Helmut Fred Behlert

Helmut Behlert of Salt Lake City, Utah, enlisted in the Marine Corps on Valentine’s Day, 1942. He deployed overseas as a scout with the First Battalion, 6th Marines in October 1942, and saw action in the Guadalcanal campaign and the battle of Tarawa.

On 15 June 1944, PFC Behlert boarded a landing craft bound for Red Beach 2 on Saipan. Although his battalion was in reserve, they took heavy fire on their approach. “All of the LVTs were tightly packed with Marines,” notes A Brief History of the 6th Marines. “The men had only enough room to stand hunched over beneath the armored gunwales of the LVTs, a position necessary because of the steady drum of small arms fire on the sides. Once in a while a mortar or artillery shell would score a direct hit on an LVT. Survivors waded ashore without their equipment.”

The battalion commander, LtCol. William K. Jones, had a narrow escape when a shell struck the tractor carrying his headquarters detachment. “Two bodies, unable to fall because of the press of other bodies, were standing with their heads blown off by the shell which passed through the other side,” continues the Brief History. “Blood gushed from their necks as other men tried to gently lower the bodies to the deck.” Jones ordered the survivors over the side, and instructed the tractor crew to carry the dead and wounded back to the nearest available transport.

PFC Behlert and PFC Edgar E. Mouser, both of HQ/1/6th Marines, were reportedly killed in action by shrapnel wounds to the head on 15 June 1944. They may have been the two men hit aboard the LVT, or suffered a similar fate on the beach. Neither man’s remains could be identified after the battle.