HANCOCK COUNTY — Scores of people lining U.S. 40 Thursday afternoon waved American flags as a hearse drove by. Lights flashed on law enforcement vehicles and motorcycle engines rumbled in a procession that was more than a mile long.
In the hearse were the remains of U.S. Marine Pfc. Louis Wiesehan Jr., a Richmond native who was killed in battle at the age of 20 on a Japanese island during World War II. Along with many others, he was buried on the island, and his remains were eventually deemed unrecoverable.
Almost 77 years later, after an excavation and scientific analysis, Wiesehan returned home Thursday. His route crossed Hancock County, and many of its residents gathered to show their respect.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryWiesehan was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, he was killed in action on Nov. 21, 1943, during the amphibious assault on the Japanese-held Betio Island during the Battle of Tarawa.
About 1,000 Marines and U.S. Navy sailors were killed in that battle, and more than 2,000 were wounded, “while the Japanese were virtually annihilated,” according to a news release from the agency.
In a June 1944 letter, Wiesehan’s commander, Capt. Martin F. Barrett, wrote he was killed by enemy gunfire “while manning a position on the front line” and that his “ability, attention to duty and willingness to serve was always exemplary…”
During the 76-hour battle against firmly entrenched Japanese defenders, 410 American casualties were unaccounted for.
Wiesehan’s remains were buried in one of the Marine cemeteries on the island. In 1946, U.S. personnel set out to centralize all of the American remains, but almost half of the known casualties were never found. In 1949, a board of review declared Wiesehan “non-recoverable.”
In 2014, the nonprofit organization History Flight, Inc. located a site on the island later identified as a Marine division cemetery. Excavations that followed uncovered multiple sets of remains that were turned over to the POW/MIA accounting agency the following year.
Remains went to the agency’s location in Honolulu, where scientists used anthropological analysis, material evidence and DNA analysis to identify Wiesehan among the remains. He was accounted for on Sept. 23, 2019.
Warm welcome
Wiesehan’s remains arrived at Indianapolis International Airport with a Marine escort Thursday afternoon, Sept. 17. A procession of law enforcement officers and motorcycle-mounted Indiana Patriot Guard Riders traveled east on Interstate 70 to Mt. Comfort Road, where they headed south to U.S. 40 and then east through Greenfield en route to Richmond.
The procession passed through downtown Greenfield, where the city’s fire department raised a large American flag from a ladder truck and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department Honor Guard stood at attention. Elsewhere along the route through the county, an untold number of people pulled into parking lots and driveways so they could stand along the road and honor the occasion.
Dennis Hawkins and his wife, Jane, were among the crowd in front of the Hancock County Courthouse paying their respects to Wiesehan. Hawkins’ reason for attending was simple.
“He’s a hero,” he said. “After what, 70-some years? He deserves this. I lost relatives in Korea and Vietnam. I just felt I need to be here.”
Hawkins was happy with the turnout.
“I think it shows what America is, and how they respect their heroes, the people that fought for them,” he said.
Part of the reason Michael and Patty Ellis of Morristown attended Thursday was out of respect for their late son, who was also a Marine.
“We felt like we needed to come and do this in his honor as well,” Patty Ellis said.
She said she feels Thursday’s turnout showed respect for not only Wiesehan, but all who serve in the U.S. military.
“I think this brings light also to the situation that our service people are in right now — not knowing whether they’re appreciated or not,” she said. “And hopefully this would just display to them that yes, they are appreciated for all that they do.”
They agreed more than 70 years was a long time for Wiesehan’s remains to go without being recovered.
“In my opinion, it’s a shame that it took that long to get him identified; but on the other hand, it’s really great that somebody would go to the trouble to do that,” Michael Ellis said.
Ron and Carol Stamps of Green Township in Hancock County attended the procession, too. The Indiana Patriot Guard Riders had honored their grandson, also a Marine, when he died.
Ron Stamps was in the Army for 27 years and served in the Vietnam War. Wiesehan’s sacrifice demands respect, he said.
“Even though it’s been that long a time, he’s still all veterans’ brother,” he said. “He’s our brother regardless.”
The couple was also pleased with the attendance.
“Greenfield and Hancock County came out in big numbers,” Ron Stamps said. “I think that’s amazing and tells us something good about our county.”
Jack Grose, a Marion resident and member of the Indiana Patriot Guard Riders, was part of Wiesehan’s escort Thursday. The U.S. Air Force veteran said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to the ride. He’s been going on rides that honor service members for about 13 years and said each one is unique and embedded in his memory.
“I’m very glad to see that the word’s gone out to the people and they can help pay respect to the family,” Grose said. “This guy was missing for 77 years.”
People’s participation reflects what America is truly about, he continued.
“It’s very touching to know that people are taking time out of their day to respect a person they never knew that died for their freedom,” Grose said.
Closure for a family
Patricia Wisehart, who lives in Henry County outside of Shirley, participated in the DNA analysis part of Wiesehan’s identification along with her two brothers. They’re Wiesehan’s closest living relatives; their late mother was his sister.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Wisehart said. “Seventy-seven years. We’re excited to get some closure to this.”
Wisehart said her mother didn’t talk often about her lost brother.
“It was a very upsetting time, that’s for sure,” Wisehart said.
Years later, however, her mother did speak about him with her granddaughter and Wisehart’s niece, Kimberly Gardner of Kentucky.
“She (Gardner) made a promise to her grandma — my mom — that she would do what she could to locate him, to bring him back,” Wisehart said. “That’s how this all started.”
Gardner started conducting research on the matter and continued her initiative even after the death of Wisehart’s mother in 2006.
“She’s a take-charge person,” Wisehart said of her niece. “She took charge of this for her grandmother.”
Wisehart and her brothers provided DNA samples by swabbing the insides of their mouths for the eventual match. She recalled going to a meeting in Dayton, Ohio, last year to get an update on the initiative with many other families whose loved ones were lost in World War II and other conflicts.
“It is amazing to hear how they are identifying and the lengths that they are going to to get identification,” Wisehart said.
A couple weeks after the meeting, she and her brothers received confirmation that their uncle’s remains had been identified.
“We were just all amazed that it happened,” she said. “It’s kind of like a needle in a haystack a little bit.”
Honors for Wiesehan were to continue in Richmond Friday with a memorial ceremony and public visitation, followed by a funeral procession through town today (Saturday, Sept. 19). Wisehart said he’ll be buried near his sister and other family members.
Wiesehan’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl in Hawaii, along with others killed or lost in World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
More than 400,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II died during the conflict. Currently, 72,639 remain unaccounted for, with about 30,000 of them assessed as possibly recoverable.
