DOB/DOD: June 21, 1925 (Manhattan, NY) – February 28, 1945; 19 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
LOCAL ADDRESS: Rural Free Delivery (RFD) 2, Southbury
ENLISTMENT: July 21, 1942, in Springfield, Massachusetts, at 17 years old
SERVICE NUMBER: 422369
UNIT: Company B, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 0604, Machine Gun Crewman
FAMILY: Born to Harry (1887-1977) and Edyth Palmer Buchan O’Donovan (1892-?). Siblings Thomas (1912-2003), Richard (1914-2000), Patricia (1918-1919), and Joseph (1919-1996). 1 Stephen was studying for the priesthood before he was killed in the service. 3
CIRCUMSTANCES: Parris Island for boot camp in the Summer of 1942. Then, the 23rd Marines (Reinforced), Company D, Camp Lejeune, until late 1943. His final unit was 23rd Marines, 1st Battalion, Headquarters Company, then Company B. 5 Died from shell fragment wounds to the left thigh and leg. 4
Photo contributed by Maureen Ahret.
From an unknown newspaper in 1945. Contributed by Maureen Ehret.
ROBERT O’DONOVAN WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON IWO JIMA FEBRUARY 25
Private First Class Stephen Robert O’Donovan of Quaker Farms, United States Marine, was killed in action on Iwo Jima on February 25th, according to word received here by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Salveson, with whom he made his home for ten years prior to his entering the service two years ago. Private First Class O’Donovan trained at New River, North Carolina, and saw action at Saipan, Tinian, and Guam before going into Iwo Jima with the Fourth Marine Division, which was the first to hit the coast of the rugged volcanic stronghold of the Japs. He volunteered for the Marines while still in Seymour High School. He was a member of Christ Episcopal Church and was, for years, a teacher in Sunday School. He was President of the Young People’s Society of Oxford, and his name was entered as a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal Church as he planned to begin studies for the ministry after the war. One brother, Joseph Douglas O’Donovan, serves with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific war theater.
From The New York Age May 31, 1947
Memorial Day and The Great Task
By Reverend William C. Kernan
The words that best bespeak the meaning of Memorial Day were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in his address at Gettysburg. He knew that the living could best honor the dead by completing the work that they had begun – by dedicating themselves “to the great task remaining before us.” On this Memorial Day, the great task still remains before us. The task of moving forward together to build an American mighty in justice and charity – the task of holding before the peoples of other lands an example to which they may aspire – the task of making this nation strong by overcoming racial, religious, and class prejudice which divides and weakens it. Harry O’Donovan must have had this in mind when he recently wrote a letter to the Reverend Joseph Rabun. Mr. O’Donovan is the Secretary of the Marine Corps Fathers’ Association. The Reverend Mr. Rabun is a Baptist minister in Georgia who was himself a chaplain in the Marine Corps during the war and who introduced and sponsored the strong resolution denouncing racial and religious prejudice passed by the Georgia Baptist Convention last year. Mr. O’Donovan wrote, “I am writing this much-belated letter to you in order to state that as a Roman Catholic Gold Star father of a U.S. Marine, I thank God that there is a God-fearing clergyman who is brave enough to come out flat-footed against the Jew-baiters. It would be an honor to meet you and say to you that you would not detract from any Jew, but rather, you would commend them for the magnificent role they played in helping to win the past war. I know that the disparagement of our Jewish-American brothers has caused you the deepest concern for the safety of our American ideals. “Today the sun rises and sets upon the grave of my youngest son, Private First Class Stephen R. O’Donovan, and in the same hole in the ground lies the body of Abe Levin, whose youthful feet felt the same pavements of the lower part of New York, the East Side, so dear the heart of another great American, Al Smith. Here are two teenage kids. They died fighting side by side with the shadow of Mount Suribachi in order that a grand fellow like you could carry on the fight against intolerance and bigotry. It is my wish that my dead son, Stephen, who had aspirations for the priesthood when he shoved off for Iwo Jima, could have known you and felt your strong American handclasp. You and he had much in common. In finishing this epistle, his father sends you an old Irish wish, “May God Bless Your Hands.” That’s what is going on in America today. The O’Donovans, and the Rabuns, and the Levins – the Catholics, and the Protestants, and the Jews – marching shoulder to shoulder to preserve and improve American democracy. That’s the way to honor our heroic dead. That’s the way to complete the great task before us.
Initially buried in the 4th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima, Plot 1, Row 20, Grave 952. 4 At his father’s request, his remains were repatriated and buried on February 24, 1949, 6 in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl), 2177 Puowaina Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii; section N, plot 1581. Photo from FindAGrave.com. 2
1 – 1940 census https://www.ancestry.com/cs/1940-census
2 – https://findagrave.com
3 – 1947-04-06 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, page 6
4 – USMC Casualty Report received via FOIA request
5 – USMC Muster Rolls: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1089/
6 – https://www.interment.net