| Home State | Occupation |
| Delaware | Career soldier |
| Branch | Service Number |
| U.S. Army | O-24060 |
| Theater | Unit |
| Pacific | Company “B,” 20th Infantry Regiment, 6th Infantry Division |
| Awards | Campaigns/Battles |
| Silver Star Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Purple Heart | New Guinea, Luzon |
| Military Occupational Specialty | |
| 1542 (infantry unit commander) |
Early Life & Family
Edgar Clayton Boggs was born in or near Cheswold, Delaware, on April 21, 1918. He was the son of Edgar Jefferson Boggs (1882–1958) and Lettie V. Boggs (1885–1971). Edgar J. Boggs was a seed farmer and later a game warden for the State of Delaware. He eventually became state detective for Kent County, Delaware, and was elected as president of the Delaware Association of Chiefs of Police in 1946. Lettie Boggs was active in multiple organizations, summarized in a 1971 article in The Morning News as including “the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, the official board of the Cheswold United Methodist Church, the auxiliary of the Cheswold Fire Company, the Federation of Republican Womens Clubs, and the Cheswold Board of Education.” In 1954, she was named Delaware’s Mother of the Year.
E. Clayton Boggs had two older brothers, James Caleb Boggs (1909–1993) and Austin Boggs (1911–1928), as well as a younger brother, Calvin J. Boggs (1921–1993). J. Caleb Boggs, a lawyer, was an officer in the 6th Armored Division in the European Theater during World War II, reaching the grade of colonel. After the war, he entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, as governor of Delaware, and finally in the U.S. Senate. After the 1972 election, in which he was narrowly defeated by a young New Castle County councilman named Joseph R. Biden, Jr., he returned to practicing law. Austin Boggs died tragically of an illness at the sanitarium in Laurel, Maryland, on April 24, 1928, when he was just 16 years old. Calvin Boggs served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, fighting in the Pacific Theater with the 1st Marine Division from 1942–1944. He was discharged as a corporal in 1946 and became a businessman.
The Boggs family was recorded on the census on February 6, 1920, living on a farm along the road between Dover and Garrison Mill. As of the next census on April 15, 1930, E. Clayton Boggs was living with his family on a farm along the road between Leipsic and Cheswold. Boggs was Protestant according to his military paperwork.
A tribute, written after the war by someone identified only as L. F. M.—almost certainly Boggs’s West Point classmate, LeMoyne F. Michels (1916–1994)—stated that Boggs
went to high school in Dover, Delaware, a few miles from his home. While at Dover, he won two letters during the three years he played football, and he also was active in track. He was graduated from high school in 1936, and the following year he attended Columbian Preparatory School in Washington, D. C.
Military Training, Stateside Service, & Marriage
According to a statement by his mother for the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission, Boggs served in the 198th Coast Artillery of the Delaware National Guard prior to becoming a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on July 1, 1937. L. F. M. wrote that Boggs’s “West Point activities included the Dialectic Society, boxing, Hop Manager, ‘Howitzer’ and ‘Pointer’ Staffs and Vice President of the Debating Society.”
Boggs was recorded on the census on April 11, 1940, living in the cadet barracks on Jefferson Road at West Point. Upon graduating from the U.S.M.A., on June 11, 1941, he was commissioned into the Regular Army as a 2nd lieutenant in the Infantry branch. Lieutenant Boggs spent July 30, 1941, through October 24, 1941, at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he attended a Rifle and Heavy Weapons Company Officers class at the Infantry School.
2nd Lieutenant Boggs then transferred to the 20th Infantry Regiment, 6th Division, stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Between November 5–13, 1941, Boggs was a platoon leader in Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. He then became commanding officer of the Detachment, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, serving in that capacity until he became the battalion adjutant on January 29, 1942. The 6th Division was redesignated as the 6th Motorized Division on April 9, 1942.
On March 4, 1942, Lieutenant Boggs married Valerie Brooks (1921–1988) in St. Louis, Missouri. Valerie had grown up in New York City. According to their son, his parents met at a dance at the U.S.M.A., and his father “proposed at the Rainbow Room on top of Rockefeller Center while still attending West Point.” While Lieutenant Boggs was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, the couple made their home in Richland, Missouri. Their son, Boggs’s only child, was born in January 1944 after he had already gone overseas.
On April 29, 1942, Lieutenant Boggs assumed command of Company “B,” 20th Infantry Regiment, a post he retained until his death nearly three years later. In an essay that Boggs wrote around 1943, he recalled:
The prophecy handed me at West Point had come true. During my last year there I had heard a million times “Gentlemen, you will be commanding companies soon, get this stuff well.” […] At that very moment many of the boys I now command were training hard.
On October 1, 1942, the regiment was redesignated as the 20th Infantry Regiment (Motorized). After exercises in the Tennessee Maneuver Area in the fall of 1942, the regiment moved to the West Coast, arriving at Camp Young, California, on December 3, 1942. After training in the desert, his unit moved to Camp San Luis Obispo, California, in March 1943. On May 1, 1943, the regiment’s designation changed back to 20th Infantry Regiment. Similarly, the 6th Motorized Division was redesignated as the 6th Infantry Division effective May 21, 1943.
During the era, U.S. Army officers sometimes held one grade in the Regular Army as well as a temporary, higher grade in the Army of the United States. Boggs was promoted to 1st lieutenant in the Army of the United States on June 22, 1942, and to captain on March 17, 1943, but it wasn’t until June 12, 1944, that he was promoted to 1st lieutenant in the Regular Army.
L. F. M. wrote of Boggs’s leadership style:
Truly Clayt Boggs lived up to his belief that “sirs” and “salutes” are subordinate to true respect among men serving under an officer, in combat or in the calm between battles. He kept the individual’s significance first and foremost in his relations with officers and enlisted men alike.
Boggs later recalled the excitement that the members of Company “B” felt when they learned they would finally be shipping out for the combat zone:
The long awaited order “You are alerted for overseas movement” had finally arrived. Morale Skyrocketed. We didn’t know where overseas, but we were going. We were ready. We had at last sweated out a trip across the pond. Our company had trained and waited and trained. At last we were on the march. We couldn’t be stopped. Our waiting days were over. We were riding to the sound of the guns. “On Guard, Hitler and Tojo, On Guard! ” [sic]
Hawaii & New Guinea
Captain Boggs sailed from the San Francisco Port of Embarkation with the rest of his regiment on September 20, 1943, arriving in Hawaii five or six days later. During the next few months, the men of the 6th Infantry Division trained for jungle combat.
In January 1944, back in Delaware, Valerie Boggs gave birth to Edgar Clayton Boggs, Jr., known as Clay, a son that Captain Boggs never had a chance to meet. Shortly thereafter, on January 23, 1944, Captain Boggs shipped out again, this time for New Guinea, arriving in Milne Bay on February 7, 1944. The unit continued training for the next four months. On June 4, 1944, Boggs and his company sailed from Milne Bay aboard a transport, the U.S.A.T. Sea Devil. One week later, the unit arrived at Toem in northwest New Guinea. Japanese defenders were fiercely resisting the U.S. Army’s 158th Regimental Combat Team in the nearby hills overlooking Maffin Bay.
On June 14, 1944, Company “B” moved to Maffin and began patrolling. Casualties were light during this phase of the battle, but on the night of June 15–16, 1944, Private Egon Waechter vanished during a patrol and was never seen again.
The 20th Infantry Regiment led the 6th Infantry Division during the attack on Lone Tree Hill on June 20, 1944. Despite the nickname, the hill was heavily forested. It was also very rugged and well-fortified, with Japanese soldiers occupying caves and tunnels. Artillery and air strikes failed to dislodge the defenders. Captain Boggs earned the Bronze Star Medal for his actions that day. The citation, dated July 20, 1944, stated:
For heroic achievement in connection with military operations against the enemy on Lone Tree Hill near Maffin Bay, New Guinea, on 20 June 1944. When his Company was pinned down by heavy machine gun fire, he, with complete disregard to his personal safety and with calmness and dispatch, reorganized his Company and moved them under continuous fire to a flank position ground, from where his Company succeeded in eliminating a large number of the enemy which had originally pinned them down.
Company “B” casualties that first day in combat were the heaviest it sustained in the entire battle. Morning reports indicate the company suffered a total of four killed in action, 16 wounded, one sick, as well as two men isolated from the rest of the company (eventually rejoining the unit nearly a week later).
Tough fighting continued during subsequent days as the Americans slowly eliminated the Japanese bunkers. What was left of the Japanese garrison pulled out of Lone Tree Hill on the night of June 24, 1944. The following day, the 20th Infantry Regiment was pulled out of the line, and Company “B” so no action except for routine patrolling for the rest of the battle.
Company “B” participated in mopping up actions at Cape Sansapor, New Guinea, from August 23–31, 1944, where disease caused far more casualties to the 6th Infantry Division than the enemy.
L. F. M. wrote:
One of his last written statements revealed his longing for home, family, wife, and the son he had never seen. Waiting for the battle that would claim his life, he wrote, “I’ll be so glad to get there”. The victorious end of the Philippine fight meant coming home soon.
Liberation of the Philippines
New Year’s Day 1945 saw Company “B” at sea, awaiting the start of an amphibious operation at Lingayen Gulf, where the Japanese had invaded the Philippines some three years earlier. The 20th Infantry landed on Luzon on January 9, 1945. Constantly moving south toward Manila and sometimes operating alongside Filipino guerillas, Company “B” sustained no casualties from enemy action for the rest of the month.
On January 31, 1945, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment—including Captain Boggs’s Company “B”—seized the village of Baloc. They found that the Japanese had recently pulled out, leaving behind the body of a brutally murdered Filipino civilian. 1st Battalion was soon ordered to march to the nearby town of Muñoz, where a substantial Japanese force was making a stand. In a postwar paper, Captain Michael Kane, Jr.—at the time, commanding officer of Company “C,” 20th Infantry Regiment—wrote that “the seizure of Munoz and San Jose would deny enemy forces in Northern Luzon access to the Central Plains and would remove the last remaining threat of a large scale enemy counter-attack against the Sixth Army’s left flank.”
Filipino guerrillas reported that there were 20 tanks and approximately 1,000 Japanese soldiers in and around Muñoz—though various sources compiled after the battle indicate that the enemy strength was in fact 55–57 tanks of the 6th Tank Regiment and around 1,800–2,000 Japanese soldiers. Captain Kane recalled that “On all sides the approaches to the town were open, offering excellent observation to a defending force, but affording no cover or concealment for the attacking troops.”
1st Battalion and 3rd Battalions of the 20th Infantry advanced towards Muñoz on the morning of February 1, 1945, where they were met with heavy rifle and machine gun fire soon from the Japanese defenders. Captain Kane wrote that
Company “B” swung wide through the open rice field south of the town and came under enemy fire when they reached the south side of the Cemetery. Company “B” vigorously pushed their attack in the Cemetery, thereby helping to relieve the pressure on Company “A” who then was able to advance […] With Company “A” giving good rifle support from the southwest edge of the Cemetery, Company “B” pushed slowly north through the Cemetery, suffering numerous casualties from the enemy’s direct fire, until they reached the ditch running along side the south edge of the Highway.
Captain Boggs and his men were unable to advance any further. A 1st Battalion report about the battle explained that
the enemy were well dug in with tanks and covered machine gun nests placed in depth. Enemy tanks were usually placed so that they covered an area with cross-fire covering adj[a]cent positions as well. They had alternate positions and were able to move about freely at night.
Although Japanese tanks were lightly armed and armored by world standards, they were still very dangerous to American infantry lacking their own armor support. The Americans had one company of tanks available, but poor terrain and Japanese antitank defenses limited their use.
The 20th Infantry Regiment had no choice but to try to infiltrate the enemy positions, getting small teams close enough to engage the tanks with bazooka or rifle grenade fire, or to effectively direct mortar and artillery fire onto them. Progress during the next four days of the battle was measured in yards. Company “B” casualties were recorded as two killed and 31 wounded in action during February 1–4, 1945. Another five men were hospitalized due to illness and three more with shell shock or battle fatigue. Two men attached to the unit—an officer and a Filipino guerilla—were also wounded.
On the morning of February 5, 1945, Companies “B” and “C” claimed one enemy tank each, and mortar and artillery fire two more. Captain Boggs led Company “B” forward 150 yards. Captain Boggs’s Silver Star Medal citation, dated March 30, 1945, described what happened next:
When Captain Boggs, an infantry company commander, learned that his first platoon was being held up by two tanks which were fifty yards to the front of the platoon, he moved his observation post across open ground to the found line and established his observation post in a former enemy dug-in emplacement. Seeing that there was little protection for his troops, he moved them fifty yards to the rear and called for 4.2 [inch] mortar fire to knock out the tanks. A direct hit destroyed one tank. While Captain Boggs was directing his 4.2 mortar observer to put fire on the second tank, a large number of enemy troops came out of their concealed positions around the tanks and started a counterattack. At the same time the second tank moved out of its dug-in position and directly towards Captain Boggs’ observation post. He remained in his position, firing a rifle at the approaching enemy and giving the location of the tank by radio to the 4.2 mortar observer. Under the cool and efficient direction of Captain Boggs, the enemy attack was halted, many of the enemy killed, and the remainder retreated in disorder. During the last phase of the attack, Captain Boggs was killed by a direct hit on the observation post from the enemy tank.
Captain Kane later wrote of the incident that
an enemy tank, located just east of the Market Square, left its emplacement and counter-attacked Company “B”. […] It was quite evident that this enemy tank crew had observed the unusual activity around Company B’s C.P. [command post] dug-out which was located 25 yards north of the Highway. As the Jap[anese] tank approached this C.P. it had its turret gun aimed at the dug-out, and when only 25 yards away, fired a 47mm shell. The enemy shell killed the Company Commander, Supply Sergeant, and Radioman of Company “B”. At the same instant, a 1st Battalion 37mm anti-tank gun, located on the south side of the Storage Building, fired at the tank and set it afire.
According to a burial report, Captain Boggs died from a sucking chest wound (pneumothorax). Three other men were killed and several wounded by the Japanese tank.
Early on the morning of February 7, 1945, the remainder of the Japanese garrison in Muñoz attempted to break out of their encirclement and was virtually annihilated. The Americans captured the town. That afternoon, Captain Boggs was buried at the U.S. Armed Forces Cemetery Santa Barbara No. 1 (Row 8, Grave 418).
The Adjutant General’s Office’s summary of Captain Boggs’s career listed the following awards:
Silver Star Medal, Bronze Star Medal, American Defense Service Medal; American Theater Medal; Asiatic-Pacific Theater Medal, with 2 Bronze Service Stars for the New Guinea and Luzon Campaigns; Bronze Arrowhead for landing on Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 9 January 1945; World War II Victory Medal; Combat Infantryman’s Badge; Expert Badge with Rifle and Carbine Bars; Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one Bronze Star; and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
In his tribute to Captain Boggs, L. F. M. wrote:
Next to his wife and baby son he fought and died for this belief stated in his diary: “My only desire in life is a great America, a strong America, an America capable of leading the world in progress, peace, and justice”.
Captain Boggs’s widow, Valerie, remarried in Cheswold on April 17, 1946, to Calvin Boggs, with whom she had one child, Calvin “Jeff” Boggs (1960–2012).
After the war, Captain Boggs’s father requested that his son’s body be repatriated to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. His body was disinterred on September 10, 1948, and returned to the United States aboard the U.S.A.T. Jack Pendleton. On February 16, 1949, Captain Boggs was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery (Section 34, Grave 4676).
Captain Boggs’s name is memorialized at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware, and on a plaque in Dover, Delaware, dedicated to local fallen from World War II. Captain Boggs’s family also honored him with a cenotaph at Lakeside Cemetery in Dover, where his parents, widow, and two of his brothers (Austin and Calvin) were buried after their deaths.
Notes
Mother’s Maiden Name
Depending on the record, Lettie Boggs’s maiden name was spelled Vaughan or Vaughn.
Place of Birth
Most sources give Captain Boggs’s place of birth as Cheswold, Delaware. Curiously, while the 1920 census gave his place of birth as Delaware, the 1930 census recorded it as Pennsylvania. Even more confusingly, he was recorded twice on the 1940 census. The entry recorded in Delaware listed his place of birth as Pennsylvania, while the entry recorded at West Point listed it as Delaware!
L. F. M.
The L. F. M. who wrote the tribute to Captain Boggs printed in 1947 would seem to have been his classmate at West Point. The only officer with those initials who graduated from the U.S.M.A. in 1941 was LeMoyne F. Michels (1916–1994), who was living in the same barracks as Boggs in the spring of 1940. Indeed, Captain Boggs’s son recalls being told that Michels was his father’s roommate.
Motorized Regiment/Division
Although all U.S. Army infantry divisions of the era had vehicle transport, the experimental motorized units had considerably more vehicles. The Army abandoned the concept prior to any of the motorized divisions entering combat because they consumed too many resources and shipping space, the latter a major hindrance considering how many thousands of miles the divisions would have to be moved before going into action. The 6th Motorized Division did not even receive the full allocation of vehicles prior to being converted back to a regular infantry division.
Maffin Bay and Cape Sansapor
In 1944, the Maffin Bay and Cape Sansapor areas of New Guinea were part of the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies. Today, they are part of Indonesia.
First Day of Combat: June 20, 1944
My account of Company “B” casualties during the first day of the assault on Lone Tree Hill include details that became known later. Recorded casualties on June 20, 1944, were three killed in action, 16 wounded, one sick, and three missing in action. Of those missing in action, it turned out that one had been killed in action. The other two men returned to the company on June 26, 1944, “after being pinned down 6 day[s] by enemy machine gun.” Both were slightly wounded during their ordeal.
Discrepancies about the Action of February 5, 1945
According to the 1st Battalion report, dated one week after Captain Boggs’s death, he was killed around 1445 hours on February 5, 1945. On the other hand, in his 1947 paper, Captain Michael Kane, Jr. placed the incident in the morning, around 1000 hours. He also stated that three men were killed by the tank including Boggs.
The 1st Battalion report stated that four men were killed and 11 wounded by the Japanese tank, one of whom died of his wounds. However, the Company “B” morning report gave the day’s casualties as four killed (Captain Boggs, Staff Sergeant Wallace A. Moen, Sergeant Frank A. Clark, and Private 1st Class Odes W. Holt), seven wounded, two slightly injured in action, and four with battle fatigue. None of the wounded or injured men died of their wounds, so either the 1st Battalion report was inaccurate or the mortally wounded man was from another unit.
Mortars Against Tanks
Several accounts mention the effective use of mortars against the Japanese tanks. Under most circumstances, artillery would have been expected to have been more effective than the far lighter mortar shells. Captain Kane explained that in his experience at Muñoz, the available artillery proved ineffective in
disposing of dug-in tanks and field pieces, except by time-consuming precision fires. However it was discovered that 4.2 [inch] Chemical Mortars employing WP [white phosphorous] shells proved very effective in destroying tanks. This type of fire accounted for quite a number of enemy tanks simply by setting them afire.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Clay Boggs for contributing photos and documents that were invaluable in telling his father’s story, as well as to the Delaware Public Archives for the use of their photos. Thanks also go out to Patrick Chaisson for providing a copy of Captain Kane’s paper.
Bibliography
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Boggs, Clay. Email correspondence on December 19–20, 2021.
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Boggs, Lettie. Edgar Clayton Boggs Individual Military Service Record, c. February 1947. Record Group 1325-003-053, Record of Delawareans Who Died in World War II. Delaware Public Archives, Dover, Delaware. https://cdm16397.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15323coll6/id/17748/rec/7
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“Colonel Boggs Home on Leave.” Journal-Every Evening, June 12, 1945. Pg. 13. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90625633/lt-colonel-j-caleb-boggs/
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Company morning reports for Company “B,” 20th Infantry Regiment, January 1945. National Personnel Records Center via the 6th Infantry website. https://www.6thinfantry.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1945-01-20th-Inf-Reg-CO-B.pdf
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Company morning reports for Company “B,” 20th Infantry Regiment, June 1944. National Personnel Records Center via the 6th Infantry website. https://www.6thinfantry.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/1944-06-20th-Inf-Reg-Co-B.pdf
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Kane, Michael, Jr. “The Operations of the 20th Infantry (6th Inf. Div.) at Munoz, Luzon, Philippine Islands 30 Jan. to 8 Feb. 1945.” Paper written during the Advanced Officers Course at the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, 1947. Courtesy of Patrick Chaisson.
Michels, LeMoyne F. (presumed identity of L. F. M.) “Edgar Clayton Boggs.” Memorial supplement to Assembly, November 1947. Association of Graduates United States Military Academy. https://cdm16397.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15323coll6/id/17757/rec/7
“Mother of Sen. Boggs dies.” The Morning News, February 26, 1971. Pg. 25. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90761932/lettie-boggs-obit/
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Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889–1970. National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Louisville, Kentucky. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2204/images/32596_242364-00496
Stanton, Shelby L. World War II Order of Battle: An Encyclopedic Reference to U.S. Army Ground Forces from Battalion through Division 1939–1946. Revised ed. Stackpole Books, 2006.
“Summary of the Munoz Campaign.” Headquarters, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, February 12, 1945. Courtesy of Edgar C. Boggs, Jr.
“Table of Organization and Equipment No. 7-17: Infantry Rifle Company.” War Department, February 26, 1944. Military Research Service website. http://www.militaryresearch.org/7-17%2026Feb44.pdf
United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. National Archives at Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4295768-00106
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“Valerie B. Boggs.” The Morning News, March 22, 1988. Pg. B4. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90624791/valerie-boggs-obituary/
“Weddings.” Wilmington Morning News, March 27, 1942. Pg. 17. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90624221/boggs-wedding/
Witsell, Edward F. “Official Statement of the Military Service and Death of Edgar C. Boggs.” War Department Adjutant General’s Office, February 3, 1947. https://cdm16397.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15323coll6/id/17754/rec/7
Last updated on December 22, 2021
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