Yesterday, the DPAA announced that PFC Marley Richard Arthurholtz of South Bend, Indiana has been accounted for. Read their press release here.
Marley was born on 11 July 1921, and grew up in St. Joseph County, Kentucky. He joined the Marine Corps in 1940 with the ink barely dry on his high school diploma; after boot camp and sea school, Private Arthurholtz joined the Marine detachment of the USS Oklahoma.
Arthurholtz served in the Hawaiian area for almost the entirety of his service. He was rarely far from his home on the Oklahoma, aside from a short Stateside furlough in September 1941 when he married Sue Ann Linsott in Carson City, Nevada. On 6 December 1942, Marley was on liberty in Honolulu, buying presents and seeing the sights with his buddy Marlin Searle.
The next day, Marley Arthurholtz was dead – either killed on the Oklahoma‘s topside or trapped belowdecks when the battleship capsized. His parents received word that he was missing on Christmas Day, and a telegram declaring him dead followed in January, 1942. A photo of Marley and Merlin taken on their last liberty became a family treasure.
Marley’s remains were recovered from the Oklahoma, likely during salvage operations, and were buried in a mass grave along with hundreds of his shipmates. These graves were exhumed in 2015, and in the years that followed more than two hundred of them have been positively identified. PFC Marley Arthurholtz is the latest; official identification was made on 18 September 2019.
Welcome home, PFC Arthurholtz. Semper Fi.
Learn more about Marley Arthurholtz’s life on his profile page.
Are you a family member or former comrade of this Marine? Do you have stories or photos to share? Please contact MissingMarines and help us tell his story.
May he always be remembered!
Comments are closed.