Virgil Henry Rogers
Kentucky Post, Saturday, 15 January 1944, page 1
After spending almost 12 months in the Solomon Islands, leaping
into foxholes to escape Jap bombs and darting behind trees to evade snipers
while carrying out a general maintenance task for Uncle Sam's invasion forces,
Seabee Virgil Rogers finds northern Kentucky "too quiet and uneventful." Rogers,
a carpenter's mate, second class, is visiting his wife, Mrs. Pearl Rogers, 407
Columbia street, Newport and his father, Harry, Spring Lake on his 30 day
furlough.
The 27 year old carpenter's mate was with the initial Seabee divisions to go into Guadalcanal after the Marines had taken over a strip of the South Pacific island. Rogers recalled how he and the Seabee division landed on Guadalcanal on Christmas Day, 1942 and started work immediately of constructing roads, bridges and general maintenance work and later reconstructing a new historic Henderson Field, the airfield wrested from the Japs after a long and bitter struggle.
Rogers enlisted in the Seabees July 17, 1942, and it was during one of the air raids that Rogers sustained a fractured arm as he leaped into a foxhole to escape the fragments of a bursting Jap bomb. He is to receive the Purple Heart award for the injury. During his 12 months stay in the South Pacific, Rogers was felled with malaria on four different occasions. He was hospitalized in New Zealand until he fully recovered.
Rogers has a brother, John R, 518 Montgomery street, Covington, who is a storekeeper, second class with the Navy. His brother was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the Savo Island sea battle.