WW2 Guadalcanal Fallen - Paul Berry, 1st Marine Division

PFC Paul Berry served in the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117683717/paul-van_wyman-berry
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/530721137330381553/ 

Paul Van Wyman Berry never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database. We are going to need a lot of volunteers. Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Paul was born on June 9, 1920 in Burlington, Vermont. His parents Van and Edna were also both born in Vermont. His father worked as a dairy farmer. Paul had seven younger sisters. By 1940 Paul had completed four years of high school and was still living on the family farm.

He volunteered for the US Marines in January 1942. He became a private first class in the 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. His unit arrived on Guadalcanal on September 18, 1942, providing much needed assistance to the other 1st Marine Division leathernecks who had been there for six weeks.

PFC Berry died on October 16, 1942. I was not able to find any details involving the 7th Marine Regiment that would provide possible reasons surrounding this. Perhaps he was a casualty to the regular bombing or shelling of Henderson Field the Japanese were making at this time. On October 14 the field was the target of Japanese battleships who fired more than 900 shells within an hour and a half.

His grave is at Resurrection Park Cemetery in South Burlington, Vermont.

Thank you PFC Berry for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Paul.

This is one of the final 100 stories (86) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.


Last year on this date Bob Fuerst profiled Harold Moake, 34th Infantry Division. You can read about Harold here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org