Hometown: Waukesha, WI
Branch: U.S. Marine Corps
Unit: Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: November 22, 1943 - KIA on Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands
Age: 22
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

John “Jack” DeLellis grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, with a family legacy of military service.

His father, Verginio “Victor” DeLellis, was an Italian immigrant and shoemaker who served as a private in the U.S. Army’s 159th Depot Brigade during World War I (1914-1918). Victor and Grace (Jones) DeLellis met in a V.A. hospital, where Grace cared for tuberculosis patients after the war.

Jack was the oldest of five children, with a younger sister named Grace, and three brothers. All four of the DeLellis boys served during World War II (1939-1945)—Victor in the Army, Paul and Don in the Navy.

As a young man, Jack DeLellis achieved the Boy Scouts’ Eagle Scout award and graduated from Waukesha High School in 1940. His yearbook shows that he was active as a member of the Model Plane Club, the Cardinal Star staff and Science Club. While living in Waukesha, DeLellis was a member of the First Baptist Church.

After high school, he moved to nearby Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin and major in math. To pay his expenses, DeLellis worked for the Gisholt Machine Company.

With the U.S. fully engaged in the war in Europe and the Pacific, DeLellis left college during his junior year, enlisting in the United States Marine Corps on October 13, 1942.

Three days later, Private Jack DeLellis arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, for basic training, where he’d earn a Marine Sharpshooter badge.

DeLellis shipped out for New Zealand, where preparations were underway for Operation Galvanic—an Allied plan for 18,000 Marines to attack the Japanese on the heavily fortified Tarawa Atoll, in the Gilbert islands. The operation included U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and an enormous supply fleet—all supporting 18,000 invading Marines.

Taking Tarawa was an important steppingstone for the Allies in being able to ultimately reach the island of Japan. To cross the vast Pacific Ocean and get bomber aircraft in range, Allied forces would have to engage in costly battles for each island, every airstrip along the way.

PFC DeLellis was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. His unit was part of a planned amphibious assault on beaches codenamed Red One and Red Two, on Tarawa’s main island of Betio.

The Battle of Tarawa began on November 20, 1943, and lasted for three days. Resistance from the well-entrenched Japanese defenses was heavy. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency describes what PFC DeLellis’s unit encountered:

The Japanese garrison on Tarawa’s main island of Betio was well-entrenched with hundreds of bunkers and gun positions behind formidable beach obstacles. The first wave of Marines approaching the shore encountered lower-than-expected tides, forcing them to leave their landing craft on the reef and wade the hundreds of yards to the beach under intense enemy fire. The heaviest number of U.S. casualties were suffered during this phase of the landing. Eventually, rising tides allowed U.S. warships to maneuver closer to shore and support the troops with effective naval gunfire.

PFC DeLellis survived that first day, making it onto Betio Island where he and other survivors engaged in fierce combat with the dug-in Japanese forces. On the third day of the Battle of Tarawa, November 22, 1943, PFC DeLellis fell after receiving a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was 22 years old.

Though the Battle of Tarawa lasted only three days, the losses were much heavier than anticipated. The high cost of the Allied victory was difficult news for the American public. More than 1,000 Marines and sailors were killed and more than 2,000 wounded.

Most of the fallen Marines were buried hastily on Betio Island. After the war, the War Department made efforts to return remains to the United States. Many were identified, but PFC DeLellis was listed under “disposition of remains unknown.”

In Honolulu, Hawaii, PFC John Cecil DeLellis is memorialized at Court 2 in the “Courts of the Missing” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal.

Sources
Details submitted by Mr. Stephen Greger, PFC DeLellis’s nephew.
Artist’s rendering by Craig Du Mez, from an original photo.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: PFC. John Cecil De Lellis
The Waukesha County Freeman, Dec. 24, 1943: Christmas Joy Turned to Sadness by News of Death
The Waukesha Freeman, May 24, 2025: Missing but not forgotten: PFC John (Jack) DeLellis of Waukesha was killed in action in 1943
No Home for Heroes Podcast, Episode 87: Why Can't Jack Come Home?
Missing Marines: John Cecil DeLellis
Honor States: John Cecil DeLellis
American Battle Monuments Commission: John Cecil De Lellis