#VeteranOfTheDay Marine Veteran Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr.

Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr. was born in Atlanta in May 1910, but moved to Knoxville, Tenneesee, when he was an infant. He studied engineering and played football at Princeton University, but left the school in 1932 to join the Army Air Corps. He was discharged from fight training a few months later for “flying deficiency.” So, he moved to New Mexico and founded a copper mining business.

At the outbreak of WWII, Bonnyman again enlisted, this time in the Marine Corp. He made a name for himself as a combat engineer during the Battle of Guadalcanal, and received a battlefield commission.

But it was the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943 that defined his legacy. Assigned to a shore party, and pinned down by the enemy, he led a small assault across the Betio Pier to obtain explosives, and directed the bombing of enemy sites. The next day, he led a larger demolition team to a bombproof building holding as many as 150 Japanese fighters. The assault flushed the defenders out, but he was fatally wounded in the attack.

Bonnyman was awarded the Medal of Honor after his death. His remains—and those of 70 others—were recovered from the lost battlefield cemetery in 2015. He now rests next to his family at West Knoxville’s Berry Highland Memorial Cemetery.

We honor his service.

A portion of this story was generated by AI. None of the data we reported included personal or sensitive information, and it was fact-checked and edited by a human copy editor prior to publishing.

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