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This Remembrance Profile was originally created by MGySgt Scott Welch - Deceased
Contact Info
Home Town Marlborough
Last Address Marlborough, New York
MIA Date Nov 23, 1943
Cause KIA-Died of Wounds
Reason Gun, Small Arms Fire
Location Kiribati
Location of Memorial Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Captain Orlando Palopoli who was born in Marlboro, New York in 1918, who had been mortally wounded in Tarawa. The viewer said that Palopoli had been shot in the abdomen and would die from his wounds. According to the viewer, Palopoli was transported back to a Navy ship by landing craft for medical treatment. The viewer added that Capt. Palopoli had written a poem in September 1943 that was published in their local newspaper. It was entitled, "Remember Me". The viewer never actually knew Palopoli, but mentioned that many of the veterans in Marlboro, including his late father, used him as a role model. Every Memorial Day since he was thirteen, the viewer has read Capt. Palopoli's poem for himself, his father, and for his country, and most of all to remember him.
The following is a copy of the poem Remember Me:
Remember me, beyond this lurid day
Of hate and laughter brimming deep in tears
Remember me beyond this narrow way
Of darkness, pressing darkness and of fears
The clinging mire wrapt so close to earth
One day will vanish with the mist and rain
And out of hate will come a new rebirth
Of shining glory tempered deep in pain
The Shattered hopes the tyrannies deny
Will grow again to bolster harried men
And lift their hearts in music singing high
The shackled dreams will gambol once again
In surging freedom through the wide blue sky
And all I ask is "You remember then"
Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Tarawa
From Month/Year
November / 1943
To Month/Year
November / 1943
Description The Battle of Tarawa (US code name Operation Galvanic) was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It took place at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, located in what is now the nation of Kiribati. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting, mostly on and around the small island of Betio.
The Battle of Tarawa was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region. It was also the first time in the war that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance, but this time the 4,500 Japanese defenders were well-supplied and well-prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the United States Marine Corps. The US had suffered similar casualties in other campaigns, for example over the six months of the Guadalcanal Campaign, but in this case the losses were incurred within the space of 76 hours.
