John Saini
PFC John “Botch” Saini served with How Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines.
He was killed in action at the battle of Tarawa on 20 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 817586
Current Status
Accounted For
as of 19 December 2015
Recovery Organization
History Flight 2015 Expedition
Read DPAA Press Release
History
John Saini – “Bacci” to his Italian-speaking family, – was born in San Francisco, California on 3 March 1923. He grew up on a family farm outside of Healdsburg with parents Michele (Mike) and Maria (Mary), older sister Virginia, and younger brother Eugene. The Sainis grew pears, apples, prunes, and the ubiquitous Sonoma wine grapes; in 1934, they bought a second ranch in Alexander Valley and converted the land into a vineyard. Their grapes were in high demand, and they listed “some of the best wineries in Sonoma County” among their clients.
Farming was a family affair, but “Botch” seemed to have a special knack for agriculture. He was active in Future Farmers of America, and collected blue ribbons at regional FFA competitions. A burly young man – six feet three inches tall, and 195 pounds at the age of nineteen – John seemed perfectly cut out for life as a Sonoma farmer. And he was building professional experience, too – when he registered for Selective Service in 1942, John listed his father Mike as his employer.
The draft board pulled Saini away from the vineyard in early 1943. He reported to San Francisco and was inducted into the Marine Corps on 24 February. After boot camp in San Diego and infantry school at Camp Elliott, Private First Class Saini shipped overseas as a member of the 23rd Replacement Draft.
After several weeks at sea, Saini arrived in New Zealand and joined How Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines on 13 August 1943. He would spend the next two months training with his new buddies in the fields and hills near Wellington. How Company was a heavy weapons outfit, fielding water-cooled Browning machine guns and 81mm mortars plus a host of supporting jobs – messengers, drivers, ordnance men, and more. While Saini’s primary role within the company is not currently known, he would have been subjected to the same challenges as any other man in the company – with the added desire to prove himself to the more experienced Marines, who were veterans of Guadalcanal.
In October 1943, the 8th Marines boarded transports at Wellington for a final round of training exercises. When the ships headed out to sea instead of returning to town, the Marines aboard began to realize that the rumors were true: they were bound for combat.
The amphibious assault on Betio, Tarawa atoll – Operation GALVANIC – commenced on 20 November 1943. The Second Battalion 8th Marines was given the job of assaulting the easternmost of three landing beaches – “Red 3” – and, once ashore, moving inland to quickly secure the airfield that covered much of the tiny island’s surface. A heavy and morale-boosting naval bombardment convinced many Marines that the task would be a simple one, and spirits were high at 0900 when their amphibious tractors started paddling for the beach.
The Japanese were quick to recover. Shells began bursting over the LVTs. “As the tractors neared the shore the air filled with the smoke and fragments of shells fired from 3-inch guns,” notes A Brief History of the 8th Marines. “Fortunately, casualties had been light on the way to the beach, but once the men dismounted and struggled to get beyond the beach, battle losses increased dramatically.” Most of the beach defenses were still intact, and these were supported by row after row of pillboxes, rifle pits, and machine gun nests.
The Second Battalion, and then the Third Battalion, tried in vain to break through the Japanese defenses, suffering heavy casualties in every attempt. By evening, they were barely clinging to a sliver of beachhead, and the shocked survivors dug in among the bodies of the dead.
PFC Saini was one of hundreds of Marines to lose his life on the first day of the battle. Officially, he was killed in action by gunshot wounds – no further details of his death are known.
It took two days for the dead men on Beach Red 3 to be buried. A long trench was bulldozed near the pier, and more than forty Marines were carried over and laid down under their ponchos. PFC Saini was among those buried in “Division Cemetery 3.”
John Saini’s burial ground was “beautified” by Navy garrison troops in 1944 and renamed Cemetery 27. A single large cross was put up and the names of the fallen painted on a plaque nearby. When the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company arrived to exhume the battle casualties in 1946, however, they found not a trace of any remains beneath the monument – nor anywhere nearby. After days of searching in vain, they gave up and declared the 40 men permanently nonrecoverable.
In 2015, the non-profit group History Flight conducted an archaeological dig at a shipyard on Betio. This expedition, the result of years of research and data supplied by GPR and a cadaver dog, found the original burial trench beneath a parking lot – quite some distance from the memorial location. The remains of 46 men were recovered by History Flight – and among them were those of John Saini.
DNA analysis – using a sample provided by John’s sister, Virginia, before her death in 2004 – plus additional material and circumstantial evidence, finally identified Saini in December 2015. The announcement went public several months later and “Botch” was finally accounted for in April 2016. His remains were returned to his family for burial in Healdsburg.
CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing
FINAL BURIAL
Oak Mound Cemetery, Healdsburg, California
Decorations
Purple Heart
For wounds resulting in his death, 20 November 1943.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of parents, Mike and Mary Saini.
Saini Vineyards is a now fourth-generation family business.
Location Of Loss
Saini’s battalion landed on and fought in the vicinity of Beach Red 3.
