Edward M. Ryan

On November 3, 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private Edward M. Ryan, missing from World War II.

Private Ryan entered the U.S. Army from New York and served in Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. On July 6, 1944, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment occupied defensive positions along the northwestern coast of the island of Saipan. After weeks of fighting, 4,000 Japanese soldiers had been pushed to the northern corner of the island. Facing imminent defeat, the commanding General of the Japanese forces ordered a mass charge of his remaining soldiers into American lines the morning of July 7. Before dawn, a massive wave of Japanese attackers surged into the American positions. The attack lasted several hours and devastated the 105th Infantry Regiment before American reinforcements were able to contain the assault. Private Ryan was killed sometime during the attack, but there were no eyewitness statements regarding his loss, and his remains could not be identified at the time. The unidentified remains recovered from Saipan were buried in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. Historians with DPAA were able to associate one set of these remains with Private Ryan and they were disinterred and accessioned into the DPAA laboratory in January 2019. Laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established these remains as those of Private Ryan.

Private Ryan is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

There will be a visitation at Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m.

A graveside service will be held at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 9:00 a.m.

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