News-Info-Alerts

Re: Missing Dog Tag Returned... 60 Years Later

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: December 04, 2003

"WORLD WAR II MEMORIES
Ex-soldier gets lost tag back
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO
wdemarzo@herald.com


For 61 years, Herman H. Rosenblatt's dog tag was missing in action. Lost -- along with his youth -- in Guadalcanal, the Pacific island where 1,600 Americans died fighting the Japanese during World War II.

Then came the letter from a total stranger.

''Greetings from Texas!'' wrote Roxanne Gebauer. ``I am hoping that you can help our family solve a mystery,''

Could he ever.

Rosenblatt, 81, confirmed that the vintage dog tag she had was the one that had hung around his neck at Guadalcanal. And he got it back.

Rosenblatt, with the Third Marine Division, landed at Guadalcanal in 1943 toward the tail end of the fight. Rosenblatt wore the standard military issue identification tag -- actually two tags -- commonly known as dog tags. Dog tags were a means of identifying soldiers who died on the battlefield. Plenty died at Guadalcanal: in addition to the estimated 1,600 Americans, about 24,000 Japanese perished, historians say.

IN THE JUNGLE

Somewhere in the jungles of Guadalcanal, Rosenblatt lost the tags.

''I don't know how it happened or when,'' he said. ``I never replaced them.''

After 40 months of military service, Rosenblatt returned to the United States and prospered as a salesman. He didn't think that much about the missing dog tags. Then came the letter. And a series of e-mails and phone calls.

The Gebauer family, originally from Chicago, had moved to the Solomon Islands in 1989 to serve as missionaries. They would translate the Bible from English into indigenous languages on the island of Malaita, about 60 miles from Guadalcanal.

FIND THE OWNER

At one gathering with the locals, a couple approached them and gave them the dog tag, indicating they should find the owner back in the States and return it to him.

It wasn't clear how a couple living on an island 60 miles from Guadalcanal might have obtained the tag.

''The only thing I could think of was that a family member or friend had been on Guadalcanal helping the Allies at one point and come across the dog tag,'' Gebauer said.

The Gebauer family -- Roxanne, Ron and their seven children -- returned to the United States in 2000.

But some of their belongings didn't return for another couple of years. In September, while sorting through a batch of boxes, Roxanne Gebauer found the dog tag. (It's companion tag is till missing.)

She used a Yahoo search engine to hunt for a Herman Harold Rosenblatt. There was only one -- in Hallandale Beach. She decided to write. Sometime after the initial contact, Gebauer sent Rosenblatt a photocopy of the dog tag.

Definitely mine, said Rosenblatt: ``Who would have thought?''

Gebauer placed the now discolored dog tag in an envelope, along with a shiny new chain. Rosenblatt received it last month.

He made a vow: ``This dog tag is going with me wherever I go, even into death. It's a talisman for me now.''"