Donald R. Lewis
Donald R. Lewis
| Died | 1944-09-18 Peleliu, Palau Islands (died aboard USS Tryon) |
Donald Ross Lewis (died 1944) of Pinehurst was a Navy hospital corpsman who died of wounds received with the Marines on Peleliu. His name is among the twenty-nine World War II dead on the World War Memorials on the Town Common.
Lewis was a pharmacist''s mate third class, one of the Navy corpsmen who served as medics with the Marine Corps, and he was attached to the 1st Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division. The division landed on Peleliu in the Palau Islands on September 15, 1944, and the 1st Marines spent the following days attacking the coral ridges north of the airfield, where they suffered some of the heaviest losses of the Pacific war. Lewis was wounded there and taken off the island to the evacuation transport USS Tryon, where he died on September 18, 1944. He was buried at sea, and his name is on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery.