Why This Marine Dove Into the Firing Cannon Barrel — And Saved 7,500 Men His First Day
He Charged Straight Into a Firing Cannon — and Saved 7,500 Marines on His First Day of Combat
Cape Torokina, Bougainville — November 1, 1943.
At 7:26 a.m., the first wave of U.S. Marines hit the black volcanic sand of Empress Augusta Bay expecting light resistance. Intelligence had estimated only a few hundred Japanese defenders in the area. What they encountered instead was a single, perfectly positioned Japanese 75-millimeter mountain gun that turned the landing zone into a killing field.
Within minutes, landing craft were burning in the surf. Marines were pinned down in shallow water, unable to advance or retreat. By 8:00 a.m., the entire operation to seize Cape Torokina — the opening move in the campaign to isolate the massive Japanese base at Rabaul — was on the verge of collapse.
The gun fired eight rounds per minute, every shell capable of sinking a landing craft or killing dozens of men in the water. Four landing craft were destroyed. Ten more were damaged. Nearly 7,500 Marines were stalled offshore and on the beach.
Then Sergeant Robert Allan Owens, 23 years old, stood up from behind a sand dune and made a decision that would alter the course of the landing — and cost him his life.
A Quiet Life Before the War
Owens was not a career soldier or a natural warrior. Born on September 13, 1920, in Greenville, South Carolina, he left high school early and spent five years working in textile mills in nearby Spartanburg. Friends later described him as quiet, steady, and reliable.
After Pearl Harbor, Owens enlisted in the Marine Corps in February 1942. He trained for 21 months — boot camp at Parris Island, infantry training in North Carolina, then long deployments to Samoa, New Zealand, and Guadalcanal. By the time he reached Bougainville, he had never fired a weapon in combat.
November 1, 1943, was his first day under fire.
One Gun Stops an Army
The Japanese gun was housed inside a bunker built from two-foot-thick coconut logs, expertly camouflaged with palm fronds and vegetation. Naval bombardment had failed to detect it. Rifle fire couldn’t penetrate it. Grenades bounced harmlessly off its roof.
Destroyers offshore could not engage the bunker without risking American troops already ashore.
The gun crew worked with mechanical precision. Twelve seconds between shots. Five seconds to reload. Every round landed where the Japanese had pre-registered targets.
Owens studied the gun from roughly 70 yards away. He counted the firing rhythm. He watched more Marines get wounded. He understood the math: if the gun kept firing, the landing would fail.
He turned to the Marines near him and asked for four volunteers.
Their job would be to suppress nearby bunkers. His job would be to take the gun from the front.
Seventy Yards of Open Sand
Owens waited for the gun to fire.
When the barrel recoiled, he broke from cover and sprinted across 70 yards of open beach, carrying only his rifle and bayonet. There was no concealment. The gun crew saw him almost immediately.
At 50 yards, the barrel began tracking him. At 30 yards, the breech closed. The gun fired again. The shell detonated 15 feet away, the concussion knocking Owens sideways. He got up and kept running.
At five yards, the gun fired once more. The blast passed so close he felt the pressure against his body. By the time the shell exploded behind him, Owens was already at the bunker wall.
Into the Mouth of the Gun
The firing port was never meant for a man — just an 18-inch gap around a cannon barrel. Smoke, heat, and the smell of cordite poured from the opening.
Owens grabbed the edge of the port and forced himself in.
The barrel burned through his uniform. Coconut logs tore at his back and legs. For a moment, he was stuck halfway inside, exposed and vulnerable, with Japanese soldiers only a few feet away in the darkness.
Then he twisted, forced his shoulders through, and dropped into the bunker.
Inside were five Japanese soldiers. Artillerymen, not infantry. Faced with a Marine who had just climbed through a firing port, they broke and fled through the rear trench entrance.
The gun fell silent at 8:52 a.m.
The Fight Didn’t End There
Owens could have stayed in the bunker. Instead, he realized the gun crew might return — and if they did, the cannon would fire again.
Wounded and alone, Owens pursued them through a zigzag trench system. Over the next 90 minutes, he fought at close range with rifle, bayonet, grenades, and finally his pistol.
One by one, he killed the fleeing crew and the soldiers sent to reinforce them.
He was shot in the shoulder. Then again in the chest.
Still, he fought on.
By the time the last member of the gun crew fell, Owens had eliminated all five men who could operate the cannon. The position was secure. The Japanese never retook it.
A Beach Opens, a Man Falls
With the 75mm gun silenced, the adjacent bunkers collapsed. Landing craft began hitting the beach unopposed. Marines poured inland.
The landing succeeded.
Owens, bleeding heavily, collapsed beneath a palm tree roughly 300 yards from the beach. He died alone, sometime around 10:00 a.m.
When Corporal James Mitchell found him hours later, the evidence told a stark story: shell casings, grenade pins, blood trails through the trenches, and five enemy dead.
One Marine had done the work of a platoon.
Strategic Impact
By nightfall, Cape Torokina was secured. Engineers immediately began building airstrips. Within weeks, American fighters and bombers were striking Rabaul, once the most powerful Japanese base in the South Pacific.
The Allies never needed to invade it. Rabaul was isolated, neutralized, and rendered irrelevant.
Military planners later concluded that if the gun had continued firing, the landing would have stalled for hours — possibly days — exposing transports to air attack and risking catastrophic losses.
Owens bought the invasion the time it needed.
Recognition and Legacy
For his actions, Owens was initially awarded the Navy Cross. After further review, the award was upgraded. On August 12, 1945, his family received the Medal of Honor, posthumously.
The citation described him as charging “into the mouth of the steadily firing cannon,” silencing a gun “of inestimable value” to the enemy.
In 1948, the Navy named a destroyer USS Robert A. Owens in his honor. The ship served for 25 years across three wars.
Owens himself remains buried at the Manila American Cemetery, far from the textile mills where he once worked.
The Cost of One Decision
Robert Owens lived 23 years. He fought for 90 minutes. He saved thousands of men he would never meet.
The Marines who walked up that beach after the gun went silent likely never knew his name. They only knew the beach was quiet — when it should not have been.
Sometimes history turns not on grand strategies or massive armies, but on a single human decision made in a few seconds.
On a beach in Bougainville, one Marine decided that stopping one gun was worth dying for — and because he did, 7,500 others lived.
