# WWII veteran’s grave rediscovered thanks to DLA Land and Maritime associate’s efforts

/ Published Nov. 5, 2021
COLUMBUS, Ohio, 
A Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime employee is generating a lot of buzz around the world this week. Army veteran and DLA Land and Maritime Customer Account Specialist Nathan Reynolds is being lauded across the globe for his instrumental efforts to rediscover the gravesite of World War II veteran Arthur Lewis and ensure the delivery of a proper gravestone marking his service. 

Shortly after wrapping up several media interviews, Reynolds said the experience has been surreal.

The gravestone was placed Oct. 28 in a ceremony conducted by Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa personnel and attended by American and foreign dignitaries from several countries. It was a moment 60 years in the making. 

“I’ve gotten unmarked graves marked before and I’ve never gotten this level of attention, so it feels a bit weird for me,” he said. “But I’m glad this is receiving recognition – hopefully more people will get involved. There are Americans around the world buried in unmarked graves and I would like to see that get more attention.”

According to a Stars and Stripes account, Lewis, of Massachusetts, had served as a radioman in the Coast Guard in the 1920s, then on a Liberty ship for several years with the Merchant Marine during WWII. He was working aboard the S.S. Steel Vendor, a former troop transport that had become a commercial cargo ship after the war, when he died at sea in 1959 while transiting from a Red Sea port to Djibouti city. At the time, Djibouti was still known as French Somaliland. He was buried in a little-known Christian graveyard for foreigners in the Horn of Africa.

Over the years, the graveyard deteriorated and its original wooden crosses either rotted away or were stolen, Reynolds said.

The case came to Reynolds’ attention shortly after he arrived in Djibouti in August of 2020 to serve as a DLA universal customer account specialist and operations officer supporting Operation Enduring Freedom Horn of Africa. Reynolds is a frequent contributor to an online grave photo database, and he noticed several requests from British families and one American looking for photos from the same Djibouti city cemetery. The American – Dorothy Lewis – wrote that she’d been trying since 2011 to get a photo of her father’s grave marker. 

At the time, Reynolds was stationed just a few miles away at Camp Lemonnier so once his quarantine was over he volunteered to go out to the graveyard. The site was overgrown and walled in with concrete. The only access point was a locked gate through which Reynolds could see a handful of gravesites covered by scrub brush and tall weeds. After coordination with the British Commonwealth War Graves Commission and local nationals, Reynolds gained access to the cemetery, which led to the discovery that Lewis’ gravesite remained unmarked. 

“When I got back to my room that night I got online and posted all the pictures for the British families but then I wrote a message to Dorothy explaining that I’d looked all over and couldn’t find her father’s headstone. A couple of weeks went by and then I got a message back from her. She said, ‘I can’t believe there’s an American who went out there – you’re the first American to go out to that cemetery and look for my dad.’”

Reynolds said Dorothy’s response was a punch to the gut. She produced paperwork and documentation on her 10-year effort to get a photo of the headstone, and Reynolds said he was disappointed that he didn’t have better news for her. He resolved to help her.  

“It upset me – this man could be any of our dads or grandfathers. I was embarrassed that she’d done so much but gotten so little traction in getting this done,” he said. 

“It couldn’t have been a more fortuitous thing that the two of us connected,” he added. “I’ve gotten unmarked graves marked many times. I’ve done this for veterans’ families, and I’ve done this for my community back home. I’ve worked to get new markers put down and get damaged headstones replaced. I know the process, and I told her ‘I can help you.’”

Reynolds spent the rest of his seven-month rotation in Djibouti pulling in help and tracking down leads to assist Dorothy in getting a headstone placed for her father. The crucial piece came just weeks before he left the country in March of 2021 when an old French cemetery administrator located the plot map for Lewis’ burial site. Without it, the Department of Veterans Affairs couldn’t process the claim, Reynolds explained, and it became the lynchpin for getting Arthur Lewis his military burial honors. 

As the effort to properly mark Lewis’ gravesite grew, Reynolds overseas rotation came to an end and he returned to Columbus, Ohio. But his contribution didn’t stop there.

He worked with the VA on behalf of the family to get a 240-lb granite slab shipped overseas, where members of CJTF-HOA’s 404th Civil Affairs Battalion had been hard at work clearing out cemetery brush. The battalion helped with the logistics of receiving the slab and installing it atop Lewis’ final resting rest for a proper sendoff with full military honors. 

Reynolds wishes he could’ve been there but he’s glad the family finally has closure. 

“Dorothy called me last Friday and said, ‘Did you see the article?’ She was in tears. She called me her guardian angel. That felt good. That’s what matters.” Reynolds said. 

Click here to view the ceremony photo gallery.