WASHINGTON — A Brooklyn soldier who fought honorably during World War II will finally rest in peace 70 years after his final battle.
The remains of Army Pfc. Bernard Gavrin have been miraculously identified on the Pacific island of Saipan. The solider will be returned home for a full military burial at Arlington National Cemetery, the US Department of Defense announced this week.
The news left his nephew awestruck.
“I’m stunned, totally stunned,” said David Rogers, 82, who last saw his Uncle Bernie as a child in Brooklyn.
“How many people in this wonderful nation of ours can be told after all these many, many years, we will finally have closure,” marveled Rogers, who now lives in Delray Beach, Fla.
Gavrin, 29, had been missing and presumed dead since July 7, 1944, after his unit suffered huge losses while trying to take over Saipan on the Mariana Islands. After a month of intense fighting, the Japanese resorted to a deadly suicide assault, known as a banzai attack. In all, more than 900 soldiers were killed or injured with Gavrin’s 105th Infantry Regiment.
An 8-year-old Rogers was home in Brooklyn when the US War Department delivered the telegram with the bad news to Gavrin’s mother.
“She let out a terrifying scream that I can still hear to this day,” Rogers recalled.
Today, Rogers is the only living relative who had ever met Uncle Bernie. Gavrin never married nor had children. The family hadn’t talked much of him until last year when a Japanese non-governmental organization interested in recovering Japanese soldiers from the battle in Saipan recovered human remains of Americans. Among the findings was Gavrin’s tattered dogtags.
The American remains were handed over to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii for investigation and genetic testing. Rogers submitted his DNA which helped identify his uncle.
The incredible discovery is a reflection of the ongoing work by the US government to bring home its soldiers. Of the 16 million Americans who served in WWII, more than 400,000 died. At the end of the war, there were 79,000 Americans unaccounted for. Now that number is down to 73,000, according to the Department of Defense’s missing personnel office.
Garvin will be laid to rest Sept. 12 at Arlington National Cemetery where Rogers expects about 30 friends and relatives to say their long-awaited goodbye.