Anthony George Guerriero

Anthony Guerriero was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 22 January 1921. He was sixth of nine children born to Domenico and Rosina Olympia Guerriero, and spent his youth surrounded by siblings and neighbors in an apartment building on Allen Street.

Information about Anthony’s early life is scarce. Census records note that few of the Guerriero children stayed in school past the eighth grade; instead, after finishing grammar school, most found factory jobs to help support the large family. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Anthony decided on a career in the service, and enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Private Guerriero was sworn into the Marine Corps on 23 January 1940, the day after his nineteenth birthday. He completed boot camp at Parris Island, and having impressed his instructors with his military bearing, was told to report to Norfolk, Virginia for Sea School. On 27 April 1940, Guerriero received his first duty post: the Marine detachment aboard the cruiser USS Quincy (CA-39).

Sea duty seemed to agree with Guerriero. In September 1940, after completing his requisite assignments in the detachment mess, he was appointed as a “cook striker” – trainee – and promoted to Assistant Cook on a ship’s warrant. He worked in the galley as the Quincy made ports of call along the eastern seaboard, down to Puerto Rico and Brazil, and out into the Atlantic on “neutrality patrols.” However, one night in July 1941, Guerriero went ashore in Newport, Rhode Island, and overstayed his liberty. By the time he returned, the Quincy was back at sea.

Missing a ship was a serious offense; Guerriero lost his cook rating and was confined at Newport until the Quincy was due back in port. He managed to repeat his infraction in October, thus missing the ship that was supposed to deliver him to the Quincy, and instead was shipped from Newport to New York under guard, where he re-joined the cruiser as a rather embarrassed private.

Guerriero and the Quincy were patrolling near Iceland when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The cruiser was quickly recalled to New York for an accelerated overhaul pending redeployment to the Pacific. Private Guerriero’s time aboard was coming to an end; in the summer of 1942, he was ordered to Quantico for a course in infantry training. He would spend the rest of the war in a front-line combat unit.

Private Guerriero got his first taste of action in the Solomon Islands. He joined Company B, First Battalion, 2nd Marines in the fall of 1942, and participated in the battle of Guadalcanal. While there, he must have paused to contemplate the stretch of water called Iron Bottom Sound – the final resting place of the Quincy and more than a few of his former shipmates. The cruiser was sunk at the battle of Savo Island in August, 1942, while Guerriero was training in Virginia.

Guerriero avoided combat wounds on the ‘Canal, but like many other Marines he contracted a nasty case of malaria and had to be hospitalized in New Zealand in the spring of 1943. Spending time in combat more than made up for his past infractions, and over the course of 1943 Guerriero advanced in rank to private first class, then to corporal. According to family lore, he was offered a chance to return to the States and serve as a Presidential bodyguard, but turned down the assignment in order to stay with Baker Company.

In October 1943, Corporal Guerriero and his buddies boarded transport ships and sailed for their next battle – Operation GALVANIC, or the invasion of Tarawa.

On 20 November 1943, the First Battalion 2nd Marines was assigned as the regimental reserve for units landing on Beaches Red One and Red Two. The assault waves were subjected to devastating fire from the moment they crossed the island’s coral reef, and suffered heavy casualties while coming ashore and on the beach itself. By 1030, the reserve units were struggling towards the beach themselves and making a tough landing under fire.

Corporal Guerriero managed to reach one of the Red Beaches and survived the first awful day of the battle. Unfortunately, his luck would not hold out. On 21 November 1943, the Marine from Boston was shot in the head and killed at the age of twenty-two.

News of Anthony’s death was delivered to 70 Allen Street just before Christmas. It came as an especially cruel blow, as the family was reeling from Olimpia Guerriero’s passing on 22 December 1943.

After the battle, Guerriero was reportedly buried in the East Division Cemetery, Row B, Grave #20.

When Corporal Guerriero’s burial ground (re-designated as Cemetery 33) was exhumed by Graves Registration personnel in 1947, his remains were not among those identified. Nor could the technicians at the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii provide any further clues. He was declared non-recoverable in 1949.

In October 2016, a DPAA directive led to the exhumation of unidentified remains in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Among those brought back to the lab was “Betio X-49,” exhumed from Plot E, Grave 64. “X-49” had a long history of movement – after his initial burial in 1943, he was moved to Betio’s Lone Palm Cemetery in 1946, and then to Hawaii’s “Punchbowl” in 1949. Each time, investigators failed to match the remains to a name.

In 2016, non-profit organization History Flight conducted an archaeological dig on the old site of Cemetery 33. They located numerous remains, ranging from assorted small bones to almost complete skeletons. All human remains were turned over to the DPAA, and technicians managed to match some of the History Flight discoveries with “X-49.”

In 2017, “Betio X-49” was finally identified using DNA analysis, and Corporal Anthony G. Guerriero was accounted for. He was brought back east for a military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery on 17 November 2017.

Watch a video of Corporal Guerriero’s funeral service.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing
Fort Custer National Cemetery, Augusta, Michigan


Final burial pending wishes of next of kin.