NEWS

KIA WWII Mississippi Marine to be buried Monday

Therese Apel

The Clarion-Ledger

Delta Airlines flight 1163, carrying Marine Pfc. James Samuel "Sam" Smith, 19, touched down on Mississippi soil Saturday, bringing the local hero home for the first time in more than 70 years.

He was met by family, fellow servicemen and servicewomen, Patriot Guard riders and friends and was escorted from the plane by the U.S. Marine Corps Military Honor Guard from Baton Rouge.

Smith had been unaccounted for since since Nov. 20, 1943, according to officials. Family members told reporters on Saturday that they had put a monument in the cemetery in Liberty in anticipation that one day Smith would come home. His parents did not live long enough to know what happened to him.

Smith's obituary says he "made a good record in high school, taking part in all activities, both scholastic and social. Sam graduated in 1941 and went to Baton Rouge to work." He planned to go to college and study to become a doctor.

Smith was a talented football player, according to his obituary, and he chose to join the Marine Corps, "for which he had a great admiration, realizing its strict discipline and dangerous undertakings. On Aug. 3, 1942, he left for San Diego, California, and at the end of nine weeks, sailed with the Second Marines for the South Pacific."

In the early days of the war, Smith saw action with a special weapons battalion. He was then sent to New Zealand and then into the Solomon Island campaign.

Smith wrote to his family on Oct. 10, 1943, and told them he was going back to the front. It would be his last letter home.

He was assigned to Company C, 2nd Amphibious Tractor Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, which landed on the island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Island, where friendly forces were met by a strong Japanese resistance. Smith went ashore on Beach Red 2 with the first wave of the invasion and "held the beachhead against impossible assaults until their reinforcements finally landed," his obituary said.

Over several days of heavy combat, around 1,000 Marines and sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded.

Historical accounts say Smith was killed sometime the first day of that battle.

ALSO: Local WWII pilot returns to the skies on Memorial Day

Though the Americans took heavy casualties, the enemy was decimated, and the Navy Pacific Fleet was able to use the Gilbert Islands as a platform to launch assaults on the Marshall and Caroline Islands to advance the campaign in the Central Pacific.

Smith's casualty card listed him as missing in action, and the Navy made a presumptive finding of death on Nov. 21, 1944 — a year and a day after he was killed.

In June 2011, History Flight Inc. notified the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency that it had discovered a burial site on Betio Island, and in 2012, a team excavated the site. Three sets of remains were found.

Smith's remains were identified by circumstantial evidence and laboratory analysis including DNA, dental comparison and anthropological and chest radiograph comparison analysis.

Smith will be buried in Liberty Cemetery with full military honors. He is credited with a Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon (World War II), Presidential Unit Citation Award, Marine Corps Good Conduct, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars and a World War II Victory Medal.

Visitation is Monday at Brown Funeral Home in Liberty from 10 to 11 a.m. Funeral services are at 11 a.m. at Brown Funeral Home with interment to follow in Liberty Cemetery.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.