Merrill's Marauders: U.S. identifies WWII soldier after 82 years
Joseph Gala's remains were recovered from Honolulu and confirmed via dental and forensic analysis.
By Martin Reynolds ·
A 21-year-old soldier from Lynn, Massachusetts, will return home for burial on Thursday. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed the identity of Joseph Gala, who disappeared during World War II more than 80 years ago.
Gala was declared killed in action on July 14, 1944. He went missing during a mission in what was then Burma, now Myanmar. Military records indicate he was last seen advancing with his battalion toward a fortified Japanese position near the village of Mankrin.
Gala served in the volunteer infantry unit known as Merrill's Marauders. President Franklin D. Roosevelt solicited the battalion for a secret and dangerous mission in the China-Burma-India Theater. The Army described this region in a 2016 article as the war's forgotten theater. Approximately 3,000 men volunteered for the service, but only 200 returned to the United States.
Robert Passanisi, a surviving member of the unit, described the 1,000-mile march through the Burmese jungle to disrupt Japanese supply lines. He stated in 2013 that the mission was strenuous and difficult in miserable terrain. Sam Wilson, another former Marauder, told the Army in 2016 that the troops were expendable. Wilson noted that a plan existed to enter Burma, but no plan existed to extract them.
The unit captured the Myitkyina airstrip in Burma on May 17, 1944. They achieved this after defeating a larger Japanese force in five major battles and 30 minor engagements. The military later awarded a bronze star to every soldier in the unit. The Pentagon ordered that none of the men would be placed in combat again.
Gala's remains were originally buried at various U.S. military cemeteries in Burma and India. They were later transferred to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2018, officials began exhuming unidentified remains from the Punchbowl to identify soldiers killed at Myitkyina. Scientists confirmed Gala's identity through dental and forensic tests, as well as anthropological and circumstantial evidence.
A dramatized version of the unit's experience appeared in a 1962 war film named after the Marauders. Gala's burial is scheduled for Thursday in his hometown of Lynn.
