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Tommy Burgdorf (Birddog), FC2
to remember
Buerkle, Elmer Charles, CDR.
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Casualty Info
Home Town San Diego, CA
Last Address 3020 Goldsmith St San Diego, CA (Wife~Lillian Neil Buerkle)
Casualty Date Jul 06, 1943
Cause MIA-Finding of Death
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Manila American Cemetery - Taguig City, Philippines
Wall/Plot Coordinates Tablets of the Missing (Cenotaph)
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/New Georgia Campaign (1943)
From Month/Year
June / 1943
To Month/Year
October / 1943
Description This operation was fought during the Pacific war on this group of islands situated in the central Solomons. US forces invaded them as part of an American offensive (CARTWHEEL) to isolate and neutralize Rabaul, the main Japanese base in their South-East Area.
On 20 June 1943 a Raider battalion (, 5(f)) landed at Segi Point on the main island, New Georgia, and during the next two weeks there were other landings by US Marines and 43rd US Division on Rendova and Vangunu islands, and on western New Georgia, to seize a Japanese airstrip at Munda point. Despite the US Navy's intervention, which resulted in the battles of Kula Gulf and Kolombangara, 4,000 reinforcements were successfully dispatched to the commander of the 10,500-strong Japanese garrison, Maj-General Sasaki Noboru. Most reinforced Munda, which became the focus of Japanese resistance, and their night infiltration tactics unnerved the inexperienced US troops. Non-battle casualties, caused by exhaustion and ‘war neuroses’, increased alarmingly, and when the commander of 14th Corps, Maj-General Oscar Griswold, arrived on 11 July he reported the division was ‘about to fold up’. The 37th US Division was brought in, Griswold replaced the worst affected units, and he then launched a corps attack on 25 July. Fierce fighting followed but by 1August the Japanese, outnumbered and outgunned, had withdrawn inland. This time US Navy destroyers prevented more reinforcements reaching them when, on the night of 6/7August, they sank three Japanese transports (battle of Vella Gulf).
Munda now became the base of Marine Corps squadrons which supported landings on Vella Lavella on 15 August. These bypassed and isolated Sasaki's garrison now gathering on Kolombangara after further US reinforcements, elements of 25th US Division, had failed to destroy them on New Georgia. On 15 September Sasaki was ordered to withdraw. In a brilliantly organized evacuation 9,400 men out of the 12,500 on Kolombangara were rescued by landing craft, and the following month those on Vella Lavella were also evacuated.
The campaign proved costly for the Americans who had 1,094 killed and 3,873 wounded with thousands more becoming non-battle casualties. Excluding the fighting on Vella Lavella, 2,483 Japanese bodies were counted. Planned as a one-division operation, the Japanese garrison's ‘skill, tenacity, and valor’—to quote the campaign's official US historian—eventually made it one where elements of four had to be used. ‘The obstinate General Sasaki,’ the same historian concludes, ‘deserved his country's gratitude for his gallant and able conduct.’
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
June / 1943
To Month/Year
October / 1943
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories After overhaul in Sydney, Australia, she was back at
Espiritu Santo in March to participate in bombardments of
New Georgia, soon to be invaded. The first goal on New
Georgia proper, was Rice Anchorage. In the force escorting
the transports carrying the initial landing parties, HELENA
moved into Kula Gulf just before midnight 4 July, and
shortly after midnight on the 5th, her big guns opened up in
her last shore bombardment.
The landing of troops was completed successfully by
dawn, but in the afternoon of 5 July, word came that the
Tokyo Express was ready to roar down once more and the
escort group turned north to meet it. By midnight 5 July,
HELENA's group was off the northwest corner of New Georgia,
three cruisers and four destroyers composing the group.
Racing down to face them were three groups of Japanese
destroyers, a total of ten enemy ships. Four of them peeled
off to accomplish their mission of landing troops. By 0157,
HELENA began blasting away with a fire so rapid and intense
that the Japanese later announced in all solemnity that she
must have been armed with 6-inch machine guns. Ironically,
HELENA made a perfect target when lit by the flashes of her
own guns. Seven minutes after she opened fire, she was hit
by a torpedo; within the next 3 minutes, she was struck by
two more. Almost at once, she began to jackknife. Below,
she was flooding rapidly even before she broke up. In a
well-drilled manner, HELENA's men went over the side.
HELENA's history closes with the almost incredible
story of what happened to her men in the hours and days that
followed. When her bow rose into the air after the sinking,
many of them clustered around it, only to be fired on there.
About a half hour after she sank, two American destroyers
