Edward Edmund Rozanski
Second Lieutenant Edward E. Rozanski served with Able Company, First Battalion, 18th Marines.
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 20 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number O-23601
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
8 May 1918
at Tacoma, WA
Parents
John & Frances Rozanski
Education
Lincoln (Tacoma) High, 1937
Occupation & Employer
Carpenter
Service Life
Entered Service
9 September 1940
(location unknown)
Home Of Record
6301 South Eye Street
Tacoma, WA
Next Of Kin
Mother, Mrs. Frances Rozanski
Military Specialty
Platoon Leader
Chemical Officer
Primary Unit
18th Marines (A/1)
Third Platoon
Campaigns Served
Pearl Harbor
Tarawa
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
Rozanski earned a field commission on 7 June 1943.
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Second Lieutenant Ed Rozanski led the Third Platoon of Company A, 18th Marines. During the battle for Tarawa, his platoon was attached to the Third Battalion, 2nd Marines for the assault on Red Beach One. The combat engineers were supposed to support the assault troops with flamethrowers, demolition charges, and other means of neutralizing pillboxes and fortifications.
On the morning of 20 November 1943, Rozanski’s men boarded amphibian tractors from the USS Arthur Middleton and headed for Betio in one of the first assault waves. Private Robert J. Reder, an assistant flamethrower operator, remembered landing “on the extreme right of Red Beach One” – near the island’s “Bird Beak.” Reder made it to shore under murderous fire, and saw a damaged LVT immediately to the left of his vehicle. “We found out the amtrac had lost for of our men when a mortar hit them dead center” he recalled. “In that amtrac were platoon leader Lt. Ed Rozanski, Platoon Sergeant Robert Hamm, Corporal Thomas Berg, and PFC Giles McDermott.”
Rozanski never made it to the beach. Officially, his cause of death was listed as “gunshot wounds” suffered in action on 20 November 1943.
Burial Information or Disposition
No burial information; “remains not recovered.” Of the four Marines reportedly killed aboard the LVT, only PFC McDermott has been identified; his remains were buried as an unknown in the East Division Cemetery and recovered by the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company in 1946.
A memorial marker was placed in Betio Cemetery #11, Grave 4, Row 3, Plot 6.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Frances Rozanski.
Location Of Loss
Lieutenant Rozanski was killed in action at the western end of Beach Red One.
