Edwin Harold Vancil
Private Edwin H. Vancil served with the Second Tank Battalion, Company C (Medium).
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 21 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 482673
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
July 3, 1924
at Yelm, WA
Parents
Edwin Harley Vancil
Mabel Jeanette (Peary) Vancil
Education
Yelm High School
Occupation & Employer
Enlisted from high school
Service Life
Entered Service
October 16, 1942
at Seattle, WA
Home Of Record
Yelm, WA
Next Of Kin
Father, Mr. Edwin H. Vancil
Military Specialty
Recon Guide
Primary Unit
2nd Tank Battalion
Company C (Medium)
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Private Edwin H. “Buddy” Vancil served as a recon guide with Company C (Medium), 2nd Tank Battalion, during the Tarawa campaign. During the amphibious landings on Betio, his role was to lead a platoon of tanks ashore using floats to mark a clear path around obstacles like shell holes or mines. It was a dangerous job in theory, and all but suicidal under fire.
The nineteen-year-old Vancil was known as a disciplinary problem; he once held the rank of corporal, but lost both stripes by breaking military rules. During the landings, however, he proved himself a hero. When his channel markers were swept away, Vancil “valiantly made of himself a human marker in order to signal assault tanks to a successful landing on the beach-head.” Then, as bullets lashed the water around him, he waded in to shore and spotted targets until summoned by the company commander, Lieutenant Ed Bale. Bale wanted to know where his First Platoon tanks might be, and dispatched Vancil to find platoon leader Lieutenant Edward Sheedy.
Bale never saw either man alive again.
A day or two later, fellow tankers discovered the bodies of Vancil and Sheedy. ““This kid [Vancil] had his arm [across] Sheedy’s back and they were shot from a machine gun position across the cove,” said Lieutenant Bale. “And we buried them on the beach.”
Edwin Vancil received a posthumous Silver Star Medal for gallantry in action in the battle for Betio. He was officially reported as killed in action on 21 November 1943.
Burial Information or Disposition
Under the Navy’s program of “beautification and reconstruction,” the graves of Sheedy and Vancil were known as “Cemetery 17.” They were located beside a disabled LVT on Red Beach One; a marker designating the area as “Resistance Point” was later placed nearby.
The grave markers still stood in 1946 when the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company arrived to exhume the remains of Betio’s fallen. However, only one body was found in Cemetery 17 – that of William Inlow Sheedy. Edwin Vancil’s remains were never located, and he was declared permanently non-recoverable in 1949.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of father, Mr. Edwin Vancil.
Location Of Loss
Private Vancil was killed somewhere in the vicinity of Betio’s Beach Red One.
