By: Kris Cotariu Harper, EdD

“When people ask you about the Coast Guard, don’t tell them what we do; tell them the story of Doug Munro and Ray Evans, because that’s who we are – and who we are is much more important than what we do.” Admiral Robert J. Papp, 24^th Commandant of the US Coast Guard (2010-2014)

Douglas Munro was born in October 1919 in Vancouver, Canada, to a British mother and an American father. When he was still young, the family moved to the small town of Cle Elum in Washington State.

Growing up, Munro excelled at everything he attempted. He was an excellent student and athlete, participating on the state championship high school basketball team as well as the wrestling and tumbling teams. As a musician, he played in his school’s orchestra and dance orchestra. He also played the bugle in the Sons of the American Legion Junior Drum and Bugle Corps.

Tommy Kloovucar, a lifelong resident of Cle Elum, reminisced about sitting on a hill near his family’s farm and watching the Drum and Bugle Corps rehearse for their competitions. As a 10-year old, he was impressed by their precision and beautiful uniforms. The corps competed throughout the United States with Munro’s father, the stationmaster, arranging their transportation. The practice paid off when the Cle Elum Junior Drum and Bugle Corps won the national championship in 1934.

Doug Munro was an “outgoing young man who liked everybody he met with a few exceptions. He was fun to be around and we had some great … times together” (USCG, n.d.). Munro was kind and caring, especially considerate of those less fortunate than he. As a teenager in the 1930s, he and his friend and high school classmate, Marion “Mike” Cooley, often gathered and delivered firewood to families who could not afford coal during the hard years of the Great Depression. This commitment to helping others directed Munro’s choices for the rest of his life.

After high school graduation, Munro enrolled at Central Washington College of Education and through his coursework, acquaintances, and professors developed an awareness of and interest in geopolitical affairs. In 1939, with war looming on the horizon, he left school and enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. He told his sister Patricia that he chose the Coast Guard because “[it] is focused on saving lives, not taking them” (Williams, 2014).

On the day of his enlistment, September 18, 1939, Munro met Raymond “Ray” Evans, who would become a great friend and significant figure in the rest of his life. In the late 1930s, the Coast Guard had no training program for new recruits; training was conducted on-the-job and the new enlistees were given odd jobs around the base until they were assigned to a Coast Guard cutter (CGC). Before the end of the first week, Munro, along with Evans, reported to the CGC Spencer where they both trained as quartermaster, learning to maintain the survival and rescue equipment as well as deck equipment and the general maintenance of the deck and ship exterior. They were also responsible for navigational publications and instructions. Their training continued daily until the Spencer arrived in New York where it joined the Neutrality Patrols, defensive measures along the east coast of the United States, and later participated in surveillance duty in the Azores. Due to the synergy between the two, it was not long before they were nicknamed the Gold Dust Twins, a common label applied at that time to two people whose work efforts complemented one another and resulted in noteworthy achievements. When off-duty, Munro and Evans prepared themselves for the signalman rating exam, a rating that had fallen into disuse in the Coast Guard. Within a short time, both were promoted to Signalman Third Class. Years later, Evans wrote, “He was a hard worker … and we studied together to become proficient as Coast Guard signalmen. We didn’t want the Navy battleship signalmen to think we couldn’t compete because we could, and did, all through the war…” (USCG, n.d.)

The signalman rate was introduced into the Coast Guard after World War I, the first occasion during which the Coast Guard fell under the authority of the Navy. The Navy and Coast Guard quickly realized the need for standard communication, as well as other skills, between the two services. In January 1921, the Coast Guard reorganized, introducing parallel rates to those used in the Navy. By the early 1930s, however, the Signalman rate was no longer in use in the Coast Guard. During World War II, however, the two services again required a single communication system, and the signalman rate was reinstated. Munro and Evans were ready to assume the role.

In June 1941, Munro and Evans were transferred to the USS Hunter Liggett, a Navy troop transport ship, where they begged their way into the Navy’s coxswain’s course. As with everything else they attempted, Munro and Evans were exceedingly successful, completing the course at the top of their class. Although still rated as a signalman, Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen later said Doug Munro was the best coxswain in either the Navy or the Coast Guard. Assigned to Transport Division 17, the two men continued working and training together until the United States entered the war in December 1941. Early the following year, they headed to the Pacific, albeit on different ships, the first time they were separated since their enlistments. Fortunately, the separation lasted only for a few months.

The summer of 1942, Munro and Evans participated in the United States’ first major assault of the war in the Solomon Islands. Now a Signalman First Class, Munro was originally assigned to support Marines on the island of Tulagi but before long received a message from Lt. Commander Dwight Dexter, the Coast Guard’s senior officer in the region, to join the boat pool on Guadalcanal where he would operate the small landing craft called Higgins boats. The Higgins boats performed a myriad of missions – transporting men and supplies to the island, rescuing aircrew who had been shot down, and returning casualties to the ships. Munro immediately ferried over to the base camp on Guadalcanal, wearing nothing but shorts, boots, and his hat, where he was met by Dexter and Evans. Dexter inquired if this manner of dress was how he typically reported to duty, to which Munro responded, “it is today, Sir” (Williams, 2014). Barely containing his laughter, Dexter told the two men to get some food and report for duty. He then added, “and, Munro, get a shirt on … before chow” (Williams, 2014).

On Guadalcanal, Munro and Evans resumed their partnership, working together like the incomparable team they had always been. In their off time, they built a small house for themselves “from packing boxes and scrap material. It was about 10 feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet high. Quite a swank establishment for Guadalcanal…. It was one of the few places that had real screened windows” (Hurlbut, 1943).

The invasion on Guadalcanal took place on August 6 and, once all combatants were ferried ashore, Munro left his boat to join one group as it moved inland. As the Marines competed the trek to their forward operating position, Munro immediately set up his blinker to signal the ship throughout the night. For the next six weeks, the Marines dug in and guarded their perimeter, which included the airstrip built by the Japanese, while enemy forces remained on the western side of the island.

On September 21, the new commander of the 5^th Marines decided it was time to remove the enemy forces from the entire island. Unfortunately, his plan, implemented five days later, was based on inaccurate and or insufficient information. It involved a land assault to link up with a landing by sea. Overland progress was thwarted, however, by aerial attack and stronger-than-expected, entrenched enemy forces and, due to misunderstood communication of their circumstances, the amphibious assault was given the go-ahead for the following day. As the Higgins boats approached the shore on September 27, they were forced to re-direct due to coral reefs and after they successfully landed the men further down the cove, the boats returned to their operating base. The Marines were quickly trapped between a larger enemy force and the sea. Having lost the radio, their only means of communication, in the ariel bombardment, the men used their white tee-shirts to spell HELP on the sand. This attracted the attention of a Marine Corps dive-bomber who communicated the situation to the command post. Relief was immediately organized and Doug Munro volunteered to lead the rescue effort.

Munro led a group of 10 Higgins boats toward the island under continuous strafing fire by the enemy. With four other boats, he approached the shore and attracted the enemy fire while the other 20 landed to evacuate the Marines. As the rescue craft left the island, one fully loaded boat was stranded on the coral reef. Munro pulled his own boat between the shore and the trapped boat in order to divert the enemy fire. On the disabled boat, the abled-bodied Marines climbed into the water to lighten the load and release it from the coral. Once free, it turned toward the sea and departed, Munro’s boat behind it. In the next few seconds, Doug Munro was shot in the back of the head and as he lay dying in Ray Evans’ arms, his final words were “Did they get off?” (Dexter, 1942). Amongst the Marines rescued that day were future Medal of Honor recipient SGT John Basilone.

In a letter to Munro’s parents, Dexter, Munro’s commanding officer, wrote,

I have pride in telling you that he covered himself with honor, and I hope Glory, and fulfilled the mission so satisfactorily that almost all of the men he had under his charge returned to their unit and, without exception, all had praise for your son’s execution of his duties…. His loss has left a very decided space which I feel will never be filled so far as I am concerned…. In the year and a half that I have known Douglas, I have grown to admire him and through him, you. He was the true type of American manhood that is going to win this war…

Doug Munro was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented to Munro’s parents in the spring of 1943. Within a year of the ceremony at the White House, Edith Munro, Doug’s mother, reported to the Coast Guard Station to enlist and continue her son’s service and commitment. Reluctant to enlist a gold star, Medal of Honor mother, the Coast Guard tried to turn her away, but Edith was insistent. At the age of 48, Edith Munro did enlist, attended boot camp and was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant; she spent the next two years working with, and advocating for, SPARS, the name given to women in the Coast Guard. Edith Munro died in 1983 and is buried next to her son in Laurel Hill Memorial Gardens in South Cle Elum.

Mike Cooley, Doug Munro’s childhood friend, had enlisted in the Army and served in Europe during the war. Several years after the war’s end he returned to South Cle Elum where he learned that Munro had been killed in the war and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Cooley went to the cemetery to pay his respects and saw a tattered and worn flag flying over Munro’s grave; he left the cemetery and purchased a new flag for the grave. For the next 40 years, Cooley went to the cemetery every morning and every evening to raise and lower the flag. As he grew older, he worried who would care for the flag and Doug Munro once he was gone. Mike Cooley died in 1999 and two months later, a new flag pole, with a spotlight, was installed over the grave, funded by the local chapters of Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association, the Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association and the Douglas Munro VFW Post 1373.  Mike Cooley is buried in Laurel Hill Memorial Gardens, within the memorial to his childhood friend.

Ray Evans also survived the war, was commissioned as an officer in 1943 and retired from the Coast Guard as a Commander in 1962. He died in 2013 and is buried in Mountain View Memorial Park in Lakewood, WA.

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Kris Cotariu Harper, EdD, is an Army wife and the daughter of two WWII Navy Veterans. She is an educator and trainer who often writes and speaks on values demonstrated by Medal of Honor recipients.

References:

• Browning, Jr., Robert M. (n.d.). Douglas Munro at Guadalcanal, U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office.
• Dexter, D.H. (1942). Letter written to Mr. and Mrs. Munro, n.d.. U.S. Coast Guard’s Historian’s Office.
• Hurlbut, J. W. (1943). Letter written to Mr. James Munro, dated March 15, 1943. Provided by Munro-Sheehan family.
• Kloovucar, Tommy (February 19, 2022). Personal interview.
• Mallory, K. (2020). Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro, US Coast Guard: Medal of Honor Series.
• Papp, R. J. (n.d.). In speech given by Julie Sheehan, April 1, 2017.
• USCG Historian’s Office (n.d.). The Gold Dust Twins – Commander Raymond Evans, USCG (Ret.) remembers his friend and shipmate Douglas Munro.
• Williams, G. (2014). The Guardian of Guadalcanal, The World War II Story of Coast Guard Medal of Honor Recipient Douglas Munro. Lakota Press: West Chester, OH.