Home at Last

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I lay me down with a will.

Could he answer, I rather doubt that that Pfc John A. Donovan, USMC, of Plymouth, MI, would agree that he “glady” died. Young men just don’t think like that. They have too much life left to live.

Nevertheless, on a stormy April night Donovan died. He was 20.

Donovan was lost, along with the rest of his crewmates, on a training mission in what is today the nation of Vanatu Vanuatu. During World War II. On the night of 23 April 1944.

The precise circumstances of loss were not known at the time. And for a long, long time the wide and starry sky above Donovon and his crewmates was indeed their only grave. But it wasn’t their wide and starry sky. It was the southern sky above the island called Espritu Espiritu Santo.

For decades, they lay under that foreign sky. It might have been pretty, but it wasn’t the sky of home.

Fifty years later, a private search firm looking for another aircraft crash site located theirs. That information was relayed to the Department of Defense.

It took many years and substantial effort, but eventually sufficient remains were located to allow the crew’s positive identification – and in Donovan’s case, to allow for a proper burial.

At home.

Donovan’s remains were returned to the United States on 6 June 2012. He was to be buried today. He’ll be buried besides his brothers in Ann Arbor, MI – with his sole surviving sibling, his sister Josephine Demianenko, in attendance.

This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Welcome home, Marine We’re sorry it took so long to return you to your own wide and starry sky. But you’re now home.

Now, rest in peace. You’ve more than earned that.

Category: Historical, Military issues, No Longer Missing, Veterans Issues