THE OTHER GEORGE MEDAL: FACIAT GEORGIUS

   

"One miserable night on that crocodile-infested island, a few officers decided the division deserved a medal — not for heroism in the traditional sense, but simply for surviving that dreadful place," writes Chase Tomlin for the National World War II Museum.

What started as a jest soon became cast in bronze.

In postwar interviews, Lt. Col. Merrill B. Twining recalled that, "One evening on Guadalcanal … a group of us were discussing the situation — the enemy, the lack of support, chow, ammunition, and everything else, when I suggested that we design a medal to commemorate the campaign."

Twining continued, "We all got a good laugh out of that."

   

A popular idiom of the time — "Let George do it!" — had become the division's unofficial motto, according to the Marine Corps University Press. The phrase meant to leave an undesirable task for another. By the end of the Guadalcanal campaign, every Marine — 1st Division or not — had become "George."

As a result, the men christened it as the "George Medal."

The men roped in Capt. Martin Clemens, a Cambridge-educated British military officer and coastwatcher on Guadalcanal, to translate their title into Latin for an added touch of class. The loose translation of "Faciat Georgius" adorned the medal.

In addition to Clemens, Capt. Donald Dickson, an adjutant of the 5th Marines who would later become a well-known illustrator and editor for Leatherneck magazine, sketched up the design.

Dark humor, the bedrock on which the military — and in particular the Marines — stands, was on full display.

   

On the front, an outstretched hand, presumably a U.S. Navy admiral, drops a "hot potato" as a scrambling Marine runs with his arms outstretched to receive it. A large Saguaro cactus looms to the left, a nod to the codename "Cactus" for the island of Guadalcanal.

The reverse side requires less deciphering. It is, as Owen Linlithgow writes for the Marine Corps University Press, "less subtle and more scatological in nature."

"Original suggestions for a depiction of a Japanese soldier relieving himself, strategically placed near a large running office fan, were eventually overruled in favor of a more conservative cow exercising the same bodily action," Linlithgow continued.

The formal, sardonic inscription reads: "In fond remembrance of the happy days spent from Aug. 7th, 1942, to Jan. 5th, 1943 – U.S.M.C."

The George is cast When the 1st Marine Division arrived in Melbourne, Australia, in January 1943, for rest and recuperation, the men set out to make "Faciat Georgius" a reality. Lt. Herbert C. Merillat, the division's press officer, was thwarted on the first try after a local manufacturer turned him away due to fears of repercussions for casting an award that was not official.

In a previously unpublished letter to the 1st Marine Division Association written in 1974, Cpl. Vernon C. Stimpel provided further details as to how the medal was cast.

According to Stimpel, who was the division's intelligence section clerk, he took the concept of the medal to a small engraving shop near Little Collins Street in Melbourne.

There, the engravers created a crude sand cast mold with Stimpel donating his own "herringbone twill utility uniform to be cut apart and serve as the source for the first run of the medals' ribbons."

In the letter, he recalled that 100 awards were to be cast. Stimpel himself owned medal number 45 of 100. The ribbon, according to the lore, would only be legitimate if it had been washed in the muddy waters of the Lunga or Matanikau rivers on Guadalcanal.

According to the Marine Corps University Press, "the distinctive stripes of a Navy admiral were clearly seen on the sleeve of the arm on the medal's front," but as word spread among Guadalcanal veterans and the demand grew, "a second run of 400 awards were made by the same engraving shop. Over time, each subsequent casting began to lose the original detail of the first batch, with small details such as the admiral's sleeve markings becoming less prominent. This later contract also forfeited the traditional metal pin and clasp; they were presented with a comically oversized laundry bag safety pin instead."

In addition to the medal, a deliberately sarcastic certificate accompanied each award, noting that the Marine had been there when "s--- hit the fan."

To read the complete article, see:
The medal created by Marines when ‘s--- hit the fan' on Guadalcanal (https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2025/09/12/the-medal-created-by-marines-when-s-hit-the-fan-on-guadalcanal/)

Only a few hundred of these medals were struck during the war. Today, The National WWII Museum holds just one example, a rare piece of material culture that illustrates how Marines endured one of the Pacific war's most brutal campaigns through gallows humor born of shared suffering.

Guadalcanal became central to the 1st Marine Division's identity. Every shoulder sleeve patch worn thereafter bore the island's name. In the veterans' reunions and memoirs, Guadalcanal loomed large. And so did the George Medal. It became a badge of solidarity, physical proof of passage through an unimaginable crucible that few outsiders could understand. The campaign marked the first major Allied victory against Japan, kicking off the bloody campaign across the Pacific, but it came at a steep cost. More than 1,600 Americans died, and thousands more were wounded. For many, the psychological scars of the campaign lasted a lifetime.

There are medals for valor, for wounds sustained in combat, and for meritorious service. But the George Medal is one-of-a-kind. It's for the late-night shelling, the maggot-infested rice, the fever dreams and foxhole prayers. For those who made it off "the Rock," and the ones who didn't. It is a keepsake that says, "You survived Hell. Here is something for that."

The George Medal may not be regulation, but for those that received it, it is as real and as earned as any decoration Uncle Sam ever struck in bronze.

To read the complete article, see:
‘Let George Do It': A Marine's Medal from Guadalcanal (https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/let-george-do-it-marines-medal-guadalcanal)

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