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Basil Joseph Gillis

PFC Basil J. Gillis served with the scout/sniper platoon of Headquarters Company, 2nd Marines.
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 21 November 1943.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Branch

Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number 487635

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Current Status

Remains Not Recovered

Pursuit Category

This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.

Capsule History

Pre-War Life

Birth

June 26, 1925
at Ipswich, MA

Parents

John J. Gillis
Agnes H. Gillis

Education

Ipswich High School (ex-44)

Occupation & Employer

High school student

Service Life

Entered Service

October 21, 1942
at Boston, MA

Home Of Record

18 East Street
Ipswich, MA

Next Of Kin

Mother, Mrs. Agnes Gillis

Military Specialty

Scout/Sniper

Primary Unit

Scout/Sniper Platoon
H&S Co./2nd Marines

Campaigns Served

Tarawa

Individual Decorations

Purple Heart

Additional Service Details

Loss And Burial

Circumstances Of Loss

PFC Gillis was a member of the Greater Boston platoon of "Wake Island Avengers," which was recruited in Boston a year ago October. He had just been graduated from Ipswich High School where he had played on the football and hockey teams. He was 17 at the time and had never been away from home before.

He told me of his mother. "Not until I left home," he said one night while we were stretched out on deck under a sky full of stars, "did I really appreciate what she meant to me. When this war is over, I'll never leave her again."

PFC Basil Gillis served as a member of Lieutenant William Deane Hawkins’ Scout/Sniper platoon, part of Headquarters Company, 2nd Marines. He was specially recruited out of G/2/2nd Marines for this duty; Tarawa was his first operation.

On the morning of 20 November 1943, Gillis and half of the scout/snipers were loaded into a Higgins boat and sent towards the burning beaches of Betio.The other half of the platoon, led by Lt. Hawkins, were the first to land on a long pier jutting out from the island. After securing a foothold, Hawkins came to fetch his reinforcements. Combat correspondent Hy Hurwitz described the scene:

Our boat had been held up at the starting line and while we were waiting for further orders another landing craft pulled up alongside. It had just returned from the pier and in it was 1Lt. W. D. Hawkins who was in the first boat to reach the pier and who, with the aid of flame throwers and demolition men, had cleared the edge of the pier of Japs.

Lt. Hawkins had lost some of his men. Others were wounded, and after transferring the wounded he took the 17-man scout and sniper unit into his boat. That was the last I saw of PFC Gillis.

Gillis managed to reach the shore and survived the first day of fighting. He would not make it through another. “I learned of how heroically he died,” continued Hurwitz. “You may have heard the airfield on Betio has been named after Lt. Hawkins, Well, PFC Gillis accompanied Hawkins in a daring charge on a Jap machine-gun nest and he received his mortal wounds at the same time as Lt. Hawkins.”

Historian Eric Hammel offered a different version of the story. “The platoon was ordered south at 0830 to spot for Marine mortars,” he wrote in Bloody Tarawa. “Shortly after the group moved into the open, several scouts dropped for cover, but PFC Basil Gillis kept moving and was shot well to the front of the others. Instinctively, PFC William Matteson ran into the open and dragged Gillis to safety. The effort drew considerable fire, but Matteson finished the job without being hit. Gillis, however, had been mortally wounded in the attempt.”

Eighteen-year-old Basil Gillis died of multiple gunshot wounds on 21 November 1943. The exact location, and the disposition of his remains, is not known.

Muster roll, Headquarters and Service and Weapons Companies, 2nd Marines, November 1943.
Burial Information or Disposition

No information recorded; no identifiable remains recovered.

A memorial marker was erected in Cemetery 11, Grave 5, Row 1, Plot 1.

Next Of Kin Address

Address of mother, Mrs. Agnes Gillis.

Location Of Loss

PFC Gillis was killed in action at an unspecified location on Betio.

Betio Casualties From This Company​

(Recently accounted for or still non-recovered)
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