#VeteranOfTheDay Marine Veteran William E. Lentsch - VAntage Point

We are losing these treasures way too quickly. Damn few left...

I lost two great uncles, sons of one of my mom's mother's sisters, in the naval battles off Guadalcanal in the Solomons. The eldest of the two, a 19-year veteran and CPO went down on the USS Astoria in the same battle as the above Marine from the USS Vincennes. The other, an 18-year-old on his first deployment aboard the USS San Francisco, was killed in mid-Nov. 1942 when the San Francisco was raked by Japanese naval gunfire in a night battle that cost the lives of the TF commander, RADM Daniel Callahan and the ship's captain, CAPT Cassin Young and 75 men. San Francisco had been hit aft by a Japanese torpedo bomber the day before, killing 15 men and 1 MIA. The ship went back to the states and returned to action late in the war.

ILLUSTRATIONS: (1) USS Vincennes. (2) USS Astoria in battle practice near Hawaii, spring 1942. (3) USS San Francisco off Mare Island Naval Shipyard in San Francisco Bay following its complete overhaul before returning to the Pacific War, 13 Oct. 1944. Photos from Wikipedia.

Thanks brother Dale.