Leland L. Eckart

	NAME Leland Leroy Eckart	NICKNAME —	SERVICE NUMBER O-11354
	UNIT VMF-213 Pilot	HOME OF RECORD 4875 North Kilpatrick Avenue Chicago, IL	NEXT OF KIN Mother, Mrs. Marie A. Eckart
	DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1917 at Weyauwega, WI	ENTERED SERVICE July 20, 1942 (commissioned) at Corpus Christi, TX	DATE OF LOSS April 25, 1943
	REGION Solomon Islands	CAMPAIGN / AREA Vangunu	CASUALTY TYPE Missing In Action Declared Dead April 26, 1945
CIRCUMSTANCES OF LOSS First Lieutenant Leland L. Eckart., was a Marine pilot assigned to VMF-213, a fighter squadron based at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. On 25 April 1943, VMF-213 launched a strike against Japanese forces at Kolombangara Island. Eckart was part of a four-plane flight that strafed Blackett Strait and then attacked a large force of unsuspecting enemy aircraft over Vangunu. In the course of a few minutes, six Zeros and two Corsairs went down, including Eckart’s F4U-1 02399. No definitive trace of Lieutenant Eckart was ever found; he was declared dead as of 26 April 1945.
INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS Purple Heart	LAST KNOWN RANK First Lieutenant (posthumous Captain)	STATUS OF REMAINS Not recovered.	MEMORIALS Mount Zion Cemetery, Rochester, IN Manila American Cemetery

Biography:
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“I met an Australian officer in the communication shack on the hill, near the Officer’s mess [at Viru Harbor]. He had remembered [Lt. Milton] Vedder being picked up. When I mentioned Eckart’s disappearance he was surprised that we had never heard of Eckart. He remembered the occasion of the two pilots going down on Easter Sunday. Remembered Vedder well. Said they had picked up a pilot about two weeks or more after the fight. He told how this pilot had related his experiences while floating around the small islands east of Segi. He said that the pilot was shot down on the same day as Vedder [25 April 1943]. He couldn’t remember Eckart’s name. The pilot had a bullet wound in the neck and was in bad condition. He didn’t know whether he lived or not. He was very busy so I couldn’t get to question him very thoroughly.”

– 1Lt. W. J. Thomas, VMF-213, as reported in the squadron war diary on 11 July 1943.