World War II Honoree

Raymond Joseph Gilmore

Branch of Service

U.S. Marine Corps

Hometown

McKeesport, Pennsylvania

Honored By

Orville L. Kline

Rank: Private First Class. On March 2, 1943, he entered the United States Marine Corps from Pennsylvania, receiving his Marine Combat Training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina. Served with Headquarters Battery, 14th Marine Regiment, a subordinate unit of the 4th Marine ‘The Fighting Fourth’ Division in the Western Pacific Theater of Operations. His division participated in the amphibious assault against the Japanese Imperial Army forces on the island of Tinian. Killed in action Monday, August 21, 1944 on the first day of the invasion and buried in the American Cemetery on Tinian. After the cessation of hostilities with Japan, his family requested that his remains be interred in the Honolulu Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ‘Punchbowl’, Hawaii. In Remembrance and Honor of the Brave, his name appears on one of the Twenty-Six granite plates located in the Court of Honor at the American Memorial on Saipan. This Marine, an American Patriot, awarded the Purple Heart Medal posthumously, who so gallantly gave his life for his country.