Howard Ralph Dekker

Howard was born in Brooklyn, New York on 6 October 1923. He was the third and youngest child raised by Gordon Dekker, a Holland-born shipping clerk, and Anna Wagner, a native New Yorker. In the mid-1920s, the Dekkers moved across the United States and settled in Oakland, California. Young Howard, along with his siblings Gerben and Anna Margaret, grew up in Alameda County and attended local schools.

Howard was active in the local Boy Scout troop and developed his artistic eye with his school Camera Club. He also took a job as a delivery boy for the Oakland Tribune, and worked through his final years of school at Berkeley High.

Dekker delivered his final paper shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He immediately joined the California State Guard, but lasted only a month before resigning to enlist in the Marine Corps. On 5 January 1942, Private Dekker was sworn in and sent to San Diego for boot camp.

His Marine career almost ended before it began. Just a few months after joining up, Dekker was charged with “fraudulent enlistment” and placed under investigation. The matter was eventually cleared up; with the charge “waived,” Private Dekker was assigned to permanent duty with Company C, First Battalion, 6th Marines. He trained with this unit in California, and earned a promotion to Private First Class before deploying overseas to the Solomon Islands.

PFC Dekker experienced his first taste of combat on Guadalcanal in January 1943. His battalion landed on the island shortly after the new year, and was soon engaged in operations against the remaining Japanese forces. Dekker had a close call on 24 January when a wound suffered in action sent him to a rear area hospital, but he was back with his company within a few days.

When the Guadalcanal campaign concluded, the 6th Marines sailed for New Zealand to rest and recuperate. Details of Dekker’s service in 1943 are few; he spent some time assigned to the regimental headquarters on mess duty, and eventually returned to First Battalion. However, instead of rejoining Company C, Dekker became a member of Company A. The reasons for this transfer are no longer known.

Training intensified in the fall of 1943, and in October the 6th Marines boarded transports and sailed for their next objective: Operation GALVANIC, or the invasion of Tarawa.

PFC Dekker was killed in action less than twenty-four hours into his second battle. His company landed on Betio in the Tarawa atoll on the night of 21 November 1943 and spent the following day attacking in the sweltering heat. That night, they helped fend off a Japanese counterattack that left the field covered with dead combatants.

At some point during the fighting, Howard Dekker was shot through the head and in the chest. His body was found in the field the next day, and buried in a mass grave near where he fell.

Howard Dekker’s remains were buried in Grave #1, Row D, East Division Cemetery on Betio, This mass grave was lost in the years after the battle, and Dekker was declared non-recoverable in 1949.

Row D was discovered by the non-profit research group History Flight in the spring of 2019. Dekker’s remains were among those recovered, and he was identified by the DPAA in September, 2020.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

Final burial pending wishes of next of kin.