Ronald William Vosmer

Ronald Vosmer was born on the first day of June, 1921. He spent virtually his entire life in Denver with his parents, Henry and Viola, and older sister Elaine. Henry sold floor coverings at a dry goods store; Elaine and Ronald worked there part time while attending school.

In 1942, Ronald became eligible for Selective Service and registered when required. Before the year was out, however, he made the decision to enlist in the Marine Corps.

Ronald was sworn in to the Marine Corps on 4 September 1942, and within days was on his way to San Diego for boot camp. After earning his Eagle, Globe, and Anchor – and performing the traditional new-man’s stint of mess duty – he was assigned to Battery A, Second Anti-Tank Battalion at Camp Elliott. Private Vosmer deployed overseas with this unit, and spent several months in New Zealand learning to maintain, deploy, and shoot various anti-tank weapons.

In October 1943, the 2nd Marine Division – to which Vosmer’s battalion was attached – decided that the dedicated anti-tank unit would not be required in future operations. The battalion was disbanded, and the men sent to other commands. Vosmer was one of several dozen men assigned to the 8th Marines, and wound up in E/2/8 – a rifle company. He had the shortest possible time to learn a new way of fighting and get to know his new platoon and squad mates before boarding a transport ship. After an elaborate amphibious landing rehearsal, the fleet carrying the 2nd Marine Division sailed away from New Zealand – and towards Vosmer’s baptism of fire.

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.

One of those who fell on the first day was PFC Vosmer. Official military records simply note that he was “killed in action” by “gunshot wounds” – no further specifics of his fate 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. Ronald Vosmer was one of the men buried in “Division Cemetery 3.”

Ronald Vosmer’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 were 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 Ronald Vosmer.

On 12 April 2016, thanks to DNA analysis and the comparison of physical and dental characteristics, Ronald William Vosmer was officially accounted for and returned to his family.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado