Central Catholic trio who died on Tarawa remembered

Central Catholic graduates William J. Bordelon, above, Gene Seng, Jr. and Charles Montague, below; died in action with the Marine Corps on the same day in the South Pacific six and a half decades ago. A Medal of Honor recipient, SSgt. Bordelon may soon have a San Antonio highway segment named in his memory. Photos provided

For 65 years, three graduates of San Antonio’s Central Catholic High School killed during the U.S. invasion of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943, have been united in death. But they’ve lived on in the collective memory of their school’s community.

Their link was permanently memorialized Nov. 3, 2007, when school officials dedicated the William J. Bordelon Memorial in the building’s main foyer. Bordelon, the ROTC battalion major during his senior year in 1937-38, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor six years later for his extraordinary heroism and determination in leading men despite several serious wounds.

He was the first Medal of Honor recipient born and reared in San Antonio and the first Texas Marine to earn the nation’s highest medal for valor in World War II.

Gene Seng, Jr. ’39 and Charles Montague ’40 were killed further down the beach on the horrific three-day battle’s opening morning. Inseparable buddies from their days at Central, through St. Mary’s University, Marine boot camp and the Solomon Islands campaign, they were still side by side manning a machine gun when sudden death came on Betio, the major island in Tarawa atoll.

Their picture is among five included in the Bordelon memorial depicting the Tarawa invasion, the first heavily opposed U.S. amphibious assault of World War II. The battle ended with 1,000 Marines killed.

Betio was so heavily fortified that its Japanese commander boasted that “a million men in a hundred years” couldn’t take it. But they hadn’t reckoned with 19,000 U.S. Marines, who took it in 76 hellish hours.

The Central Catholic community has kept the memory of all three young men alive for 65 years — but especially Bordelon’s because of his Medal of Honor.

In 1947, the school named its award-winning junior ROTC rifle team the Bordelon Rifles. For many years, all three men’s names were included on a plaque memorializing nearly 30 alumni who had been killed in World War II and Korea.

Bordelon’s citation and a replica of his medal were displayed nearby.

But outside of Central Catholic, Bordelon was largely forgotten for nearly 50 years in Military City U.S.A., his hometown.

Then in April 1994, through efforts initiated by retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. James J. McMonagle of Vista, Calif., a 1949 Central graduate, the Navy named San Antonio’s Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center at 3837 Binz Engleman Road after the hometown hero.

Nineteen months later, McMonagle represented the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Charles C. Krulak, in eulogizing Bordelon at his reburial ceremony in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on the 52nd anniversary of his death.

Thanks to Robert D. Tips, owner of Mission Park Funeral Homes, the body had been brought home from the Pacific after 52 years. It lay in state in the Alamo the night before the funeral and reburial.

Now, in the latest chapter of the story, Angelo Di Pasquale, father of a 1970 Central graduate, has asked City Council to name the section of Interstate 37 between Interstate 35 and Interstate 10 in Bordelon’s honor. He also has asked the city to name the section of Interstate 35 adjacent to Fort Sam Houston for an Army Medal of Honor recipient, Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole, killed in France in 1944.

“My son, James, told me about the Bordelon Rifles and that they were named after a Medal of Honor recipient killed in World War II,” Di Pasquale said.

He said he noticed that three recipients who survived the war and were not San Antonio-born have segments of U.S. Highway 90 named for them. Bordelon and Cole, both born and bred in the city and killed in action in World War II, have received no such honors.

Di Pasquale said that all Medal of Honor recipients deserve to have highway segments named for them.

“One is not better than the other; they all went above and beyond the call of duty. But Bordelon and Cole were born here, grew up here and made the ultimate sacrifice. They gave up their lives. This is one way to perpetuate their memory,” he said.

Di Pasquale said City Councilwoman Jennifer Ramos is drafting an ordinance for the renaming at his request. If passed by the City Council, the renaming also must be approved by the Texas Department of Transportation.

For Central Catholic to have a graduate who is a Medal of Honor recipient, he said, is “a real feather in its cap.”

Deacon W. Patrick Cunningham, the school’s principal, said the inspiring thing about the trio is that they were ordinary young people who made a difference in an important endeavor.

“They are good models for all our students, models of what you can become and what you can do if you listen to your heart and your call,” he said.

In the context of Central Catholic’s identity as a Marianist institution, he said, “duty has consequences. We teach service to others. In serving others more effectively, you build a more just society and then you can have peace.”

“These three men never intended to give up their lives, but it’s what they had to do to accomplish their mission. It tells our students that if they put their faith in a mission, sometimes they have to do hard things to fulfill it,” Deacon Cunningham said.

During the Tarawa invasion, many officers in Bordelon’s section of the landing zone were already dead when he reached the safety of the 20-foot-wide beach behind the seawall. He and three others were the only survivors out of 25 Marines in his landing craft when it was hit by an enemy shell while still hundreds of yards from the beach.

Bordelon lost two of his four explosive charges while wading ashore under fire, so he divided the remaining two to make four.

Despite several serious wounds, he waved medics off and told them to assist other wounded men, including two in danger of drowning in the surf when they became entangled on underwater obstacles set by the enemy.

Bordelon single-handedly destroyed four enemy pillboxes, including the one that delivered his final, fatal wound.

Military historian and retired Marine Col. Joseph Alexander says inventive leaders like Bordelon definitely made the difference at Tarawa. When victory was in doubt and it depended on maintaining offensive momentum, non-commissioned officers took the initiative and devised their own solutions.

After the battle, senior officers recommended only four Medals of Honor. Three, including Bordelon’s, were awarded posthumously. The recipient of the fourth, Col. David M. Shoup, not only survived but 17 years later became commandant of the Marine Corps.

That’s what at least one classmate at Central Catholic had expected for Bordelon. Nobody expected him to die in battle at age 22.

“I expected him to become a four-star general and commandant of the Marine Corps, something like that,” classmate Bob Bosbyshell of Atlanta said.

Bordelon, who grew up in Harlandale, had been the first altar boy at Mission San José as a child. At Central, he was uncommonly at home with everything military. Classmates recalled that everyone else in the school viewed the ROTC cadet corps as a requirement. But Bordelon reveled in it. The school’s 1938 Buttoneer yearbook characterized him as “Militaristic — first, last and always.”

He proved it again and again as a Marine, according to Gen. McMonagle. Bordelon’s fitness reports over nearly two years in the Marine Corps averaged 4.89 out of a possible 5.0. For much of the last year of his life, his scores were all 5.0.

He turned down an offered battlefield promotion at Guadalcanal. But McMonagle said that had Bordelon lived and made the Marine Corps a career, he could have risen at least as high as lieutenant general, so great were his intelligence and leadership quality.

“Bill Bordelon exemplified the kind of leader you look for in combat. The most unnatural thing for a human being to do is to move forward in the face of hostile fire,” the retired general said. “But his extraordinarily heroic acts inspired other Marines to do that. He was really something special.”

Bordelon’s aptitude for military life and leadership were so noticeable that he advanced to the rank of sergeant just seven months after finishing boot camp at Camp Elliott, Calif.

“That indicates that they saw something special in him from the beginning,” McMonagle said. “Central Catholic is very unusual for a Catholic high school in having one of its graduates a posthumous Medal of Honor recipient. He exemplified values every school wants in a graduate.

“He led a good, clean life and was an excellent student; when faced with adversity, he behaved with gallantry and heroism.”
That’s one reason that members of Central Catholic’s award-winning Bordelon Rifles consider it such a significant honor to be on the team that bears his name.

“He died for our country, and he rescued other men when he was more badly hurt than they were. It’s amazing that someone could do the kind of things he did and remain cool under fire,” said Cadet Ryan Tate.

“He modeled for us that you can’t put yourself first; when you put others first, it makes you a better person. He exemplified that this school creates leaders.”

Tate said the year-old Bordelon Memorial has had an impact on students and visitors alike.

“We give tours of the school, and we make the memorial a focal point. Now I have a greater appreciation for what it means because I joined the National Guard this past summer.”

Tate added that team members feel the honor and responsibility of bearing Bordelon’s name when they compete in shooting competitions out of town.

“People know our reputation as the Bordelon Rifles, and some shooters and coaches understand the history behind it, what Sgt. Bordelon did and that we represent a Medal of Honor recipient,” Tate said. “That makes us proud.”

Montague and Seng didn’t figure prominently in the historical narrative of the battle as Bordelon did. They were part of a 15-man squad that destroyed an enemy machine gun nest, but they didn’t last long on the beach.

“They and their squad were heroic, too,” Gen. McMonagle said. “But nobody knows specifically who did it because for the Medal of Honor, you need witnesses, and the whole squad was killed,” he said.

Bordelon’s Medal of Honor was presented to his mother and father at a military sunset review ceremony in Alamo Stadium June 17, 1944, in the presence of Texas Gov. Coke Stevenson and other dignitaries.

The event was part of a statewide “Bordelon Week.” It was just after D-Day, and war bond drives were exhorting San Antonians to “Buy Bonds for Bordelon.”

In 1945, the Navy commissioned a destroyer named for him, and in later years, the Marine Corps named the parade field at its major Pacific command headquarters after him.

When Central Catholic graduates speak of Bordelon, the names of Seng and Montague are always mentioned. They were named briefly in Robert Sherrod’s classic 1944 book, Tarawa: The Story of A Battle.

In 2006, Pacific War historian John Wukovits memorialized them in his book, One Square Mile of Hell, which tells the story of the Tarawa invasion through the stories of men who participated in the three-day battle.