DOB/DOD: July 29, 1920 (Portland, CT) – February 20, 1945; 24 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Caroline Woods Ellsworth Peterson (1923-2015) on June 15, 1943, in Beaufort, South Carolina. Later, she married Edward Gunnar Peterson of Greenville, South Carolina, in 1950.
CHILDREN: One daughter, Jacquelyne Ellsworth Bourque (1944-2021).
LOCAL ADDRESS: 108 Gillette Street, Hartford. The house is no longer there. Now, an apartment complex. Father was living at 35 Bloomfield Avenue in Hartford when Sgt Ellsworth died.
ENLISTMENT: October 1, 1941, in Springfield, Massachusetts
SERVICE NUMBER: 319939
UNIT: Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 0651, Platoon Sergeant
FAMILY: Born to Oliver B. Sr. (1897-1969) and Henrietta Sims Ellsworth (1891-1951). One sister, Lenore Ellsworth Preble (1925-1994). 1, 2 At some point, his parents divorced. Oliver Sr. was remarried to Bessie Lorena Miller (1909-2006) in 1937 in New York. Oliver Sr. served in World War I as a lieutenant in the Medical Reserve and Sanitary Corps. In 1969, he fell off his boat near his home in New London, CT, and drowned. Oliver Jr. worked at Riverside Trust Company in Hartford before the service.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, in late 1941. Stayed on and served as a rifle instructor at Parris Island for two years. Entered the Infantry Battalion Training Center at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in January 1944. Assigned to the 5th Marine Division, 26th Marines, 1st Battalion in April 1944. 4 Received a gunshot wound, “lower R.Q.,” and died of those wounds. PlSgt Ellsworth was in the same company as PFC Edward Ezepchik of Hanover and GySgt George Hyland of Stamford. PFC Ezepchik and PlSgt Ellsworth were killed in action. GySgt Hyland died from complications of the wounds he received.
Loomis Institute (now The Loomis-Chaffee School), Windsor, Connecticut; Class of ‘39
From The Hartford Courant on March 15, 1945
Platoon Sergeant Oliver B. Ellsworth Jr., 24, of the Marine Corps, was killed in action on Iwo Jima on February 20, according to word received Wednesday by his father, Oliver B. Ellsworth of 35 Bloomfield Avenue, President of the Riverside Trust Company. Sergeant Ellsworth went overseas in 1944 with the Fifth Division, Marine Corps, and landed on Iwo Jima with the first contingent of Marines early this February. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in October 1941 and, for two years, served as a rifle instructor at the Marine Base at Parris Island, South Carolina. Born in Portland (CT), he graduated from the Loomis Institute in Windsor in 1939. He was a student at The Bentley School of Accounting and Finance, Boston, Massachusetts, when he entered the service. Besides his father, Sergeant Ellsworth leaves his wife, Mrs. Caroline Woods Ellsworth, and infant daughter, Jacquelyne, of Beaufort, South Carolina; his mother, Mrs. Henrietta Sims Ellsworth of Wellesley, Massachusetts; and a sister, Miss Lenore Ellsworth, a student at Western College, Oxford, Ohio. He was the grandson of Mrs. Emma Lincoln Ellsworth of Portland and the late Herbert E. Ellsworth.
From The Hartford Courant January 19, 1949
Portland, Jan. 18. – (Special.) – The body of Sergeant Oliver B. Ellsworth Jr., who served in the Marine Corps and was killed in action on Iwo Jima on February 20, 1945, has arrived in Portland. The funeral will be held at the Methodist Church on Saturday at 2 p.m. Burial will be in Center Cemetery, and the committal services will be private. Sergeant Ellsworth leaves his wife, Caroline Woods Ellsworth, and one daughter, Jacqueline, of Beaufort, South Carolina; his father, Oliver B. Ellsworth of Hartford; his mother, Mrs. Henrietta Sims Ellsworth of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and a sister, Mrs. James Preble of West Hartford. Sergeant Ellsworth enlisted with the Marines in October 1941 and served for two years as a rifle instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina. He went overseas in 1944 and took part in the landing on Iwo Jima one day before his death. He was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the Purple Heart Medal. He held a Marine Expert Rifleman Medal. He was a native of Portland and graduated from the Loomis Institute in 1939. At the time he enlisted, he was a student of the Bentley School of Accounting and Finance in Boston.
Initially buried in the 5th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima in Row 2, Plot 2, Grave 334. Disposition of remains was relinquished from his wife to his father, who requested the remains be repatriated and buried on January 22, 1949, in the Portland Burying Ground, aka Trinity Center Cemetery, 47 Fairway Drive, Portland, Connecticut; Section 74, Lot 4, Plot 1. His plot is 20 yards from PFC Henry S. Chapman, who died one day after PFC Ellsworth on February 20, 1945. Photos by Jeff DeWitt.
1 – 1930 census https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6224/
2 – 1940 census https://www.ancestry.com/cs/1940-census
3 – USMC Muster Rolls: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1089/