A grandson’s quest to bring a fallen war hero home.

In November 1943, Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman Jr. was mortally wounded while leading a successful assault on critical Japanese fortifications on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa. But it was not until August 2015 that he was finally laid to rest. 

Bonnyman Jr. was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for his heroic actions during the bloody battle, which would ultimately claim the lives of almost 2,000 Marines and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. But the lieutenant, along with hundreds of other Marines, was buried in an unmarked grave. He was left behind and his remains never recovered.

More than seventy years later, Bonnyman Jr.'s grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans, took up the search for his grandfather and those other Marines left behind. In Bones of My Grandfather, Evans tells the story of his mission against all odds. His journey began at home, where research into his grandfather’s past uncovered a flawed hero with a checkered past at odds with the narrative he’d been told. Abroad, his first visits to Tarawa would be fruitless, frustrated by nature, bureaucratic red tape, and the US government's own stagnant search for the Marines. 

But with the help of archaeologist Kristin Baker and Mark Noah, a former pilot who leads international efforts to locate lost American servicemen as part of his History Flight charitable foundation, Evans accomplished his mission. On May 29, 2015, Clay Bonnyman Evans exhumed the bones of his grandfather. More than seventy years after giving his life for his country, a World War II hero was finally buried alongside his family in Texas.