Reader Derek sends a story about the search for a Marine captured by the Japanese during WWII and the hope that his remains will come home soon. Billy Lynch left Dorchester 72 years ago, and they’re pretty sure they’ve finally found him, a long way from home, deep in the ground in China.... He left Neponset for the Marines in 1937, right out of high school, and never came back. He was stationed in China when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and then went to the Philippines and was there when the Japanese invaded. After the battle of Corregidor in 1942, the Japanese took him prisoner..... Some years ago, a Chinese historian named Yang Jing became intrigued with Prisoner No. 610, the only American POW never accounted for in China. He started digging, figuratively, looking for Billy Lynch. Professor Yang found three elderly Chinese men who were slave laborers at Port Arthur and knew about the murder, dismemberment, and burial of Staff Sergeant Billy Lynch.... “It’s fitting that there is a Marine there right now, looking for the last Marine in China,’’ said Fred Sullivan, one of the Dorchester residents who support the cause of finding Billy Lynch. “We had to raise $25,000 to pay for the search, but it’s worth every penny. Billy Lynch should come home.’’ If, as they believe, their dig next spring yields Billy Lynch’s bones, he will come home, finally, first to St. Ann’s Church, where he made his First Communion, then on to Arlington National Cemetery.
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Posted
Oct 22 2009, 04:35 AM
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BLACKFIVE