Surviving family members gathered at Queen of Heaven Catholic Mausoleum in Hillside to lay to rest Marine Corps Sgt. Robert F ...

It was a day the family of Marine Sergeant Robert Van Heck always hoped for, but struggled to believe would ever ...

Aboard one of the many troop transports plowing the long sea furrows to Tarawa, and later in the hell of Betio, was TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod. His story: Ship life was dull. The men of the ...

Sgt. Robert F. Van Heck, of Chicago, Illinois, was 25 years old in 1943 when he was killed during the U.S. campaign in the ...

Rear Adm. Harry Hill, who command the task force attacking Tarawa, called Betio "a little Gibraltar" and said "only the Marines could have made such a landing." Four Marines were awarded the Medal ...

The return home for Sgt. Robert Van Heck, who died taking part in the Battle of Tarawa over the Gilbert Islands in November ...

Robert Van Heck's family receieved an ominous letter from the Marine just minutes before learning he was killed, according to ...

The Tarawa-class LHAs and Wasp-class LHDs provide the Marine Corps with a means of ship-to-shore movement by helicopter in addition to movement by landing craft. Three LHAs -- which have extensive ...

Leading his battalion of the 8th Marines into another beachhead landing ... Jim Crowe lasted through Tarawa before he got his Purple Heart, added it to his Silver Star (Guadalcanal), Navy ...