Limited.  , George Coe Browning , is suddenly coming home.
Almost 80 years after the Marine went missing in action missing during the terrible war of , Iwo Jima, the former , Bergen County , tenant will get laid to rest Monday in Englewood ‘s , Brookside Cemetery , alongside his family. A , Marine Honor Guard , and his wayward surviving friends may honor his memory at the tomb.
” He’s eventually going to go back to where his mother is”, said , Peter Clay, Browning’s 81-year-old brother, who is flying in from , Virginia , with his wife and daughter for the funeral.
Clay grew up in , Englewood, but was just a child when his brother died on the field. Clay says his mother, who was Browning’s older sister, did n’t talk much about the tragedy– mainly because the family did n’t know much.
” All these years, we really did n’t know what happened”, Clay said.
But owing largely to the job of , WFI Research Group, a , Florida-based nonprofit that works with the military to identify missing men, Browning’s remains were positively identified in April and he’ll be given a defense funeral on Monday.
” The , Marine Corps , is going to do the service, and they have provided the vehicles for me, my family, and my child”, said Clay.
Browning was born in , Minneapolis, but appears to have grown up in and around  , Englewood , in , Bergen County, according to military documents obtained by NJ Advance Local. His family,  , Carol Coe Browning, lived on , East Clinton Avenue , in , Tenafly , until her death in 1986, documents show.
Trained as a tv industry operator, Browning was reported missing in motion on , Feb. 20, 1945, the next day of the war of , Iwo Jima. Browning rarely made it back and was presumed dead after being removed from his device to pick up radio equipment on a nearby beach.
Browning’s figure was never recovered, but he became one of the 50 “unknown men” killed in the battle war and immediately buried on , Iwo Jima. There were 6, 821 support people killed during the five-week abuse. When the war was over, Browning’s bones and those of other unidentified soldiers were taken to a lab in Saipan.
In Saipan, the martial created a report with Browning’s medical records and a picture of the keeps depicting the scars. Clay said his uncle was therefore interred in the , Manilla Cemetery , in , the Philippines, his record marked X12. He was one of the almost 72, 000 services people from World War II who was still listed as Missing in Action up until April.
The split in the case came in , January 2019, when Clay received a notice from , Ted Darcy, a retired Marine artillery commander who runs the , WFI Research Group , with his family in , Pensacola, Florida.
” Are you the family of Pvt. George Coe Browning”? Darcy wanted to know. Clay was taken off.
” After all these times”, Clay said.
Darcy has made it his mission to locate missing services people since 1991. He’s compiled a databases with the data of 33, 000 MIA assistance people and works with the , Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , to detect missing , Marines.
Darcy, 73, said it’s diligent work getting defense agencies to finally persuade them unearth remains, but it’s worth it when the , Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , makes a good recognition and notifies the home. To time,  , WFI Research Group , takes payment for identifying 196 missing , Marines, according to its website.
” I do it for free”, Darcy said. ” The people have previously paid enough”. Darcy encourages families of missing service members to reach out to him at , ]email , protected].
In 2019, Darcy turned over 50 pieces of information of unknown , Iwo Jima , support people to the , Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , to get identified.
” Therefore the pandemic struck and all slowed down”, Darcy said. It took five years, but in , April 2023, the , Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , issued a reburial order to examine the remnants of X12.
Clay said he and Browning’s younger girl, Patricia, gave DNA tests to the military. However, Clay claimed that Patricia did not witness the discovery of her missing sibling.
On , April 15,  , the , Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , posted , that Pvt.  , George Coe Browning , was missing no more.
” DPAA historians conducting on-going ]sic ] research into the Unknowns associated with the Battle of , Iwo Jima , found that one set of Unknown remains could be associated with Pvt. Browning”, the article said. ” This cast of bones was disinterred…. and transferred for further research to a DPAA lab. The remains were identified as those of Pvt. according to the laboratory analysis and the completeness of the available anecdotal evidence. Browning”.
Clay claimed that he had seen the remains ‘ outline and that it was obvious that his uncle had been killed by cement fire. Browning’s mother and two sisters died without actually knowing what happened.
Clay claimed that Browning had a significant influence on his career despite never having met his brother. In 1961, Clay was 18 years old and had been accepted to , CW Post College on Long Island. But he did n’t have money for tuition.
Clay claimed his family gave him the tuition money after going to the bank and opening a safe deposit box. She explained that Browning had purchased the saving bonds while he was serving that the funds had been used for.
” My mother said to me,’ Peter, my nephew George left these for you,'” Clay recalled. He “paid my way through college right then and there”
He graduated four years later with a degree in psychology, therefore joined the , Marine Corps , and went to , Vietnam. On Monday, he may lay his brother to sleep in grave company that begins at , 1: 30 p. m.
” It’s been an exciting voyage”, he said.
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