Born: (unknown)
Died:
Campaigns Served: Namur (wounded), Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima (wounded)
Highest Rank Attained: Corporal
Decorations: Navy Cross, Purple Heart with Gold Star
With Dog Company:
Franklin Robbins served as an enlisted man in Dog Company, 24th Marines. He was promoted to Corporal on January 11, 1944, and was designated a Supply NCO.
Robbins was something of a battalion character. He is noted in missives home by Able Company lieutenant Phil Wood, who mentions "Corporal Robbins" in the forefront of the assault along with members of his own platoon. This impression is corroborated by Robbins' wounding during the battle of Namur.
With Charlie Company:
After returning from the hospital, Franklin Robbins was reassigned to Charlie Company. He continued working with supply and logistics and was apparently quite adept at scrounging additional supplies for his company. Frederic Stott, then XO for Charlie Company, recalled Robbins in his work Saipan Under Fire:
Each company possessed a jeep and trailer with a two man team to operate and ferry the supplies from the quartermaster dump (and elsewhere) up to the men needing them. As Corporal Robbins, one of the supply men, put it-- "Give us a goddam jeep and we'll 'borrow' enough gas and gear to keep your _______ bellies and guns full!"
Robbins served through Saipan and Tinian, and landed on Iwo Jima - still a Charlie Company corporal, but this time listed as a demolitions specialist. He had not lost his innate ability to scrounge, and his experience with the workings of the supply system would serve him well on Iwo:
The real "chow hounds," whose appetites demanded more than was provided, raided the beach supplies which were assuming sizable proportions. Balked on one attempt by MP's, Corp. Robbins of "C" Company merely turned his back, pulled out pencil and notebook, and then turned about again presenting a slip which read: "Issue two cases of '10 in 1' rations to the bearer. Signed: Franklin C. Robbins. He got the rations without a question.
- Captain Frederic Stott, "Ten Days on Iwo Jima," 1945
Charlie Company took such heavy casualties in the first few days on Iwo that Corporal Robbins quickly became a squad leader by virtue of senority. On March 1, as First Battalion assaulted the Meat Grinder, the hard-charging corporal was right on the front line.
...we ducked a mortar salvo shortly after sunrise, and incautious exposed Marines drew immediate small arms fire. Using tanks as flanking forts, and supported by mortar and artillery preparations, Company "C" jumped off and by the rapid movement of small groups managed to cross the open ground to the nearest woods without casualty.
Once there, it was the same old story of knee mortars, rifles, and machine guns, all unseen, and within half an hour we had ten men hit. It was then that Corp. Robbins voluntarily led a tank up into position to protect some wounded men from a machine gun. He put the tank in position, and then went back to the battalion aid station with the wounded men.
At that point a knee mortar landed too close to me and I dropped with a fractured leg bone and shortly was carried from the fighting scene.
- Captain Frederic Stott, "Ten Days on Iwo Jima," 1945
Robbins, who was wounded later in the day, was recommended for the Silver Star. He received the award; in 1950 it was upgraded to a Navy Cross.
Citation:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Corporal Franklin C. Robbins (MCSN: 433097), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving as a Squad Leader of Company C, First Battalion, Twenty-Fourth Marines, FOURTH Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces during the assault and invasion of Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, from 19 February to 1 March 1945. Under heavy machine-gun and sniper fire from a ridge cave to the left front, Corporal Robbins with two of his men covering his movements, worked his way to the top and along the ridge until he was directly over the entrance to the cave. Placing a demolition charge in the mouth of the cave, he succeeded in annihilating the enemy troops and destroying their weapons and prevented further use of the cave. When a well-camouflaged pillbox was discovered to be the source from which intense machine-gun, rifle and mortar fire was bearing on his company on 1 March, Corporal Robbins voluntarily braved intense enemy fire to advance in front of a tank and lead it to a position from which it fired on the pillbox and destroyed it. Painfully wounded during this gallant action, Corporal Robbins, by his cool and courageous initiative and his devotion to duty, was directly instrumental in neutralizing an enemy position, thereby upholding the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.