U.S. Marine killed in World War II accounted for 8 decades after sending ominous letter to family

A U.S. Marine who sent an ominous letter home before he went missing in action during World War II has been accounted for over eight decades after he was killed in the Pacific, the Defense Department announced Thursday.

In November 1943, Marine Corps Sgt. Robert F. Van Heck, 25, of Chicago, was part of a force that tried to secure the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Japanese-held Gilbert Islands, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. During several days of intense fighting, Japanese forces were decimated, and about 1,000 U.S. Marines and sailors were killed. Van Heck died on the first day of the battle, Nov. 20, 1943. 

According to a newspaper clipping shared by U.S. officials, Van Heck had sent a letter to his family warning that he would not be returning home. The young Marine had written: "Don't count on me coming home this spring as we had planned."