Sergeant Don Collins

Private First Class Don Collins was a 20-year-old veteran Machine Gunner when he landed on Peleliu's White Beach. Collins had joined L Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines 15 months before and had survived the campaign at Cape Gloucester, but nothing could prepare him or anyone in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines for what would happen on White Beach.

As Marines landed at 8:32am, 3/1 was devastated by a combination of mortars, artillery, machine guns, and small arms fire. "I was nicked in the arm by a sniper before I had run 25 yards on the beach" recalled Collins. Disregarding the wound, "we pushed on in and I set up my machine gun" before they were halted by a deadly, thirty-foot high coral ridge honeycombed with occupied caves that raked the Marine line and pushed back all of the initial assaults.

Shortly after the ridge was taken with heavy casualties, "I got hit in the leg by a piece of shrapnel" said Pfc Collins, and he was pulled back to an aid station and evacuated to Manus Island's USH #108 via the USS Pinkney, and then to Guadalcanal to recover. "I consider myself lucky, for out of my section of 13, only three were left in the battle." On Peleliu the 1st Marine regiment suffered around 58% casualties, with 3/1 taking the brunt of it with an almost 75% casualty rate, some platoons and squads being entirely killed or wounded.

After 7 days in combat, the 1st Marines were pulled off the lines and transported back to Pavuvu. Collins recovered and continued on to lead a Machine Gun platoon on Okinawa before returning to the US on a battlefield OCS recommendation.

However, the war ended before he could be commissioned. Collins returned home where he met Marie Martin, whom he married and had 2 children with. Don spent several years in accounting before getting his masters in theology and worked in ministry before retiring in 1984 to travel the country with his family in their airstream trailer. After settling back in Key Largo, FL, Don's wife sadly passed in 2013 and Don followed in 2019 at the age of 96.