John Vincent McNichol
Corporal John V. “Johnny” McNichol served with Easy Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines.
He was killed in action at the battle of Tarawa on 21 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 310689
Current Status
Accounted For
as of 25 September 2017
Recovery Organization
History Flight 2015-2016 Expedition
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History
John McNichol was born in the borough of Renovo, Pennsylvania, on 20 November 1923. His parents, Theodore and Helen (Gray) McNichol, raised a large Catholic family – Johnny was the seventh of nine children – supported by Theodore’s career with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Every job advancement meant a move – from the station at Renovo to the yards at Northumberland and the big shops at Altoona – and the McNichol kids grew accustomed to starting over in new locations. They also learned the benefits of working on the railroad; by 1940, several of the older McNichols were also employed by the PRR in Altoona.
Young Johnny spent a decade of his life in Altoona; he attended local schools and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church, and was active in a local Boy Scout troop. He made a good impression on his neighbors and peers, and was generally regarded as an intelligent, trustworthy, and morally upstanding boy from “the best” home environment. However, Johnny had a bit of a wild streak. As a teenager, he was collared for automobile larceny but managed to get off with probation and never went to trial. Altoona had few outlets for Johnny’s energy, and he was envious of his older brothers who went off to join the military – however, his youth meant he had to keep on studying at Roosevelt Junior High and working as a warehouse clerk.
His chance came in 1941. In an effort to bolster recruitment numbers and build up a force ready to fight, the Marine Corps announced that seventeen-year-olds would be accepted for enlistment with parental permission. After hearing the glories of the Corps extolled by Sergeant Sidney Platt at the Altoona recruiting station, Johnny McNichol began his campaign to convince his parents to let him go. He must have made a convincing case, for they signed the required paperwork on 22 May 1941. Meanwhile, Sergeant Platt sent out the required character witness forms to Johnny’s references, and made inquiries about the auto theft incident. When weighed against Johnny’s obvious enthusiasm to enlist and the comments of his peers, the probation was conveniently ignored. McNichol officially joined the Marine Corps on 26 May 1941, becoming the first Altoonan in his age group to do so.
Private McNichol’s next stop was Parris Island. As one of the youngest (and possibly the very youngest) men in his recruit platoon, he worked overtime to keep up. Persistence paid off: McNichol graduated in August and was authorized to wear the badge of a rifle marksman, plus qualification bars for grenades and bayonets. He was soon on his way to his first duty station: the Naval Ammunition Depot at Dover, New Jersey.
Standing guard was probably not what Johnny McNichol had in mind for his Marine Corps service, and the strict discipline quickly began to grate. On two separate occasions in October 1941, he was written up for “failing to observe the proper vigilance while a sentinel on watch,” and was restricted to base with extra duties for five weeks. On 16 December 1941 – just days after Pearl Harbor – he ignored the lawful order of an NCO, and drew another two week restriction.
With country and Corps gearing up to fight the Japanese, McNichol likely hoped for a speedy transfer to the Pacific. Weeks passed, however, and his daily routine remained the same. Frustrations continued to mount: on 15 March, McNichol was taken to task for the seemingly trivial offense of being AWOL from 1512 to 1532 – just twenty minutes. This might have been excused, but McNichol mouthed off to the officer and was summarily thrown in the brig on bread and water for ten days, fined $30, and given a month of extra duty. This was the last straw for Johnny McNichol. On 22 April, he formally requested a transfer to the Fleet Marine Force “because I feel that I would like the type of duty” – namely, heading for combat. The transfer was quickly endorsed by McNichol’s commanding officer, who likely felt he was getting rid of a troublemaker.
McNichol was sent down to New River, North Carolina to join the Service Battalion, 1st Marine Division. He went AWOL again almost immediately and was absent for a full five days before turning himself in. A deck court martial added yet another fine and twenty more days in solitary confinement. The Service Battalion was only too happy to send the troublesome private to a rifle company – and McNichol was only too happy to join E/2/3rd Marines. His conduct record showed marked improvement – especially the “Obedience” category, which jumped from a zero to a 5 for “outstanding.”
McNichol crossed the country with the 3rd Marines and sailed from San Diego, California in August 1942. Instead of heading for the fighting in the Solomon Islands, the SS Lurline took McNichol to Tutuila, Samoa, for yet more garrison duty. Another regiment, the 8th Marines, was making ready to leave for action, and McNichol once again appealed for a transfer. On 22 September 1942, he was taken up on the rolls of Easy Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines.
Finally, McNichol was in his element. He showed prowess with infantry weapons – a newspaper account states he was an “expert with the machine gun and automatic rifle” – and his disciplinary record with E/2/8 stayed completely clean. When he finally got into combat on Guadalcanal, McNichol proved to be equal parts energetic, enthusiastic, and deadly. During a period of aggressive patrolling in early January 1943, McNichol “made repeated trips into enemy-occupied positions, while covered by the fire of his comrades, killing the occupants and capturing or destroying arms and ammunition,” noted 2Lt. Aubrey K. Edmonds. “He voluntarily took part in these activities, well knowing that once he entered the enemy positions he was beyond the immediate support of his comrades.” The battalion commander even wrote up a citation, praising McNichol’s “extraordinary heroism.”
The 8th Marines left Guadalcanal on 9 February 1943 and sailed for New Zealand. At their Camp Paekakariki base they rested and rebuilt themselves after the strenuous campaign. Johnny McNichol escaped without physical wounds, though muster rolls record numerous trips to sick bay – a possible indication of a recurring tropical disease like malaria. Every man in the camp lost weight while on campaign, and almost all had lost buddies in combat. The period of recovery was badly needed.
McNichol’s performance “under actual combat conditions” was rated as “excellent,” and as such he had the attention of his platoon leader and company commander. In May, he received an official commendation for his patrolling activities on the ‘Canal; he made Private First Class – his first promotion – in July. A month later, the nineteen-year-old Altoonan sewed on his second stripe as Corporal McNichol. Nor were his successes limited strictly to military matters. Like many Marines, McNichol had a “Kiwi” girlfriend who worked in Wellington. Almost nothing is known about Miss Edna French, but she and Johnny knew each other well: they were engaged in a matter of months.
In October 1943 – almost exactly a year since they departed from Samoa for Guadalcanal – the 8th Marines boarded transports at Wellington for a final round of training exercises. When the ships headed out to sea instead of returning to town, the Marines aboard began to realize that the rumors were true: they were bound for combat once again.
The amphibious assault on Betio, Tarawa atoll – Operation GALVANIC – commenced on 20 November 1943. The Second Battalion 8th Marines was given the job of assaulting the easternmost of three landing beaches – “Red 3” – and, once ashore, moving inland to quickly secure the airfield that covered much of the tiny island’s surface. A heavy and morale-boosting naval bombardment convinced many Marines that the task would be a simple one, and spirits were high at 0900 when their amphibious tractors started paddling for the beach.
The Japanese were quick to recover. Shells began bursting over the LVTs. “As the tractors neared the shore the air filled with the smoke and fragments of shells fired from 3-inch guns,” notes A Brief History of the 8th Marines. “Fortunately, casualties had been light on the way to the beach, but once the men dismounted and struggled to get beyond the beach, battle losses increased dramatically.” Most of the beach defenses were still intact, and these were supported by row after row of pillboxes, rifle pits, and machine gun nests. The Second Battalion, and then the Third Battalion, tried in vain to break through the Japanese defenses, suffering heavy casualties in every attempt. By evening, they were barely clinging to a sliver of beachhead, and the shocked survivors dug in among the bodies of the dead.
Exactly what happened to Johnny McNichol will never be known. He survived the landing – which coincided with his twentieth birthday – and approximately 24 hours in the Betio maelstrom. He may have been trapped behind the seawall, or aboard one of the two LVTs that managed to advance a little way inland. Or he may have attempted to repeat his Guadalcanal exploits by venturing forward alone, hoping to take some of the Japanese with him.
Casualty reports note only that Corporal McNichol died on 21 November 1943, from gunshot wounds suffered in action. His service book includes two final assessments: Character – Excellent. Conduct in battle – Outstanding.
McNichol’s battalion muster roll noted that he was “buried, grave unknown” in the days after the battle. No specifics as to date or location were ever known for certain. In 1944, Navy Seabees tasked with “beautifying” Betio’s many small cemeteries put up a marker in Cemetery 33 (Plot 8, Row 2, Grave 11) – but while this white cross bore Hannon’s name, it was only a memorial.
News of Johnny’s death reached Altoona just before Christmas, 1943. The family was dealt a double blow; in March, Helen McNichol collapsed at home and was dead within two hours, the victim of a massive heart attack. She was buried in Altoona’s Calvary Cemetery, and the family may have planned to inter Johnny by her side after the war.
When the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company arrived on Betio to exhume the wartime dead, they discovered the true scope of the Navy’s reconstruction project. The memorial cemeteries had little or no correlation to original burial sites, so finding remains was a challenge in itself; those they did manage to find were extremely difficult to identify. After months of effort, the 604th recovered fewer than half of the bodies they hoped to find. Hundreds of men were declared permanently non-recoverable. Among them was Corporal John McNichol.
More than seventy years passed before the next clues to Tidley’s whereabouts came to light. In November 2015, archaeologists from non-profit group History Flight surveyed the former site of Betio’s East Division Cemetery. A subsequent dig unearthed a trove of artifacts left behind by the 604th QMGRC. All human remains were turned over to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in 2017, and submitted for laboratory analysis.
Later that year, after comparing family DNA samples as well as circumstantial and physical evidence, the remains of Johnny McNichol were officially identified and accounted for. In 1943, his body had been collected and brought to the largest cemetery on Betio for burial as an unknown. Coincidentally, his grave was not far from his memorial marker in Cemetery 33.
On 14 May 2018, John McNichol was finally laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. His name also appears on the Tablets of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Photographer Dean Laubach covered McNichol’s burial as part of his series “Long Awaited Homecomings.”
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 21 November 1943.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Helen McNichol.
Location Of Loss
McNichol’s battalion landed on and fought in the vicinity of Beach Red 3.