The full-strength company had lost 102 men on Saipan. After their replacement draft and after the lightly wounded had returned from the hospital, they landed on Tinian with 155 officers and enlisted.
By the end of Tinian, when the casualties were counted and the surviving 2nd Divison replacements - who now had to start all over again in new units - Able Company counted barely fifty men present for duty. The survivors posed for a picture.
Al Perry took a count of the men left for action after the Banzai charge on the first night. Twenty nine men were able to carry weapons. Of the original complement that had left the United States in January, only a handful were left. Some would return to the company before the end of the campaign; others on Maui. Still others were out of the war for good, either in hospitals or cemeteries.
On the morning of August 5 the company that had trained at Camp Pendleton together was reduced to barely a platoon-sized group. They were joined for their picture by some of their new comrades from the 2nd Division, and some of their old comrades who had just returned from the hospital. Note how many in the above picture are sporting clean, white bandages.
ORIGINAL MEMBERS, ABLE COMPANY
Captain Irving Schechter
1st Lt. Roy Wood
Gunnery Sergeant Walter Russell
Platoon Sergeant Stephen Vinczi
Sergeant Wilbur Plitt
Sergeant Thomas Hurley
Sergeant Joseph Wendte
Sergeant Luther Diehl
Corporal Charles Fischer
Corporal William Loutzenhiser
Corporal Alva Perry
Corporal Howard Smith
Corporal Frank Gosiewski
PFC Robert Walton
PFC Peter Colombo
PFC George Marion
PFC Sylvan McKinley
PFC Ronald Palmer
Private Raymond VanDam
Private Robert D. Sivertson
JOINED FOLLOWING NAMUR, PRESENT FOR SAIPAN AND TINIAN
Sergeant Thomas Eugene Drake
Sergeant John Donohue
Corporal Robert Price
Corporal Leon Abrams
Corporal William Peck
Corporal Glenn Edgar Doster
Corporal James Pritchett
Corporal Joseph Peterpaul
Corporal Claude Lorton Godwin, Jr.
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