PawPaws War Pics

2nd Marine Division at the coconut-log seawall on Betio, Tarawa, November 1943

Subject file · not yet identified in caption

Shelton David Adams

United States Marine Corps · 2nd Marine Division · Pacific, World War II

Unit as given

USMC, 2nd MarDiv

Likely islands

Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian

Public named photo

None found — yet

What the search turned up

Finding

No public photograph is captioned with his name

Searched National Archives caption indexes, Fold3 name hits, Together We Served, Find a Grave, ABMC, DPAA, Stars and Stripes mentions, and open-web USMC histories. Nothing currently online is labeled Shelton David Adams, USMC.

Finding

He does not appear on the missing or killed lists

WWII Marine casualty indexes (Fold3, ABMC Courts of the Missing, naval-history.net USMC-by-name) have other Adams — Clay Odell (KIA Tarawa, 2/2), Glenn Gene (KIA Saipan, 3/6), Stanley (lost at sea, 2/8) — but not Shelton David. He almost certainly survived the war.

Watch

Peleliu was the 1st Marine Division

The colorized smoke-break photograph is Pfc. Douglas Lightheart and Pfc. Gerald Thursby, 1st MarDiv, Peleliu, 15 September 1944. The 2nd MarDiv was on Saipan and Tinian that summer, then in reserve for Okinawa. If family memory says Peleliu, check the discharge for the division patch — torch-and-Southern-Cross is 2nd; the blue diamond with red numeral is 1st.

The file that will unlock the rest is the OMPF

Marine Corps personnel files survived the 1973 NPRC fire. A next-of-kin Standard Form 180 request returns service number, MOS, and the exact company — the three facts every caption card and muster roll is filed under.