Douglas A. Munro
Cle Elum, Kittitas County, Washington
Marker Inscription
Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro U.S. Coast Guard Cle Elum, Washington
The Story
This memorial honors Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro, a native of Cle Elum who served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. Munro is remembered for his courage under fire while evacuating Marines from a beach in the Pacific, giving his life in the effort. He remains a singular figure of valor in his service's history.
Why it matters
Munro is the only member of the U.S. Coast Guard to receive the Medal of Honor, and this hometown marker links a small Washington town to a defining moment of American wartime heroism.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Pacific theater of the Second World War was a war of islands and beaches, fought across a vast ocean in a series of amphibious landings that ranked among the most dangerous operations of the entire conflict. To take a contested island, troops had to be carried from ship to shore in small craft, wade or storm across open beaches under fire, and — if the fighting went badly — sometimes be pulled back off those same beaches while the enemy pressed in.
Cle Elum, Washington, could hardly be farther in spirit from those tropical battlegrounds. A small town in the Cascade foothills of Kittitas County, its life ran to timber, rail, and mining. Yet like countless American communities in the early 1940s, it sent its young men into a global war, and some of them ended up in the thick of the Pacific fighting.
Among the services that carried and supported those landings was the U.S. Coast Guard, whose personnel manned landing craft and transports in addition to their peacetime duties. It is that less-celebrated branch, and one of its sons from this Washington town, that the memorial commemorates.
People & events
The marker names Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro, of Cle Elum, Washington, of the U.S. Coast Guard. Behind that spare identification lies an act of extraordinary courage. Munro is remembered for a Pacific action in which Marines, having gone ashore, found themselves in grave danger and needed to be evacuated from the beach under enemy fire.
Munro placed himself and his small craft between the endangered Marines and the guns firing on them, using his boat to shield the men as they were pulled off the shore. He was killed while doing so. The essence of his story is that he gave his life not in taking ground but in getting others safely out — turning himself into cover so that others might live.
That single act is why a small town keeps his name. A signalman was, in ordinary duty, a communicator, not a frontline warrior; that Munro's name is carved in memorial stone speaks to how far beyond ordinary duty he went in his final moments.
Its place in the American story
Douglas Munro holds a unique place in American military history: he is the only member of the United States Coast Guard to have received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. That distinction alone lifts this hometown marker into the national story, connecting a modest Washington town to the very summit of American military recognition.
His story also corrects a common oversight. The Coast Guard is often imagined only in terms of peacetime rescue and coastal patrol, its wartime role overshadowed by the Army, Navy, and Marines. Munro's sacrifice is a reminder that Coast Guardsmen were present at some of the war's most perilous moments, manning the very craft that made amphibious warfare possible — and dying in that work.
There is a deeper resonance, too. Munro's heroism was fundamentally about saving lives rather than taking a position, which sits close to the heart of the Coast Guard's own identity as a service devoted to rescue. In him, the branch's peacetime ethos and its wartime courage meet in a single, defining example.
If you visit
Seek this memorial in Cle Elum expecting a hometown's tribute rather than a grand shrine, and let the contrast do its work. This is a small Cascade-country town honoring a man whose deed unfolded on a distant Pacific beach — and that gap between the quiet setting and the momentous act is precisely what makes standing here meaningful.
Read the marker's plain lines and sit for a moment with what they leave unsaid: a young signalman who chose to become a shield. Knowing that he remains the only Coast Guardsman to receive the Medal of Honor, you may find that the simple hometown plaque carries more weight than its size suggests.
If you are passing through the Kittitas County foothills, make this a deliberate stop. It pairs naturally with any exploration of the region's small-town history, and it offers something increasingly rare on a road trip: a chance to connect a specific place and a specific name to one of the defining virtues of American service — the willingness to die getting others home.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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