Altoona Marine, killed in WWII, to be buried
For the second time in just over a year, a Marine from Altoona who was killed in the World War II Battle of Tarawa in the Pacific will be returned to America for burial.
Marine Cpl. John V. McNichol, whose remains were recently identified, will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia next Monday, more than 74 years after he was killed.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced the funeral plans on Monday for Cpl. McNichol, who was 20 years old when he was killed on Nov. 21, 1943 on the small island of Betio in what is the present-day island nation of Kiribati.
Cpl. McNichol’s remains were unidentified until this year, when they were confirmed by forensic evidence by the agency. The identification was based on dental and anthropological data as well as circumstantial evidence, the agency said.
The agency worked with the private organization History Flight, which has toiled for years to identify sites where U.S. service members might be buried on Tarawa and other battle areas.
Cpl. McNichol and fellow Marines met stiff resistance from the Japanese on Betio, located in the Tarawa Atoll of what was then the British colony of the Gilbert Islands.
“Over several days of intense fighting at Tarawa, approximately 1,000 Marines and sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded, but the Japanese were virtually annihilated,” an agency press release said. Cpl. McNichol died on the second day of the battle, it said.
The victory granted U.S. forces an important strategic base from which to press its campaign toward Japan.
On Nov. 7, 2016, Marine Pfc. Nicholas Cancilla was laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery in his native Altoona after a funeral Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church.
Cpl. McNichol is among those World War II service personnel whose names are recorded on the “Tablets of the Missing” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. To indicate he has now been identified, a rosette will be placed next to his name, the agency said.