Douglas Albert Munro
Douglas Albert Munro was a United States Coast Guardsman who was posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor for an act of ‘extraordinary heroism’ during World War II. He died of a gunshot wound at age 22 while using the Higgins boat that he was piloting to shield a landing craft filled with Marines from Japanese fire. Munro is the only person to have received the medal for actions performed during service in the Coast Guard’s service.
About Douglas Albert Munro in brief
Douglas Albert Munro was a United States Coast Guardsman who was posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor for an act of ‘extraordinary heroism’ during World War II. He was born in Canada to an American father and a British mother, and his family moved to the United States when he was a child. Munro and his shipmate Raymond Evans were known as the Gold Dust Twins, so-called because they were inseparable. He died of a gunshot wound at age 22 while using the Higgins boat that he was piloting to shield a landing craft filled with Marines from Japanese fire. Several ships, buildings, and monuments have been dedicated to Munro, and a street in his hometown is named after him. His grave has been designated a historical site by Washington state. He is the namesake of the “Douglas Munro March”, the Navy League’s Douglas A. MunRO Award, the Coast Guard Foundation’s Douglas Munro Scholarship Fund, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Douglas munro-Robert H. Brooks Post. The anniversary of his death is annually observed in Cle Elum and at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. The only non-Marine to have his name enshrined on the Wall of Heroes of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Munro is the only person to have received the medal for actions performed during service in the Coast Guardsmen’s service. He reportedly told his sister he had chosen the Coast guards because its primary mission was saving lives.
He had been friends with his shipmates, Ray Evans and Marion Cooley, for most of his Coast Guard career. He would spend the rest of his career with Evans, and became known as “the Gold Dust twins” Munro would spend his last night with Evans in Seattle, where he met and became friends with biographer Gary Williams, who was Munro’s biographer. He and Evans were assigned to the Treasury-class cutter, USCGC Spencer, serving aboard the S.C.G. During the Guadalcanal Campaign he led the extrication of a force of Marines whose position had been overrun by Japanese forces. He received consistently high marks on his performance evaluations and—according to Evans—expressed a desire to become a Coast Guard officer. He also performed in a drum and bugle corps sponsored by the American Legion, the Sons of theAmerican Legion Drum and Bugle Corps, eventually becoming the corps’ drillmaster. He attended Central Washington College of Education due to its proximity to Cle Elumm, Washington, so that he could continue performing in the sons of the American legion. He married Edith Fairey, a British woman born in Liverpool, England, in 1914. His father, James Munro, was born. in Sacramento, California as James Wilkins, and was employed as an electrician. His divorced mother remarried a Canadian citizen whose surname he took. By age eight he had moved to Canada; his divorced mother had remar married a British citizen.
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This page is based on the article Douglas Albert Munro published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
