David Harvey Quinn

David Quinn was born in Temple, New Hampshire, on 18 March 1919. The Quinns were a large family in a small town – George and Kitty raised nine children, of whom David was the fourth – and, perhaps inevitably, they developed a liking for the great outdoors. George worked as a farmer and highway foreman before accepting a job as the Park Manager (senior warden) of Monadnock State Park, while Kitty helped to run the park’s snack bar.


When not exploring the hills and forests of Hillsborough County, the younger Quinns attended Wilton High School. After a disagreement with the school faculty, David enrolled at Appleton Academy in New Ipswitch, working as a farm hand in return for room and board with a local family. After graduation, he returned to Temple to work at a saw mill alongside his younger brother Albert.

David enlisted in the Marine Corps from Boston on 24 May 1941. He was selected for amphibian tractor school almost as soon as he completed boot camp at Parris Island, and trained on these novel vehicles at Quantico, Virginia and Dunedin, Florida. Quinn showed a particular flair for military administration, and rose quickly to the rank of corporal while serving as a clerk for the training detachment.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Quinn was assigned to permanent duty with Company B, Second Amphibian Tractor Battalion. He shipped out to San Diego for additional training, and in the spring of 1942 advanced in rank to sergeant. Battalion officers noted Quinn’s special abilities, and in the summer he was offered the chance to attend First Sergeant’s School. By October, Quinn pinned on his new chevrons and reported back to the battalion as “topkick” of Company C.

Quinn deployed overseas near the tail end of the Solomon Islands campaign; he saw little if any fighting, but gained valuable experience in handling the affairs of a company in the combat zone. In early 1943, the amphtracs arrived in New Zealand for additional training and refitting. The schedule was aggressive, but the men had time for liberty and dates in Wellington. Several relationships turned serious, and David Quinn was no exception. In June 1943, he married Zoe Margaret Boeson, a Kiwi nurse trainee.

The Quinns enjoyed a few short months of marital bliss before David was called away. In late October 1943, he boarded the transport USS Heywood and sailed for combat.

On 20 November 1943, the Second Battalion 8th Marines was assigned the task of landing on a strip of sand designated as “Beach Red Three” on the island of Betio, Tarawa atoll. The LVTs of Company C – including the one carrying 1Sgt. Quinn – would transport them to shore.

As the tractors churned towards the beach, they were subjected to intense and accurate fire from all manner of weapons arrayed along the beach. Many vehicles were hit; a few were destroyed, and casualties were heavy even before they made landfall.

David Quinn was one who fell. Somewhere in the vicinity of Red Beach 3, a high-explosive shell detonated close by the “Top” and he fell to the sand, riddled with shrapnel in his legs, groin, and abdomen. These gruesome wounds quickly proved fatal, and after the battle Quinn was reported as “killed in action.”

Although he was confirmed dead, Quinn’s burial location on Betio was not recorded, and he was likely buried as an unknown. In 1949, his remains were declared permanently non-recoverable. Back home in New Hampshire, his family concluded that he had been lost at sea.

While the town of Temple believed their native son was lost forever in the Pacific, Zoe Boeson knew differently. She was well connected to Company C, and in the months after the battle learned that David’s comrades had buried him somewhere on Betio itself. Zoe relayed the information to the Quinn family in 1944, but when the government declared his remains non-recoverable in 1949, the door seemed to be closed.

Many decades later, Paul Quinn – David’s nephew, born years after the war – managed to contact Zoe. Inspired by her memories, and intrigued by the prospect of DNA testing, he convinced family members to send in samples. They heard nothing until 2017, when a positive match with a Betio unknown was announced.

Zoe Boeson had been right all along. David Quinn’s body was buried in Betio’s East Division Cemetery (also known as Cemetery 33) after the battle. When the remains were exhumed for identification in late 1940s, teams of technicians and anthropologists failed to establish any as belonging to the topkick from Temple. For more than seventy years, Quinn lay buried beneath an “Unknown” marker in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

DNA testing from Quinn family relatives finally solved the mystery. “Betio X-115” was determined to be David Quinn, and he was formally accounted for on 22 November 2017.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Miller Cemetery, Temple, New Hampshire