William Edward Rambo
Private William E. “Bill” Rambo served with How Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines.
He was killed in action at the battle of Tarawa on 20 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number 498712
Current Status
Accounted For
as of 24 June 2019
Recovery Organization
History Flight 2015 Expedition
Read DPAA Press Release
History
William Rambo was born in La Porte, Indiana, on 9 June 1923, the third and youngest child of Paul and Frieda Ophelia (Toyne) Rambo. His early years were marked by tragedy: in 1927, an outbreak of black diphtheria struck the community. Seven-year-old Lloyd Rambo was the first diagnosed case, with Bill and Ophelia also falling seriously ill. A swift response by county health officials stopped the disease from spreading – but Lloyd lost his life before the outbreak was contained. Little Bill, just four years old, was not permitted to attend his brother’s funeral for fear of spreading the disease to others.
After his early brush with death, Bill Rambo grew into a stocky and athletic youth. He attended local schools and enrolled at La Porte High School, where he was a star quarterback for the “Slicers” football squad and active on the basketball and track teams. When he graduated in 1942, Bill stood nearly six feet tall and tipped the scales at just over 200 pounds. He had a complicated side, as well: his graduation quote was, simply, “I’m misunderstood.”
After leaving school, Bill went to work at the local Allis-Chalmers tractor plant. He did not work there for long, however; in the fall of 1942, Bill Rambo decided to join the Marine Corps.
Bill enlisted from Chicago on 20 November 1943, and was soon on his way to San Diego for boot camp. After earning his Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the newly-minted Private Rambo was assigned to the 11th Replacement Battalion and sailed from San Diego. He arrived in New Zealand in April 1943, and joined How Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines at Camp Paekakariki.
Rambo spent the next several months training with his new buddies in the fields and hills near Wellington. How Company was a heavy weapons outfit, fielding water-cooled Browning machine guns and 81mm mortars plus a host of supporting jobs – messengers, drivers, ordnance men, and more. While Rambo’s primary role within the company is not currently known, he would have been subjected to the same challenges as any other man in the company – with the added desire to prove himself to the more experienced Marines, who were veterans of Guadalcanal.
In October 1943, 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.
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.
As he approached Betio, Bill Rambo must have thought back to the day he enlisted – exactly one year ago. What happened to him on the beach, however, may never be known. Rambo lost his life in the opening phases of the battle for Tarawa, either during the landing or shortly after coming ashore. The official cause was “gunshot wounds” – the specifics were not recorded.
It took two days for the dead men on Beach Red 3 to be buried. A long trench was bulldozed near the pier, and more than forty Marines were carried over and laid down under their ponchos. Private Rambo was among those buried in “Division Cemetery 3.”
Bill Rambo’s burial ground was “beautified” by Navy garrison troops in 1944 and renamed Cemetery 27. A single large cross was put up and the names of the fallen painted on a plaque nearby. When the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company arrived to exhume the battle casualties in 1946, however, they found not a trace of any remains beneath the monument – nor anywhere nearby. After days of searching in vain, they gave up and declared the 40 men permanently nonrecoverable.
In 2015, the non-profit group History Flight conducted an archaeological dig at a shipyard on Betio. This expedition, the result of years of research and data supplied by GPR and a cadaver dog, found the original burial trench beneath a parking lot – quite some distance from the memorial location. The remains of 46 men were recovered by History Flight – and among them were those of Private Rambo.
DNA analysis, plus additional material and circumstantial evidence, finally identified Bill Rambo in June of 2019.
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 20 November 1943.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Ophelia Rambo.
Location Of Loss
Rambo’s battalion landed on and fought in the vicinity of Beach Red 3.
todos están con dios en un sitio muy espacial nunca jamás serán olvidados siempre estarán en nuestra memoria los amamos por siempre
Our eternal gratitude and salute to Pvt William E. Rambo, a great and gallant warrior…