Jack Shelton Brown was a United States Marine who was killed in action during the Battle of Saipan Island on July 8, 1944. His remains were located after the war ended and were identified on May 11, 2022.
Biography[]
Jack Brown was born on May 3, 1922, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Alexander and Sadie (née Stakes) Brown. On May 21, 1942, he joined the United States Marine Corps in Norfolk, Virginia. At the time, he was working as a service station attendant.
After training, he was promoted to a corporal and assigned as a squad leader of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division. Between January 31 and February 3, 1944, the V Amphibious Corps (consisting of the 2nd Marine Division, the 4th Marine Division, and the 27th Infantry Division) fought in the [Battle of Kwajalein], which took place on the Kwajalein Atoll. Jack's unit fought on Roi-Namur, a northern island part of the atoll. The battle ended in an American victory and represented the first time the Americans had penetrated the "outer ring" of the Japanese Pacific sphere.
On June 15, 1944, the V Amphibious Corps invaded the island of Saipan as part of Operation Forager. Defending the island was the 31st Army of the Imperial Japanese Army. On July 8, Jack's unit held positions along the O-8 line in northern Saipan, where he was killed in action. Further details of his death are currently unknown.
The Battle of Saipan, sometimes called the Pacific D-Day, ended two days later, on July 9, 1944. 1,370 American Marines and soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing; 29,000 Japanese soldiers were killed (with 5,000 committing suicide); and 20,000 civilians were killed.
Aftermath[]
Jack was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star and is memorialized at the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was declared non-recoverable in 1949.
After the war ended in 1945, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) began investigating and recovering missing American personnel in the Pacific Theater. Jack's remains were recovered by the AGRS sometime between the war's end and the organization's termination on December 31, 1951 but were not identified. They were eventually buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, AKA "the Punchbowl", in Honolulu.
Identification[]
In 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed Jack's remains for additional analysis. Through modern forensic techniques, his remains were identified on May 11, 2022. The identification was announced on May 16, 2022.