This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Donald Losey (Fallhiker), MM1
to remember
Eastmond, Richard Taylor (Dick), CAPT.
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Contact Info
Last Address Provo
Date of Passing Nov 01, 1981
Location of Interment Buried at Sea, Pacific Ocean
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
A highly decorated Navy "ace," Captain Richard Eastmond was born in Provo, Utah, in 1920. He received his "Wings of Gold" and was commissioned an Ensign in 1942. He flew an F6F Hellcat from the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown from December 1943 through August 1944, participating in air battles around Tarawa, The Marianas, Ronin, and the Carolina Islands.
Captain Eastmond led his division to intercept superior numbers of enemy aircraft attempting to strike the Yorktown Task Force. In a matter of minutes he had shot down four enemy aircraft on that single sortie. That mission earned him the Navy Cross. Captain Eastmond was credited with a total of thirteen aerial victories.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and numerous other service medals. He died in November 1981 at the age of 61 and was buried at sea with full military honors.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign (1944)
From Month/Year
June / 1944
To Month/Year
November / 1944
Description The Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, also known as Operation Forager, was an offensive launched by United States forces against Imperial Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands and Palau in the Pacific Ocean between June and November, 1944 during the Pacific War. The United States offensive, under the overall command of Chester Nimitz, followed the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign and was intended to neutralize Japanese bases in the central Pacific, support the Allied drive to retake the Philippines, and provide bases for a strategic bombing campaign against Japan.
Beginning the offensive, United States Marine Corps and United States Army forces, with support from the United States Navy, executed landings on Saipan in June, 1944. In response, the Imperial Japanese Navy's combined fleet sortied to attack the U.S. Navy fleet supporting the landings. In the resulting aircraft carrier Battle of the Philippine Sea (the so-called “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”) on 19–20 June, the Japanese naval forces were decisively defeated with heavy and irreplaceable losses to their carrier-borne and land-based aircraft.
Thereafter, U.S. forces executed landings on Guam and Tinian in July, 1944. After heavy fighting, Saipan was secured in July and Guam and Tinian in August, 1944. The U.S. then constructed airfields on Saipan and Tinian where B-29s were based to conduct strategic bombing missions against the Japanese mainland until the end of World War II, including the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the meantime, in order to secure the flank for U.S. forces preparing to attack Japanese forces in the Philippines, in September, 1944, U.S. Marine and Army forces landed on the islands of Peleliu and Angaur in Palau. After heavy and intense combat on Peleliu, the island was finally secured by U.S. forces in November, 1944.
Following their landings in the Mariana and Palau Islands, Allied forces continued their ultimately successful campaign against Japan by landing in the Philippines in October, 1944 and the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands beginning in January, 1945.
