Екінші дүниежүзілік соғысының батыры: Александр Бонниманның тарихы

Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient (1910–1943)

Alexander "Sandy" Bonnyman Jr. (May 2, 1910 – November 23, 1943) was a United States Marine Corps officer who was killed in action on Betio Atoll in the Gilbert Islands during World War II. A combat engineer, he received the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart posthumously for his actions during an important assault on a Japanese bombproof shelter during the Battle of Tarawa.

Born on May 2, 1910, in Atlanta, Georgia, Bonnyman's family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, when he was a baby. He then worked in the coal industry before moving to New Mexico, where he started a copper mining business. Betio Island was declared secured on the same day.

For his actions during the battle, Bonnyman was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The medal was formally presented to his family by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in 1947. His 12 year old daughter, Frances, accepted the medal on behalf of the Bonnyman family. After the war, the Graves Registration Service recorded his body as having been buried at sea, however this report was later determined to be unfounded. The remains of 36 Marines, including Bonnyman's, were interred in a battlefield cemetery whose location was lost by the end of the war. The cemetery was located in March 2015 by History Flight, Inc., a Florida based nonprofit that has recovered more than 70 sets of now identified remains from Betio. Bonnyman's grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans, a volunteer with History Flight, was present when Lt. Bonnyman's remains were exposed on May 28, 2015, and exhumed on May 29, and recorded the recovery via video and still photographs. Evans' book, Bones of My Grandfather: Reclaiming a Lost Hero of World War II, which recounts his grandfather's life story and the history of the recovery efforts, was published July 10, 2018. On 26 July 2015, the bodies were repatriated to the United States, arriving at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam in Honolulu Hawaii. On August 27, 2015, his remains were identified and on September 25, 2015, he was returned to his childhood home town of Knoxville, Tennessee. He was interred with full military honors and an overflight of Marine Corps Cobra helicopters in "missing man formation" next to his parents and siblings at West Knoxville's Berry Highland Memorial Cemetery on September 27, 2015.