Background
Joseph Ozbourn was born in Herrin, Illinois on October 24, 1919.
Joseph Ozbourn was born in Herrin, Illinois on October 24, 1919.
He attended grammar school in Buckner, Illinois, and subsequently became a trip rider in the mines for the Old Ben Coal Corporation in West Frankfort, Illinois.
He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on October 30, 1943. On July 30, 1944, while serving as a Browning Automatic Rifleman serving with the First Battalion, Twenty-Third Marines, Fourth Marine Division, during the Battle of Tinian, Private Ozbourn died after hurling himself on a live hand grenade thus saving the lives of four fellow Marines. Private Ozbourn was initially buried in Tinian, Mariana Islands, but later his remains were reinterred in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The United States. Navy"s Gearing class destroyer United States Ship Ozbourn, named in his honor, was christened by Ozbourn"s widow on December 22, 1945 at the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine.
And commissioned by Mistress Ozbourn on March 5, 1946 at the Boston Naval Shipyard.
As a member of a platoon assigned the mission of clearing the remaining Japanese troops from dugouts and pillboxes along a tree line, Private Ozbourn, flanked by two men on either side, was moving forward to throw an armed hand grenade into a dugout when a terrific blast from the entrance severely wounded the four men and himself.
