Beatty, Ivan Clarence
Marines Reserves Private
Ivan Clarence Beatty, age 20, from Renville County Rockford, North Dakota .
Parents: Ronan Beatty
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Friday, September 15, 1944
Death details: In September 1944, American forces launched Operation STALEMATE II, the invasion on Peleliu, an island in Palau. On Sept. 15, the 1st Marine Division came ashore under enemy fire. The following day, Marines secured the island’s airfield despite taking heavy casualties. The battle for Peleliu lasted another two months, as Marines were forced to clear heavily fortified pockets of Japanese resistance across the island. The 1st Marine Division, reinforced by the 81st Infantry Division, slowly advanced north under nearly constant mortar and artillery fire. The invasion of Peleliu had the highest casualty rate of all the amphibious Pacific Island invasions of World War II. Private Ivan Clarence Beatty, who joined the U.S. Marine Corps from Washington, was a member of 3rd Armored Amphibian Battalion, Amphibian Team Group, Fleet Marine Force. He went missing in action on Peleliu Island on September 15, 1944, when he was one of four tank crew members inside a T-13 tank destroyer that exploded. The tank was witnessed to disappear in a tremendous mine explosion, and there was no sign of any individuals including Private Beatty remaining in the aftermath. Private Beatty has not been associated with any remains recovered from Peleliu Island following the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Private Beatty is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Cemetery: Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Source: National Archives, American Battle Monuments Commission, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Associated Press (1944)