It’s now thought that it is known where Staff Sergeant Billy Lynch is buried in China. It’s too cold to dig, but next spring Moore’s Marauders will send scientists to attempt to locate his remains. With the help of DNA from his nieces, it’s hoped this this hero’s remains my be identified and returned home. Following is an excerpt from a very moving story written by Kevin Cullen for the Boston Globe.
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.
Staff Sergeant Billy Lynch was a Marine. He grew up on Victory Road, and if you go to the corner of Victory and Neponset Avenue, you’ll see the black street sign with the gold star that commemorates William Joseph Lynch Square. It is a place of honor for a Marine who disappeared 67 years ago.
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.
Read the full story in the October 22, 2009 edition of Boston.com.
