, required a direct assault on the beachheads by U.S. Marines.<\/p>\n

On that day, alongside those Marines clutching the beachhead amid a lethal hailstorm of mortars, machine gun and rifle fire, was a duck.<\/p>\n

Won in a raffle at a New Zealand pub by Sgt. Francis \u201cPappy\u201d Fagan, the duck was given the rank of sergeant and named Siwash after Sgt. Jack \u201cSiwash\u201d Cornelius of Skagit County, Washington. According to the Marine Corps Chevron, Cornelius acquired the nickname due to it sounding similar to his home county\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

(Note, Siwash is a derogatory term for Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, and as such, the name \u201cSiwash\u201d will be replaced in this story with \u201cduck.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Becoming the 2nd Marine Division\u2019s unofficial mascot, the duck followed Fagan everywhere he went, developing a penchant for guzzling beer \u2014 just like her owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cSiwash just can\u2019t pass up a free drink\u201d Fagan told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1944. \u201cA long one and a short one is her limit, but she doesn\u2019t know it. She won\u2019t touch draft beer though. And it\u2019s got to be warm beer. The way it was in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the \u201cdevil duck\u201d was beloved by her men, it was her actions on Tarawa on the second day of the invasion that cemented her place in Marine Corps lore.<\/p>\n

By the end of the first day, the Marines had a tenuous hold on all three landing zones \u2014 designated Red 1, Red 2 and Red 3. From this precarious position, General Julian Smith radioed General Holland Smith midafternoon, stating, \u201cSuccessful landings on Beaches Red 2 and 3. Toehold on Red 1. The situation is in doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corralled onto the narrow beaches, no units had penetrated more than 70 yards inshore by nightfall. Being driven back into the sea was a legitimate threat.<\/p>\n

Protected by coral reefs, the flat, small island was one of the most heavily fortified in the Pacific, and because of the island\u2019s geography, the nearly 5,000 Marines would have no immediate room to maneuver.<\/p>\n

For the duck, however, the situation was never in doubt. Channeling Col. David Shoup report \u2014 \u201dCasualties many; percentage of dead not known; combat efficiency: We are winning\u201d \u2014 the duck reportedly locked eyes with a Japanese rooster and took the enemy encounter into her own webbed feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rooster didn\u2019t have a chance,\u201d Fagan later related to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. \u201cSiwash whipped him and chased him 30 feet up the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there was initial talk among Marines of rewarding the duck with a Purple Heart, she was eventually cited for bravery. (The Marines initially believed she was a he until the duck began to lay eggs.)<\/p>\n

\u201cFor courageous action and wounds received on Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, November 1943. With utter disregard for his own personal safety, Siwash, upon reaching the beach, without hesitation engaged the enemy in fierce combat, namely, one rooster of Japanese ancestry, and though wounded on the head by repeated pecks, he soon routed the opposition,\u201d the citation read. \u201cHe refused medical aid until all wounded members of his section had been taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the duck served during the Battle of Saipan \u2014 this time from the safety of a destroyer \u2014 and the Battle of Tinian.<\/p>\n

But the Marines couldn\u2019t keep a good duck down, and at Tinian, the duck \u201chit the beach on D-Day and personally captured a tiny Jap duck,\u201d TIME reported in 1944. After Tinian, however, the duck\u2019s war was over.<\/p>\n

Upon returning home, the devil duck was given a hero\u2019s welcome before parting with Fagan to live out the rest of her days at Chicago\u2019s Lincoln Park Zoo.<\/p>\n

There she stayed until the hard drinking girl passed away from liver disease in 1954.<\/p>\n

Her body was later stuffed and presented to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Rah.<\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately this has been a very busy week, so I don’t have time to dedicate to … Valor Friday<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,331,389,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-marines","category-valor","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}