Jerome Bernard Morris

Jerome was born in Paragould, Arkansas, on 6 March 1921. His parents, Ernest and Leatrice (Fletcher) Morris supported their growing family – Mary Kathleen, Jerome, and Frances Alberteen – with Ernest’s blacksmithing wages. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last, and the Morrises divorced in the late 1920s. On the 1930 census, “JB” and his sisters were living in Paragould with their grandparents, Finis and Fronia Ward.

Eventually, Ernest and Leatrice remarried new spouses and the Morris children went back to their parents. All evidently settled in East St. Louis, Illinois, and Leatrice appears to have held primary custody of the kids. Life was no bed of roses: the four Morrises shared a small apartment on North 6th Street, and the children witnessed the end of Leatrice’s second marriage. There were a few bright spots, however – including Jerome’s budding relationship with Lorraine Reidt, who lived just around the corner on North 5th Street.

The 1940 census records Leatrice, Kathleen, and Alberteen in the North 6th Street apartment; the two older women worked as tavern waitresses. Jerome is absent from the enumeration, for he had recently enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Nineteen-year-old Jerome had his heart set on the Marine Corps. Prior to taking the oath, he had to collect character witnesses who could attest to his moral character, intelligence, and criminal background. Armed with good references – and the permission of Ernest and Leatrice, both of whom gave permission for his underage enlistment – Jerome Morris went across the Mississippi River to St. Louis and enlisted on 26 August 1940. That afternoon, he boarded the Wabash Railroad on the first leg of a three-day journey that ended at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.

After completing boot camp, Private Morris was assigned to duty with Company D, First Battalion, 8th Marines. He trained as a heavy machine gunner through the winter of 1940-1941, and in the spring took part in the regiment’s record-setting 180-mile Cuyamaca Hike. Morris was rated an “excellent” gunner, and received a promotion to Private First Class.

In the spring of 1941, a call went out for volunteers to join the 6th Marines. Rumor had it that the regiment would be heading overseas. Several members of the 8th Marines wanted to see more action and less California scenery. A transfer was granted to PFC Morris; he reported to his new company (coincidentally, also “Company D”) on 27 May and four days later was embarking on the transport USS Fuller. The destination, while certainly overseas, was not quite what the hard-charging volunteers expected: they were not off to fight the Germans, but to garrison Iceland. Instead of standing guard in San Diego, they stood guard in the freezing cold of Reykjavik. In the ultimate irony, they would be on the wrong side of the world when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Morris, who made corporal while in Iceland, returned to the United States in the summer of 1942. The 6th Marines were in transit to the Pacific, bound for combat at last; Morris was promoted to sergeant and placed in charge of a machine gun section. Not knowing when, or if, he would be back in the States again, Morris asked Lorraine to come out to California. They were married in San Diego on 5 August 1942, and their time together was all too brief. Two days after the wedding, the name “Guadalcanal” was in the newspapers, and by the following January Sergeant Morris was fighting in its jungles.

Lorraine returned to Illinois and established a home in East Alton. In April of 1943, she gave birth to Jerome Bernard Dean Morris. Far off in New Zealand, Sergeant Morris probably wished hard to go home and meet little “Jay Dean” – but furloughs were out of the question. When August 1943 rolled around, and the fourth and final year of his first enlistment commenced, Morris might have begun thinking of ways to transfer closer to the United States. Instead, he was plucked out of the familiar surroundings of “Dog Company” and deposited in “Baker Company” of 1/6th Marines – presumably serving as a section leader in the company weapons platoon.

In October 1943, Sergeant Morris and his new company boarded the USS Feland and sailed from New Zealand – bound for the invasion of Tarawa.

Sergeant Morris’ company landed on the island of Betio, Tarawa atoll, on the night of 21 November 1943. The battalion arrived ashore at Green Beach in rubber boats, and prepared for a morning attack to the east which would turn the flank of Japanese positions and help establish contact between hard-hit and depleted units still trapped along the Red beaches.

After a day of exhausting fighting, Baker Company dug in and prepared a night defense. They were in an exposed position, and that night a force of several hundred Japanese troops hit their lines, breaking through in a few places and causing chaos and mayhem through the night and into the early morning hours of 22 November. Ultimately, the Marines held, but paid a stiff price for maintaining their positions.

One of the casualties of 22 November was Sergeant Morris. He was struck in the chest by shrapnel from an exploding shell or grenade, and died of his wounds shortly thereafter.

The next morning, Morris and nearly thirty other men – many from his own First Battalion, 6th Marines – were laid to rest in a trench grave near where they fell. He was the seventh man buried in this location, called “Gilbert Islands Cemetery” by the 6th Marines, and “East Division Cemetery, Row D” by Graves Registration. The mass grave was later destroyed or built over, rendering the remains of all buried there non-recoverable.

Jerome Morris is unique among all other burials in this location: he was the only Marine to have an individual grave marker. “Isolated Grave 35” or “Cemetery 35” was inscribed with the name “J. B. Morris” and stood just beside the runway. It is not currently known why Morris was identified in this manner – whatever the reason, it did not help post-war searchers discover his burial place.

The “Row D” burial site went undiscovered until the spring of 2019, when an archaeological expedition led by non-profit organization History Flight excavated the site and recovered human remains.

Jerome Morris was identified from the History Flight recovery and officially accounted for on 27 September 2019.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery


Watch a news video of the funeral, plus interviews with family members and History Flight.