On Memorial Day I was reading a list of veteran’s memorial sites when I came across the name Douglas A. Munro. It was familiar to me only because of the many letters I wrote to my husband when he was serving aboard the USS Douglas A. Munro, DE422, during the Korean War. At that time, the ship was engaged in nonstop shelling of enemy installations ashore.
With help from Google, I learned that Signalman 1st Class Douglas A. Munro was the only United States Coast Guardsman ever awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He died at Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942, while evacuating a party of Marines under heavy fire and shielding them with his own body until the last one escaped. Survivors said his last words were, “Did they get out?” - Emily Harris
