Isolated grave of PFC Bert Mason Berg of Kansas City, Kansas. Vance, a member of Company B, First Battalion, 2nd Marines, was shot in the chest and killed on 23 November 1943. His battalion noted that he was “buried in the field on Beach Green,” while Marine Corps Graves Registration noted “Isolated Grave, Grid Location KH21305.” Berg’s remains were found by the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company, identified in the field, and reinterred in Lone Palm Cemetery Plot 2, Row 10, Grave 4 on 3 April 1946.
Berg’s GRS information matches with the four Marines reportedly buried in Cemetery 37. The two reconstructed graves were just a few yards apart, and it is known that not every isolated grave stood directly atop the remains of the man named on the marker. And, interestingly, there is some evidence that Berg may not have been in Cemetery 41 after all. On the Report of Interment filled out by the 604th, the clerk entered Cemetery 37 instead of Cemetery 41.
This may have been a simple typographical error – but there is one Marine unaccounted for from Cemetery 37, PFC Frank Hein, whose remains were apparently never recovered. It is possible that Berg, not Hein, was the fourth burial in Cemetery 37, and that Cemetery 41 was only a memorial.
PFC Berg’s remains were returned to his family for burial in 1949.
Berg
