Raymond Warren

Raymond Warren Junior was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, on 5 March 1922. He was the first child of Raymond Hathaway Warren and Dessa (Richardson) Warren, and grew up on the family farm in Silverdale – a tiny community near the Arkansas River and just about a mile north of the Oklahoma border.

Much of Raymond’s childhood revolved around farming and school. Every day he traveled nine miles to “Ark City” for class, enjoying the sights and sounds of a bustling small city. In the fall, the Warrens likely attended the annual Arkalalah Festival; Raymond and his little sister Rosemary would have been thrilled by the parades, carnivals, and celebration of agricultural prowess.

Young Raymond showed every inclination of joining the ranks of Cowley County farmers. In 1940, his senior year at Arkansas City High School, he served as the vice president of Future Farmers of America. Like his father (Ark City High, class of 1917), Raymond was on the school track team, and may have played for the FFA basketball club.

Raymond Senior was also a Great War veteran – and Raymond Junior would follow in his footsteps there, too. On 9 September 1942, he enlisted in the Marine Corps at St. Louis, Missouri.

Raymond Warren – he dropped the “Junior” suffix upon enlisting – was sent to MCRD San Diego for boot camp. By October 1942, he was assigned to the 8th Replacement Battalion at Camp Elliott, pending transfer to a unit overseas. In January 1943, he arrived at New Caledonia and dropped his sea bag at the Casual & Replacement Battalion to await further orders.

In the spring of 1943, Private Warren was posted to King Company, Third Battalion, 8th Marines. When he reported for duty, the regiment was recovering from several months of combat on Guadalcanal. Warren spent several months in New Zealand, training and bonding with his new comrades in “K/3/8.” During this period, he advanced in rank to Private First Class.

In October 1943, PFC Warren boarded a transport ship and departed New Zealand for his first combat experience – Operation GALVANIC, which would be better known as the invasion of Tarawa.

On 20 November 1943, the Third Battalion 8th Marines was instructed to assault Beach Red 3 on the island of Betio. They would come in on the heels of the Second Battalion, 8th Marines – and, it was hoped, press on across a secured beachhead and attack the fortifications beyond. Many men hoped that tiny Betio would be pulverized by the preliminary bombardment, and they would just need to walk ashore.

Instead, the Marines found a heavily defended island and a determined Japanese garrison that fought for every inch of ground. The 8th Marines quickly piled up on the beach itself, and only through the gallant acts of individual men were they able to gradually advance through a network of fortifications towards the airfield.

One of those Marines was PFC Raymond Warren. From his position on the beach, he could see a demolition team trying to attack a bunker. The well-trained and disciplined Japanese troops defending the position kept the attackers from getting close enough to use their demolition charges. Warren “courageously exposed himself to heavy machine gun and mortar fire in order to divert the enemy to himself.” While the Japanese were distracted, the demolition team was able to rush the bunker and place their explosive charges. For his actions, Raymond would be awarded the Silver Star Medal.

Sadly, the decoration was posthumous. In the words of his citation, Warren was fatally wounded while performing his distraction, but “steadfastly continued to support the advance” until he expired. However, Robert Voorhees of K/3/8 provided a much more unsettling account of his buddy’s last moments.

“A Sherman tank moved up to punch a hole in the huge concrete bunker (the power plant). It fired a super-HE shell hitting, of all things, a tree in front of the bunker killing Cactus Warren and wounding Lt. Gage and [Darrell] Albers. How the tank missed the huge target and hit such a small tree is beyond me.”

Darrell Albers also recalled the incident:

“We were all moved back to the beach so they could get a battleship to knock out this huge bombproof. When those sixteen-inch shells hit, they just ricocheted off into the ocean on the other side of the island. The next idea was to bring up a medium tank and blast it open. The tank came up and fired a couple of rounds with no effect. They backed off and approached from a different angle and fired one round which hit a tree and exploded. Net results – one dead Marine and five wounded, which included me.”

[Both quotes from the November 1993 issue of Follow Me!, Vol. 30 No. 6]

After the battle, the 8th Marines gathered up their dead for burial in a long trench near Beach Red 3. One of the bodies they found was Raymond Warren – however, he was not identifiable. One of his buddies in K/3/8, PFC George J. Fox, later wrote that Warren’s “head was practically severed from his body and caused the loss of his dog tags,” which led to “later identification complications to burial authorities.”

Thus, while Raymond Warren was reported as “buried in Division Cemetery, Tarawa,” the specific location was never recorded. Nor was the mass grave location located by the 604th Graves Registration Company after the war.

In 2015, the non-profit organization History Flight finally discovered the site of “Cemetery 27” – and the remains of more than forty Marines, long since declared non-recoverable. While the names of several men buried there were known from original records, sixteen were “unknown” at the time of burial.

One of these unknowns proved to be PFC Raymond Warren. Scientists with the DPAA used anthropological and material evidence, as well as DNA analysis, to confirm his identity. On 10 June 2019, Warren was officially declared “accounted for.”

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Arlington National Cemetery
(13 April 2021)