World War II Honoree

Howard Dorus Wilson

Branch of Service

U.S. Marine Corps

Hometown

Yuma, Colorado

Honored By

Orville L. Kline

Rank: Private First Class. On July 8, 1942, he was inducted into the United States Marine Corps at Denver, Colorado. His boot camp training took place with the Sixth Recruit Battalion Training Regiment, Marine Corps Base in San Diego, California. Later he completed his Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. Served as a combat demolition engineer with the Second Marine Division in the Central Pacific Theater of Operations, assigned to the Alpha Company, First Battalion and Eighteenth ‘Pioneers’ Engineers. His division participated in the amphibious assault against the Imperial Japanese forces in the Battle of Tarawa. The combat engagement took place on the Island of Betio, located on the Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands Code Name: Operation Galvanic. Reported missing in action, lost at sea Thursday, November 25, 1943 during a mopping-up patrol, seeking out enemy forces that did not capitulate to the U.S. forces. His name is permanently inscribed in the tablets of the missing, memorialized at the Honolulu National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, ‘Punchbowl’ Hawaii. In his Memory and Honor, a cenotaph memorial has been placed at the Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Colorado. This American Patriot was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, for his ultimate sacrifice in defense of his country.