Arthur B. "MuMu" Ervin

Service Number: 285038

Marine Corps Regular

Enlisted: June 4, 1940

Platoon: Weapons / Mortar Section

Hometown: McCurtain, OK

Next Of Kin: Wife, Mrs Odena G. Ervin

Born: April 16, 1922
Died: July 5, 1944

Campaigns Served: Pearl Harbor, Russell Islands, Namur, Saipan (killed)
Highest Rank Attained: Sergeant
Decorations: Navy Cross, Bronze Star, Purple Heart with Gold Star

Arthur Ervin Junior was born in the small town of McCurtain, Oklahoma on April 16, 1922.

The Ervins were a fairly typical rural Southern family – Arthur Ervin Senior was a native of Logan, Arkansas, where he worked as a laborer on the family farm. He met Willie Ray Moore in Logan; they married in June 1906, though she was thirteen years his junior. When their first son Harry was born in January 1907, the Ervins moved in with the Moore family. Arthur supported his family as a farmer, cattle dealer, and laborer. The arrival of Harley Ervin in 1911, put an additional strain on the family resources, and may have prompted a move to LeFlore, Oklahoma, where Arthur found more lucrative – and more dangerous – employment as a coal miner.1

Arthur Ervin Senior, date and location unknown.

In 1922, Arthur Ervin Senior was working for the Progressive Coal Company in McCurtain, Oklahoma. The mines in the area were notorious for dangerously high gas levels; the area had a history of fatal accidents. However, Progressive was known for its modern mining techniques, and each mine had a designated fire boss on hand to ensure that safety regulations were enforced. On October 20, though, F. E. Seaton - the company president and fire boss of Mine Number Eleven - carried an open flame lamp into the excavation, touching off a massive explosion. When rescuers arrived on the scene, they found that the blast had collapsed a 100-yard section of the tunnel. Mine employees and townspeople frantically dug to free the trapped men, rescuing five injured miners. Nine others – including Seaton and Arthur Ervin – were killed in the blast.2

With the death of the family head and chief breadwinner, the Ervins found themselves in dire financial straits. The boys each spent time residing with their grandparents to relieve some of the strain on Willie; both Harry and Harley eventually joined the Navy. Willie married William Barlow Meek, a widower from LeFlore, and moved to Detroit, Texas with her youngest son. Ervin attended grammar and high school in Los Angeles, growing up with a love of hunting and physical activities including baseball and swimming. He left school in 1938, after completing his sophomore year.3

The reasons for Ervin leaving school for work are unknown, but it seems possible that he needed to help support his mother. William Meek passed away in December, 1937, leaving Willie as a widow for a second time. She had a young son, Jesse Meek, to look after. Arthur Ervin took a job with the Los Angeles Examiner – he had taken courses in communications in high school – and was appointed as “District Circulation Manager.” When asked to describe his duties, he wrote “Had charge of news paper sales in section of city of Los Angeles, seen that newsboys had late papers on hand at all times. Kept record of papers sold and paid boys.” He was paid a weekly wage of $45 for his efforts.4

Ervin left the Examiner on June 15, 1939. It is unknown how he spent the following year, though he may have returned to Texas shortly after his job ended. Later documents would reveal his occupation either as “student” or “general laborer.”5

On June 4, 1940, Arthur Ervin stared down at a typewritten form on a desk in Dallas. He confirmed the information he read – an eighteen year old resident of Detroit, Texas who was ready to give up his civilian identity. Taking a firm grip on his pen, he signed his name Arthur “B” Ervin.6 Lieutenant Commander Jerome Braun, a Dallas recruiting officer, scanned over a second form bearing the signature of Mrs Willie B. Meek granting her permission for her son’s actions. Braun produced a Bible, administered the required oath, and signed the young man’s paper.  With that simple action, Arthur Ervin became a Marine recruit. His first official order was issued immediately – to board a train departing that night for San Diego, where he would report for training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. The train voyage took two days; boot camp would take nine weeks. By the end of the grueling training regimen, Private Ervin had earned high marks on his military fitness report, and was assigned to duty with the guard detachment at the Pearl Harbor Naval Air Station.7

18 year old Arthur Ervin, shortly after enlisting.

For a young Marine, the bustle and intensity of Pearl Harbor must have been overwhelming at first. The Ford Island station was located in the middle of the harbor itself, and was the headquarters of Patrol Wing Two. Thousands of servicemen lived on the island, which was accessible only by an hourly ferry. Catalina flying boats roared out on regular patrols, and the men were treated to the impressive sight of the Pacific Fleet’s battleships moored nearby. Private Ervin’s Company B provided a police force and enforced traffic regulations on the island, while Company A provided guard details for the Navy Yard. When not on duty, the Marines resided in well-built barracks and often took the ferry to the bars and clubs of Pearl Harbor itself.

Peacetime duty at Pearl Harbor was considered a good post, albeit one of daily routine. Though a case of appendicitis sent him to the hospital in April 1941, Ervin’s first months of service were uneventful. Despite receiving a slap on the wrist for “improper performance of duty” in April (he was awarded two weeks of extra duties), Ervin was promoted to Private First Class in August 1941. The increase in pay would have been a great reward, as was the additional stripe. Ervin, surely realizing how long a Marine had to work to advance, must have imagined that the remaining three years of his enlistment would feature much more base duty, or perhaps the chance to go to sea aboard one of the fleet battleships or carriers. He was already exhibiting some of the individual streak that would earn him a reputation later in his career when he was written up for skipping the Commanding General’s inspection – the punishment was thirty days confined to base.

On the morning of December 7, the color guard of the Ford Island station was preparing to present the colors in anticipation of another routine Sunday. Two loud explosions interrupted the ceremony, and a Japanese torpedo plane streaked past the administration building and slammed a torpedo into the battleship USS California. The Marines on the flag-raising detail were startled, but ran the colors up with their customary precision before racing for their weapons. An American machine gun began to rattle from the roof of one of the barracks buildings, its chatter all but drowned out by the roar of the Japanese aircraft, the yells of American servicemen, and the blasts of bombs and exploding ships. Ford Island, located as it was in the middle of the harbor near Battleship Row, was at the center of the attack from the very beginning. The Marines put up the best resistance that they could, but like the rest of the armed forces had been caught completely by surprise.

This famous picture of December 7, 1941, was taken from Ford Island, Ervin's duty station.

Unfortunately, it is not known what specific part Ervin played in the defense of Ford Island.8 In the wake of the attack, he doubtless helped clear strewn wreckage from the airfield and surrounding areas – blasted planes mingled with pieces of battleships torn apart in explosions – and probably had his first encounter with grievous wounds as burned and bloody sailors were helped ashore and carried to medical facilities.

Ervin’s first combat action came close to being his last. On December 30, 1941, a General Court-Martial was convened at Ford Island. The defendants, Ervin and PFC James Coupe, were tried on three separate counts of burglary, theft of $75, and “unauthorized use of an automobile of another.”  The court threw the book at the two Marines, recommending reduction in rank to private, confinement for twenty-four months, and a bad-conduct discharge at the end of their imprisonment. Ervin and Coupe were brigged at Ford Island for the month of January, then booted from their company and sent to be confined at the Mare Island Naval Prison in California.

Upon arrival at Mare Island on February 24, 1942, Ervin was sent directly to a cell for two weeks; when released from close confinement, he was assigned to punitive duty with a Casual Company at the Naval Base.  In April, he received word that his sentence had been reduced. Possibly the Corps realized that it was in for a long war and would need every experienced hand it could muster, or perhaps the Acting Secretary of the Navy (whose job it was to approve all sentences) felt that the Ford Island commander had been overly harsh. Ervin and Coupe were released from the brig and told they would be fined twenty dollars of their pay for the next six months, as well as placed on probation for the next year. If at any time either Marine fouled up, they could be immediately booted from the Corps at the discretion of their commanding officer.9 Private Ervin joined the Guard Company at Mare Island, and was a model Marine both on and off duty.

After his month on guard, Ervin – perhaps anxious to prove himself, and certainly anxious to get back to active duty – joined Company E of the newly-formed 22nd Marines. He boarded the SS Lurline on July 19, 1942, and the regiment set sail for American Samoa, reaching Pago Pago Harbor ten days later. There, they encountered members of the Seventh Marines, who were preparing for the invasion of Guadalcanal. The 22nd Marines trained in the jungles of Samoa for months – the regiment had only been formed the previous June and many of its men were fresh from training – and Ervin found himself once again standing guard duty.

The arrival of two officers and 25 men from the First and Second Raider Battalions caused a stir. The Raiders were already attracting attention as an elite commando unit, famous for their defense of Midway and the attack on Makin Atoll, Tulagi, and their participation in the bloody fighting on Guadalcanal. This detachment was to form the nucleus of a new Raider battalion, bolstered by volunteers from the Second and Third Marine Brigades on Samoa. Ervin, who had been under special instruction and passed his qualification as a demolitions expert on September 18 was among the first to apply for a transfer, and arrived at his new billet on September 20. Raider training agreed with Ervin, who was promoted to temporary Private First Class on October 24; the rank was made permanent on December 1. His Company C was based on Upulu, Western Samoa; after additional training, they boarded the SS Oliver Wendell Holmes, arriving at Pago Pago and joining the new battalion on Christmas Day.

The Raiders were not long for Samoa. On January 16, they boarded the attack transport American Legion for Espiritu Santo; a month later they sailed for Guadalcanal. Though the battle was still going on, the initial fury had been spent and the Americans were able to use their captured territory as a staging area. Operation Cleanslate got underway on February 18 as the Third Raider Battalion set out for the Russell Islands. Stiff resistance was expected; the islands of Banika and Pavuvu had been used by the Japanese as part of their route to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal. However, an officer and NCO from the Raiders spent several days scouting the objective without spotting a single Japanese soldier. The landing on February 21 was unopposed, and the Raiders climbed out of their inflatable assault boats in an orderly manner. To the annoyance of the Raiders, the reports of the island’s desertion proved true, and the men who had trained for a stealth landing and hard fighting were expected to begin clearing land for a permanent Marine camp.10

Members of the Third Raider Battalion land on Pavuvu. Official USMC Photo.

Pavuvu’s evil climate, preponderance of land crabs, and mat of rotted coconuts are well documented in the memoirs of the First Marine Division, who would later use the island as a rest camp.11 However, the Raiders who were first exposed to the island suffered far worse during their month in the forward area. Lack of transport meant that the Raiders were forced to carry building materials and supplies to the new camps by hand. The transports had been loaded for combat conditions, and the only food available was monotonous field rations. Several dozen men, including Ervin, came down with malaria; an estimated one-third of the battalion developed skin conditions. While the operation was considered a success on paper, the Raiders themselves were bitter at having been wasted on an unopposed operation, and their combat effectiveness had been blunted by the weeks of labor and exposure to disease. For Ervin, the high point of the operation came on March 1, when he was promoted to acting corporal.

In addition to his malaria, Ervin noticed a more troubling ailment. Beginning in January 1943, he had experienced occasional numbness in his legs, plus a swelling in his groin which was less painful than disconcerting. For some reason, he does not appear to have reported this until after his battalion arrived at Espiritu Santo, New Hebridies. The three Raider battalions were in the process of being molded into a single Raider regiment and preparing for the Central Solomons campaign. Ervin, who had suffered a relapse of malaria as well as an attack of dengue fever, finally reported sick – the surgeon, examining Ervin’s swelling and hearing his complaints, immediately referred him to Naval Hospital #3. The diagnosis was lymphatic filariasis – a parasitic disease which, left untreated, can lead to elephantiasis. Ervin was pulled from active duty and kept in the ambulatory ward of the hospital, receiving no specific treatment but remaining under observation. While in the hospital, he learned that his company had been designated Company L of the First Raider Regiment, and that as of May 15 his promotion to corporal was made permanent. On that same day, the staff decided that Corporal Ervin would be evacuated to a hospital in the United States.

The USS Nashville took Ervin aboard on May 21, 1943. On June 4, he debarked at Mare Island – the site of his previous incarceration – and was admitted to the Naval Hospital at the base for further treatment. Relatively little was known about filariasis at the time, though it had been found that patients that were moved to a more arid climate saw their disease go dormant. This appears to have been the case with Arthur Ervin, and on July 1 he was released for a thirty day convalescent leave, at the end of which he was to report to the Long Beach Naval Hospital.

Ervin returned to duty as a married man. It is unknown when or where he met Odena Gladys Good; she may have been a schoolmate from Los Angeles. “Neg,” as he called her, was just seventeen when she and Ervin tied the knot on July 17, 1943. Ervin was devoted to his wife, and the following month filled out the paperwork declaring that his life insurance policy of $10,000 go to her should the worst happen to him.

After a stint with a casual company at Terminal Island, Corporal Ervin received new orders. On September 3, 1943, he arrived at his new assignment – Company A, 24th Marines of the newly-created Fourth Marine Division. Most of the Marines in his company had never been overseas; there was only a smattering of combat veterans among the ranks, and they were carefully distributed among the platoons. Ervin was posted to the machine gun section of the company’s Weapons platoon as a squad leader. He quickly gained a reputation for toughness, never laughing and rarely smiling, and when news of his filariasis got around, he was quickly nicknamed “Mumu” by the men in his squad – though it would likely be some time before they would address him as such to his face.12 The affliction was fascinating enough to warrant a mention in a letter home from Ervin’s commanding officer, First Lieutenant Philip Wood, who listed his squad leader’s “incurable Samoan disease” among a host of other concerns with his platoon.13 Although he was the platoon’s only combat veteran, Ervin brought some of the egalitarian attitudes of the Raiders – of individuality and thinking for oneself instead of blindly following orders – which did not endear him to the company officers.

Ervin did make one friend shortly after joining Company A. Kenneth Gann, a corporal from New Mexico, was another squad leader with the machine gun section. The two went on liberty together one weekend, which was not unusual – when they returned, though, the nascent friendship was gone, replaced by a murderous hatred. The cause of the fight was never openly discussed with the other enlisted men, though the impression many took away was that Odena Ervin was somehow involved. The two corporals antagonized each other to the point that Gann was reassigned to company headquarters as a clerk.14

The Fourth Division embarked on the attack transport USS DuPage on January 13, 1944. Their destination was still officially secret, but the men knew they were headed for combat. Operation Flintlock, the invasion of the Marshall Islands, would be the first time that American troops had traveled from the United States into a combat landing, and would set a record for being the farthest distance traveled to an amphibious assault. Countless drills and rehearsals had prepared the Marines for the mechanics of an attack, but could not make them ready for the stress of the actual event. During the landing, the machine gun teams were divided among the rifle platoons, and each platoon was divided into two landing craft. Nervous Marines chewed bubble gum or tobacco. As the lumbering craft made their way slowly towards the burning shore of the island of Namur, they were nearly swamped by a battleship’s broadside, and buffeted by debris from an exploding Japanese blockhouse. Ervin maintained his composure throughout, occasionally spitting out a stream of tobacco juice. Upon landing, the Marines tumbled onto the beach, many slowing to gape at the scenes of destruction spread out before them – for many, it was their first time under fire. Though Ervin himself had never been in a contested landing or under direct enemy rifle fire, he quickly outpaced the rest of the company. Lieutenant Wood, who had wondered if Ervin’s disease would keep him from performing well in training and in combat, was quickly impressed. “As long as he was in the action, he stayed at least fifty yards ahead of anyone else in the Company…. He had stumbled on a dugout containing six or seven Japs, had fired at them standing on the edge, then thrown a grenade or two and come back for more.”15 Arthur Ervin had killed his first enemy – possibly the first claimed by any in his platoon.

As Ervin singlehandedly led the advance, a hidden Japanese officer suddenly flung open the camouflaged cover of a spider hole and fired a pistol point-blank at the lone Marine. The bullet creased Ervin’s side, leaving a long burn mark but miraculously not breaking the skin. Ervin wheeled around and speedily dispatched the luckless enemy, and stood momentarily frozen, staring at the corpse and swallowing hard. As his squad ran up to see if he was hurt, they realized that something had finally startled their unflappable leader – Ervin had swallowed his plug of chewing tobacco, and was trying mightily not to vomit in front of his comrades.16

After pulling himself together, Ervin and the gunners took cover in a nearby trench, and quickly became involved in a duel with a Japanese blockhouse ahead. With half of his platoon pinned down, Ervin crept out of the shelter of a trench and moved forward on a one-man reconnaissance mission. He located a machine gun nest supporting the blockhouse and demolished it himself, and had another close call when a Japanese officer shot at him with a pistol, knocking off his helmet and spraying his face with fragments of lead. Ervin returned to the trench, located Lieutenant Wood, and gave the officer a description of what he had seen up ahead. Wood was in charge of directing the fire of the company’s three mortar squads, and accurate information was indispensable – especially since the riflemen “were too eager to attack” and often closed on Japanese positions without waiting for mortar support. One of the instigators of the “headlong, rushing attack” was Corporal Ervin. As the company’s bazookas blew holes in the concrete of the blockhouse, Ervin ran across the open ground in front of the structure to throw grenades into the firing ports. Japanese soldiers in a nearby dugout kept up heavy fire, and Ervin took matters into his own hands. Lieutenant Wood, approaching the blockhouse, saw “Ervin hopped up on top of the blockhouse and stood there, silhouetted against the sky – legs spread apart, hatless, with blood on his face and his coat flung open, firing his rifle from the hip into the dugout…. He killed some but fire kept coming at him from the dugout, so he jumped down, ran to it, and was hit….”17

A Japanese bullet struck Ervin in the side, cleanly entering and exiting the fleshy part of his right chest wall. The force of the blow knocked him down. With bullets kicking up dirt around him, Ervin pulled himself out of danger with one arm, yelling at his worried lieutenant that he needed no help. He reached the safety of the blockhouse wall, and began demanding grenades – he was unable to carry his rifle, but wanted to keep up the attack since “he could still throw grenades with his one arm.” Lieutenant Harry Reynolds, the company executive officer, disagreed. The two began shouting at each other before “Big Harry” pulled rank and flatly ordered the corporal to the rear for medical aid.

Ervin made his way angrily towards the rear. Within minutes he began to feel dizzy and nauseated; luckily a stretcher team was nearby, and Ervin was carried to the aid station. A corpsman on the beach sprinkled sulfa powder on his wounds and applied a field dressing before tagging him for evacuation. By evening, Ervin was aboard the USS Doyen, where surgeons examined his injuries and applied further dressings. His prognosis was deemed favorable, and on February 4 Ervin was transferred to the USS Solace, bound for the naval hospital at Aiea Heights. The journey took seven days, during which Ervin’s wounds began to heal to the satisfaction of the doctors. On March 24, 1944, Corporal Ervin was returned to duty with Company A.

While Ervin convalesced in the hospital, the Fourth Division adopted a new table of organization. The Weapons platoon was split in half; a new machine gun platoon was formed, and the mortar teams were assigned to Company Headquarters. Lieutenant Wood, who fought to stay with the mortar teams, sought Ervin out upon his return to camp. Wood had been so impressed by what he saw of Ervin in action – “a Hell of a good man” – requested that Ervin join the mortar platoon as section leader, essentially the second in command. Ervin accepted, and immediately began “squaring the section away in fine shape.”18

Shortly after celebrating his twenty-second birthday, Ervin was notified that his name had been submitted for an award. Lieutenants Wood and Reynolds, who had witnessed Ervin’s singlehanded attack on the Japanese blockhouse, had recommended him for the Navy Cross, and the request had been approved. On April 26, in a division-wide ceremony, Arthur Ervin was presented with the second highest award for valor available to members of the naval service.19 Pinned neatly beside it was a Purple Heart. Ervin may have recalled his brush with the bad conduct discharge, and certainly realized that his year of probation had ended. Not only had he performed solidly in his duties, he had been wounded in the line of duty and had likely saved some of his comrades from death or injury by his bold actions on Namur.  After the ceremony, he confided to his lieutenant that he had nearly burst into tears when Admiral Chester Nimitz pinned the medal on. “He meant it – and for a tough, hard-bitten little guy like that to feel that way,” wrote Phil Wood.20

Ervin received another addition to his uniform the following day – the three stripes of a sergeant. Another mortarman was promoted to corporal on the same day. The enlisted men planned a celebration for that night, but instead were called into formation at four in the afternoon. Grumbling about being sent on an extra working party, the angry Marines followed Lieutenant Wood out into the boondocks – and were surprised to find themselves in a clearing stocked with hamburgers, fruit, snacks, cigars, and ten cases of beer. Their lieutenant had gone to great lengths to surprise his men with a beer party, at which the newly minted Sergeant Ervin was one of the guests of honor. The men sang, told stories and jokes, and some put on an improvised skit. When the story of Ervin’s chewing tobacco on Namur was told, the Marines were surprised to see Ervin throw his head back with laughter – he smiled so rarely that some of the men believed him incapable of mirth. Many would remember that story as the only thing that could crack Ervin’s tough demeanor. Being young Marines, “everyone got potted – we even had to carry two of them home when it broke up about midnight.”21

The spring of 1944 saw a marked change in Ervin’s attitude towards his wife. He loved his comrades – in a letter dated April 29, 1944, he informed his brother that “I couldn’t be better as you probably know by this time I’m back to duty with my old company, certainly glad to get back with the guys again, my side is OK now and I can do allmost [sic] everything I did before, it never bothers me in the slightest.” At around this time, Ervin decided to change the recipient of his life insurance policy once again. Perhaps his wounding in combat had brought home the realization that he was not invincible, and that should something happen, he wanted his widowed mother to have it. He rationalized the decision to Harley: “I didn’t change it because of what you said in your letter, I had allready [sic] for a couple of reasons of my own, one I don’t want ‘Neg’ ever to feel obligated to me….” Exactly what was reported in Harley’s letter has been lost, but it troubled the young sergeant. “I know that neither you or Kay never did lie to me,” Ervin wrote, “I want to tell you how I feel about ‘Neg.’ Bud she is the only one for me but things are all the way [or] not at all, know what I mean? Write me and let me know if things are not that way. I don’t want to plan on something and things go haywire….”22 Later, some of Ervin’s friends would speculate that some of the pressure to change his policy came from Lieutenant Wood, who had himself been the victim of a broken engagement shortly before shipping overseas.

The lieutenant and the sergeant were not only an effective team, but were becoming the closest of friends. Another officer observed that “Ervin was pretty much an individualist, not given to affection, and on first impression not a top-notch NCO. But the mutual admiration and respect which grew between the two was obvious, and they were a strongly attached pair who worked together as well as any and better than most.”23 It was an unlikely match – Wood, the son of a Broadway actor, had been raised in New York, graduated from Swarthmore ahead of schedule and was in his first year of law school at Yale, and was known for his gentlemanly ways, while Ervin, the son of an Oklahoma coal miner had left school at sixteen to work. Wood towered over Ervin at six feet three inches tall, Ervin reached five feet six inches, but made up the deficit in years of experience and commanding demeanor. Together, they built a strong section, one known in the company for it's “gung-ho spirit – which is just fine as I'm concerned,” wrote Wood.

With training on the beautiful island of Maui complete, the Fourth Marine Division embarked for Operation Forager – the invasion of the Marianas Islands. Ervin's company, part of the 24th Regiment's First Battalion, landed on D-Day – June 15, 1944 – on the beaches of Saipan. During the weeks that followed, Sergeant Ervin would again prove his worth in battle. On June 20, he led a combat patrol that discovered a group of Japanese soldiers in a strongly fortified position. They had been bypassed by other Marine elements, and from their entrenchments could have inflicted serious damage on unwary American units. Moving quickly, Ervin directed and led an attack against the Japanese, completely destroying the enemy without losing a single man wounded or killed.24

By July 5, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt. The American advance had been relentless, but Japanese resistance continued to cause casualties. It would only be a matter of time before the Marines reached the northern tip of the island, but the question on everyone's mind was how many would survive to see it. Ervin's company had been on the front line for twenty days, and the Marines were exhausted, malnourished, and numbed by the combat they had experienced. Their orders for July 5 were much the same as they had been for the rest of the campaign – move forward and annihilate the enemy. Wood and Ervin were plotting targets and firing their mortars in preparation for the company's advance, when they spotted a group of Chamorro women and children emerging from a cave to the company's front. Wood called for a cease fire, and took a small group of volunteers forward to bring the civilians in. After learning that there were more civilians nearby held hostage by Japanese troops, Wood re-gathered his patrol and set out to help. Ervin, as second in command, was directed to stay behind with the mortars.

A burst of machine gun fire and American screams alerted the company that something had gone terribly wrong. The Japanese, playing on the American's sympathies, had lured the patrol into the open before opening fire with a hidden machine gun. Fearing the worst for his friend, Ervin organized his own patrol, and raced forward to help. Upon reaching the trapped men, he was horrified to see Lieutenant Wood trapped in the open, in agonizing pain from a stomach wound. Without stopping to think, Ervin cried out “Don't worry Phil, I'm coming for you!” and sprinted across the open ground, with one of the company corpsman close at his heels.25

As Ervin reached Wood's side, a bullet slammed into the side of his head, killing him instantly. The corpsman dropped with a bad wound. In all, the company lost twelve men in the effort to rescue the trapped civilians. Ervin and Wood, the best of friends in the service, died side by side.26

Back in the States, both Odena Ervin and Willie Meek received the dreaded telegram that Arthur Ervin had been killed in battle. A package containing Ervin's personal effects was delivered to Odena in Los Angeles; it contained a protractor, a packet of letters and photographs, two Japanese wallets, a prayer book, a ring, and a single penny. Letters of condolence arrived from the company's officers. In 1945, a group of Seabees somehow located and identified another collection of Ervin's belongings, and forwarded them to Odena by way of Washington.27

Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1945.

Later that year, Odena attended a solemn ceremony where she was presented with a Bronze Star – a posthumous recognition of her husband's effective patrol on Saipan.28

The war would not end for Arthur Ervin's family for many years. In the spring of 1945, the Veteran's Administration received a missive from Willie Meek about her son's life insurance. She had heard of Arthur's decision to change beneficiaries from his letter to his brother Harley. However, the VA's insurance department had never received an application form from Ervin which would make the change official – in their records, Odena Ervin was to be the recipient. Willie's claim against Odena went to trial, in a case later cited as “Gann v. Meek.” Odena had remarried immediately after the war– her second husband was none other than Kenneth Gann, who had been so strongly at odds with Ervin – and had begun raising a family with him.29 In a surprising turn of events, the trial court found that Willie Meek had the stronger claim. Basing their decision on Ervin's letter, they declared that proof of intention to make the change was sufficient evidence. The Ganns appealed the decision, but the appellate court upheld the verdict, and considered the case closed in January, 1948.30

As the court case dragged on, Odena received a letter from the Graves Registration Service of the Marine Corps stating that Arthur's remains “have not yet been identified.”31 Willie Meek received the same notice shortly thereafter. Both women were assured that the Army's Graves Registration “is now attempting by every known scientific means to make further identifications,” but that the investigations were expected to take “many months to complete.” Months became years. In November 1948, a report from the American Graves Registration Service, MARBO Zone, declared that “The Search and Recovery Team operating on the Island of Saipan... did not recover any remains that could be identified as Sergeant Arthur B. Ervin.... All available records have been checked to further the identity of unknown remains buried in cemeteries on Saipan. None of the records compare favorably enough to warrant identity either by dental chart or circumstances of death.”32 The case was officially closed: Arthur Ervin's body were listed as non-recoverable. The family placed a memorial marker in Shady Point Cemetery, LeFlore, Oklahoma, and the government carved his name into the Tablets of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

The whereabouts of Arthur Ervin's remains have been unknown for nearly 67 years.

 

This memorial to the two Arthur Ervins is located in Shady Point Cemetery, Le Flore, Oklahoma.

Photo by Doug & Marilyn Parman, FindAGrave.com volunteers.

Ervin's name at the Punchbowl Cemetery.

Photo by Sabrina Dellamonica, FindAGrave.com volunteer.

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