Donald Roger Dahlgren
Second Lieutenant Donald R. Dahlgren served with Easy Company, Second Battalion, 2nd Marines.
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 20 November 1943.*
Branch
Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number O-18810
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
May 16, 1915
at Hector, MN
Parents
John Adolph Dahlgren
Ellen (Nelson) Dahlgren
Education
Hector High School (1932)
University of Minnesota (1936)
Occupation & Employer
Assistant Store Manager
Firestone Tire Company
Service Life
Entered Service
December 2, 1942 (enlisted)
February 10, 1943 (officer)
Home Of Record
12 West 39th Street
Minneapolis, MN
Next Of Kin
Wife, Mrs. Ruth Mayhem Dahlgren
Military Specialty
Platoon Leader
Primary Unit
E/2/2nd Marines
Second Platoon
Campaigns Served
Tarawa
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
Joined E/2/2nd Marines on 13 August 1943, at Camp McKay’s Crossing, New Zealand.
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Second Lieutenant Donald Dahlgren led the Second Platoon of Easy Company, 2nd Marines during the battle of Tarawa. On 20 November 1943 he gathered his boat group, boarded an LVT from the transport USS Zeilin, and focused on his objective – the western flank of Betio’s Beach Red 2.
Dahlgren’s vehicle was in one of the first waves to approach Betio, and the Japanese defenders sent a sheet of fire at the slow-moving vehicles. A few of the tractors veered to the west and wound up depositing their men on Beach Red 1 instead. One of the platoon’s LVTs hung up on the beach defenses, dooming the Marines to death or wounds before they ever touched dry land. Lieutenant Dahlgren’s LVT managed to scale the obstacles and drive a short distance inland. “We were the only [LVT] to get over the sea wall,” recalled PFC Lonnie Yancey, who rode to shore with Dahlgren. “Can’t tell you how, but we did. A Jap threw a grenade in with us, and it went in the engine room and knocked the motor out.”
Marines bailed out of the stricken vehicle and landed in a massive crater left by a sixteen-inch naval shell. Dahlgren, Yancey, and Private Emil F. Ragucci were there; so was Sergeant Edward Godwin, Corporal Joseph Bonnin, and PFC Edward Rendon. The situation was extremely perilous, as Yancey describes:
"There was a pillbox just above the hole with a back entrance to it just above the amtrac and the shell hole. Japs were between us and the beach also all around us. They didn't know we were in the shell hole and it was a turkey shoot."
Corporal Bonnin pulled the pin on a grenade and hurled it towards the Japanese. Unfortunately, the grenade had a seven second fuse – long enough for a fast-moving Japanese soldier to scoop it up and toss it back. It exploded between Bonnin and Dahlgren. Yancey hurried to bandage Bonnin’s arm: he knew the lieutenant was done for. “He had most of his left side and neck blown off.”
Lieutenant Dahlgren did not die at once; his men tried to keep him as comfortable and quiet as possible as his life ebbed away. He eventually succumbed to his wounds at the age of twenty-eight.
*Officially, Donald Dahlgren’s date of death is 23 November 1943. Based on Corpsman Yancey’s account, the battalion’s muster roll below, and a service history contained in Dahlgren’s Official Military Personnel File, the author believes that 20 November is the more accurate date.
Burial Information or Disposition
After the battle, it was not immediately known where Lieutenant Dahlgren’s remains were buried. His battalion muster roll makes this clear: “burial details unknown.”
However, a burial party did pass by the crater where Lieutenant Dahlgren and Private Ragucci died. Their bodies were picked up and transported down the airstrip to the biggest burial ground on Betio – the East Division Cemetery. Dahlgren was buried in Row C, Grave 18; a rough wooden cross was placed above the grave, and the information was forwarded for inclusion in his service record.
In 1944, Navy garrison troops “beautified” the Tarawa cemeteries into neat, orderly plots – destroying the old markers, and the orientation of the graves, in the process. Dahlgren received a new marker (in “Cemetery 33,” Grave 14, Row 2, Plot 5) but his remains were not moved. Naturally, when graves registration troops arrived to exhume the cemetery, they were unable to locate or identify many of the men who were buried after the battle.
Dahlgren’s body may have been sent to Hawaii for burial as an unknown in the 1940s – or, like Emil Ragucci, he may have been overlooked by the GRS search and still lie on Betio.
Emil Ragucci’s remains were located by History Flight in 2013. He was accounted for in 2017.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of wife, Mrs. Ruth M. Dahlgren.
Location Of Loss
Lieutenant Dahlgren was killed in a large shell crater inland from Beach Red One, near the site of Betio’s Catholic church.
