Branch of Service
U.S. Marine Corps
Hometown
South Bend, Indiana
Honored By
Orville L. Kline
Rank: Private First Class. He was inducted into the United States Marine Corps July 20, 1940 at South Bend, Indiana, with recruit training assigned to the Fourth Recruit Battalion Training Regiment; Marine Corps Base in San Diego, California. Upon his graduation from Boot Camp, he was transferred to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California for combat training. After the completion of infantry training, he was selected to attend Sea School at San Diego. Following Sea School training, he was transferred to the USS Oklahoma Battleship, BB-37 for duty assigned to a Marine Detachment, and based at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. On Sunday Morning, December 7, 1941 the Emperor of Japan’s Naval Aviators launched a devastating, surprise attack on the U.S. Naval Base, and other military installations on Oahu. The Oklahoma moored on Ford Island along with her shipmates came under attack, and she sustained multiple torpedo strikes, which caused the warship to capsize. The Battle of Pearl Harbor took his life on the day of the attack, and interred as an unknown in the Oahu Nuuanu Cemetery, Territory of Hawaii. In remembrance of the brave, his name is permanently inscribed in the tablets of the missing, memorialized at the Honolulu National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ‘Punchbowl’ Hawaii. After the cessation of hostilities with Japan, personnel from an American Graves Registration Company disinterred the unknown remains from the Oahu Cemetery, and laid them to rest in the Punchbowl Cemetery. In June of 2015, personnel from the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency in Hawaii disinterred an unknown from Punchbowl, and transferred the remains to their Honolulu’s laboratory for analysis, where he was identified. The family of this Marine received his remains for burial. He was laid to rest with Military Honors, December 7, 2019 at the Saint Joseph Valley Memorial Park Cemetery in Granger, Indiana. This American Patriot was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, for his ultimate sacrifice in defense of his country.