Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Vernon Martin, right, and Marine Pfc. Robert Schlosser walk to the rear line for further medical treatment during the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. (National Archives)
ITOMAN, Okinawa — Eighty years after Navy hospital corpsman Vernon “Monk” Martin was killed in the Battle of Okinawa, his name has been added to a memorial honoring the nearly 250,000 people who died during the pivotal World War II fight.
Martin, a pharmacist’s mate from Niles, Mich., served with the 6th Marine Division and died May 15, 1945, after a shell fragment struck his chest during combat on Sugar Loaf Hill in Naha, according to his Navy death certificate.
His name was among 342 etched into tablets and installed May 26 on the Cornerstone of Peace monument at Peace Memorial Park, making him the first American added since 2020.
The names were unceremoniously added ahead of Irei No Hi — an annual memorial ceremony on Monday marking the Battle of Okinawa’s end.
The effort to honor Martin began with retired Marine Capt. Bob McGowan, whose father, Sgt. Robert William McGowan, had served alongside the young corpsman.
The elder McGowan often told stories about “Monk,” and recognized him years later in a haunting photograph published in “The History of the Sixth Marine Division,” a 1948 book chronicling the war.
The image — showing Martin walking with a bandaged face in front of another wounded Marine — later appeared on the cover of Robert Leckie’s 1995 book “Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II” and in Jon Diamond’s 2019 photo collection “Images of War.”
Yet Martin’s name had not been included on the Okinawa memorial.
“I was surprised, obviously,” the younger McGowan told Stars and Stripes in a May 4 phone interview. “There’s the picture and there’s the name.”
He found Martin’s grave in Niles in 2010, and last year partnered with Marine spouse Steph Pawelski to petition for his inclusion on the monument. That effort culminated this spring.
Martin Vernon, a Navy corpsman killed in 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa, is added to the Cornerstone of Peace monument at Okinawa Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, Okinawa, May 26, 2025. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)
Martin Vernon, a Navy corpsman killed in 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa, is added to the Cornerstone of Peace monument at Okinawa Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, Okinawa, May 26, 2025. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)
The Battle of Okinawa began April 1, 1945, and lasted 82 days. More than 14,000 Americans, 110,000 Japanese troops and at least 140,000 Okinawan civilians died in the campaign.
Martin was just 18 when he was killed. He had enlisted at 16, needing his mother’s signature to join the Navy and help support his family during hard times, said his niece, Donna Piazza.
“He told her he was going to run away — if she didn’t sign for him, he would do it anyway,” Piazza said by phone on May 16. “So she did, and he never came back.”
Dorothy Martin stands by the grave of her son, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Vernon Martin, in Niles, Mich., in this undated photo. The hospital corpsman was killed during the Battle of Okinawa in May 1945. (Donna Piazza)
Piazza knows her uncle only through family stories and old letters. She was told he died after volunteering to retrieve a wounded Marine after a fellow corpsman injured his leg.
“Vernon said, ‘No, that’s OK, I’ll go. You get the next one,’” she said. “And he ran out and that’s when he got shot.”
Donna Piazza inherited a condolence letter signed by President Harry Truman that was delivered to the mother of Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Vernon Martin, who was killed during the Battle of Okinawa in May 1945. (Donna Piazza)
Piazza inherited the battlefield letters and a condolence message signed by President Harry Truman. Her mother, Doris Brittin — Martin’s younger sister — remembered him as a generous older brother with a silly streak.
“In the letters, he just sounds like a goofy kid, you know, giving my mom a hard time,” Piazza said.
