Ben Hadden Gore

Ben Gore was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on 6 March 1923. He grew up in Christian County alongside his older sister, Grace, and younger brothers Billy, George Junior, Ernest, and John. The Gores were dairy people – Ben’s grandfather, William Gore, owned land on Huffman Mill Road outside of Hopkinsville – and the entire family lived and worked on the farm. On weekdays, the children traveled to town for school.

Ben cut a stocky figure – just five feet six inches tall, he tipped scales at 160 pounds – a physical build perfect for football. The Hopkinsville High Tigers had a formidable squad, and Gore fit right into the role of gridiron star. During the 1940-41 season, the Tigers notched 23 consecutive wins and shut out Madisonville to win the state championship. Perhaps opting to leave on a high note, Ben Gore left school in 1941 after completing three years of study.

Not long after quitting school, Ben said goodbye to the family farm and made his way to Tennessee. In the summer of 1942, when registering for Selective Service, he was living with – and employed by – Dr. Vincent “V. D.” Bohannon, a veterinarian in Nashville. Ben likely knew a bit about caring for farm animals, but whether or not he hoped to pursue this as a career is no longer known.

Ben enlisted in the Marine Corps at a Nashville recruiting station on 11 January 1943. After completing boot camp at Parris Island, he was transferred to San Diego and assigned to the Fourth Garrison Replacement Detachment, a short-lived unit whose sole purpose was to deliver new Marines to overseas assignments. Private Gore departed the United States on 18 April 1943; after a ten-day voyage aboard the USS Lurline he arrived at Tutuila, American Samoa. The detachment disbanded, and Private Gore reported to the Second Defense Battalion.

The Defense Battalion manned the weapons guarding Samoa from air and sea attacks. By 1943, the chances of a Japanese strike were quite remote and the station was something of a backwater. Gore trained with the battalion’s anti-aircraft group, and learned to operate a 3″ M3 gun against simulated aerial targets. He also would have met PFC Larry R. Roberts, a gunner from Arkansas, during this time.

On 3 October 1943, Gore – now also a PFC – transferred from the AA group to the Special Weapons group, along with Roberts and a handful of other men. One week later, they boarded the USS William P. Biddle and sailed for New Zealand to join up with the rest of the Second Marine Division. The Defense Battalion men participated in training exercises at Hawke’s Bay, spent a few days ashore in Wellington, and then re-boarded the Biddle. Their next landfall would be under fire.

The objective of Operation GALVANIC was to secure a tiny island called Betio (or Bititu), barely large enough to support an airstrip. Yet an airstrip it had – a vital one to both American and Japanese strategic aims. Once Marine assault units secured the island, the defense battalion personnel would come ashore to set up their heavier weapons, ready for any retaliatory Japanese bombing attacks.

It is not clear when PFC Gore landed in Betio; he likely came ashore on 23 November as the Biddle completed offloading her embarked troops and cargo on that date – and landing Defense Battalion troops and equipment earlier would have placed them at unnecessary risk in the hellish assault on the tiny island. Regardless of the exact date, as soon as Gore arrived on Betio he would have set to work helping to emplace his battery’s weapons around the perimeter of the newly captured airfield.

While the Defense Battalion troops were trained to keep their eyes on the sky, they still had to be wary of threats on the ground. The Japanese garrison was largely wiped out in the Marine assault, but small groups of stragglers hid in bunkers or trenches and waited for a chance to strike at a high-value target. It appears that one such group attacked the Special Weapons Group on the morning of 25 November 1943. An exchange of grenades and rifle fire lasted several minutes; the Marines managed to fend off their attackers, but paid a price.

At 0710 hours, a rifle bullet struck PFC John T. O’Brien in the right arm. In the same moment, a grenade exploded beside PFC Ben Gore, inflicting fatal wounds. Fifteen minutes later, another rifle bullet killed PFC Larry R. Roberts.

While corpsmen fussed over O’Brien and sent him to the beach for evacuation, other Marines gathered the bodies of Gore and Roberts for burial. They chose a spot “near scene of death” and soon the two men were underground. Strangely, although the Second Defense Battalion would garrison Betio for several weeks, the graves of Gore and Roberts were left “unmarked” and “unnumbered.”

Somewhere along the line, Ben Gore’s burial location was determined as Grave 33, Row A, Eastern Division Cemetery. A marker went up in Cemetery 33, Grave 9, Row 2, Plot 11, but this was only a memorial – no body lay beneath.

When the East Division Cemetery (re-designated as Cemetery 33) was exhumed by Graves Registration personnel in 1947, PFC Gore’s remains were not among those identified. He was declared permanently non-recoverable in 1949.

In 2015, archaeologists from non-profit group History Flight located the site of Cemetery 27 – a mass burial site overlooked by the searches in 1946. Original records named 24 Marines buried in this cemetery, “plus sixteen unknowns.” The archaeologists uncovered two rows of bodies, for a total of 48 remains.

Buried side by side in the second row – just where they were laid in November 1943 – were the bodies of Larry Roberts and Ben Gore. A legible dog tag was found with Gore’s remains, and dental and DNA analysis confirmed his identity.

Ben Hadden Gore was officially accounted for on 1 September 2016, and returned to his native Kentucky for burial beside his parents.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Riverside Cemetery, Hopkinsville, Kentucky