WWII soldier buried in Riverside cemetery -- 75 years later

The body of World War II Staff Sgt. Vincent Rogers Jr. (inset) was brought to Riverside National Cemetery Wednesday. Menifee 24/7 photo

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Every once in a while, a story comes along to prove that while people die, their memories live on. This is a story that shows you can come home again, no matter how long it has been.

On Jan. 22, 1944, Army Staff Sgt. Vincent Rogers Jr. was one of seven airmen killed when their B-24 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from the Pacific atoll of Tarawa in the Central Pacific Ocean. Searches in the years following World War II failed to locate his body. In 1950, Army officials informed the family that they were unable to recover his remains.

For 75 years, Rogers was listed as MIA. He had no known final resting place – until Wednesday.

Rogers was honored in a memorial service at Evans-Brown Mortuary, then buried with full military honors at Riverside National Cemetery. Two of his cousins – including Menifee resident Wayne Rogers – were in attendance. Three-quarters of a century after “Buddy” Rogers died on that faraway island, he has a home.

It was a long journey to Menifee, in more ways than time and distance. As Wayne Rogers (right) shared with guests at Wednesday’s ceremony, he was just 2 ½ years old when the cousin he never met died. He recalled fondly hearing stories about Vincent, however, and for years practiced on a family piano that displayed a photo of Buddy.

Wayne Rogers said that after the 1944 plane crash, the bodies were recovered from the water and placed in coffins made out of crates found on the military site. They were among approximately 1,100 U.S. military personnel killed in the 76-hour Battle of Tarawa and ensuing fighting. Many were hastily buried in trenches and individual graves.

Crosses were placed on the seven coffins of Vincent Rogers’ crew. They remained above ground for a period of time. When U.S. military officials returned after the war to recover the remains of soldiers from a cemetery on the island, those seven coffins could not be found.

Without a body for burial, a headstone for Vincent Rogers was erected over an empty grave in a cemetery in his home state of New York. His parents and other ancestors are buried there, but there are no family members remaining in that area. Then, more than 70 years later, Wayne Rogers picked up the phone in Menifee to take a call from another cousin, Tom Rogers, who lives in Texas.

In a storage area of his garage, Tom Rogers had found 230 letters Vincent had written to his mother while in the service. Part of Vincent’s training had taken place at March Field in Riverside. Tom sent the letters to Wayne, who donated them to the March Field Air Museum, where a display in recent years has honored Vincent Rogers as an “every man” airman who never came home.

Enter an organization called History Flight, which searches for and recovers remains of military personnel. As Wayne Rogers’ interest in genealogy and the story of Vincent grew, he persisted in the efforts to locate and identify Vincent Rogers’ remains.

Archeologists for History Flight determined in 2014 that some of the soldiers placed in the Tarawa cemetery were buried outside of the current cemetery boundaries. Searching for a reported area near the military runway, they identified a house as likely to be sitting over the unmarked graves. They received permission to have the house moved, and excavators recovered the seven coffins.

A painstaking process to identify the remains through DNA testing and dental records continued until this March, when Vincent Jerome Rogers Jr. was the last of the seven soldiers to be identified. A movement to bring the remains to Riverside for burial in the national cemetery was supported by 15,000 signatures.

This week, that plan came to fruition.

Below is a video with highlights of Wednesday’s memorial service and military burial for Vincent Rogers Jr. The display honoring him at March Field Air Museum remains open to the public.