The Infrastructure and Recovery Program (IRP) under the CNMI Office of the Governor announces the recovery of a World War II dog tag by the IRP archeological team during archeological testing work in San Jose in advance of the Northern Marianas Housing Corporation (NMHC) funded sewer and drainage project.
In April 2022, IRP archaeologists Jeremy Freeman and Scott Bierly and anthropologist Keona DLG. Torres recovered a suspected military identification tag (commonly referred to as a “dog tag”) while undertaking subsurface testing on the southwest coast of Saipan in advance of the NMHC sewer line and drainage project. The artifact was recovered in screened soil excavated from a backhoe trench located on the western edge of Apengagh Avenue roughly 55 m southwest of the Catholic Church in San Jose Village, Saipan.
Background research conducted by IRP staff revealed that the tag belonged to William Conrad Stoll, Jr., who was in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and participated in the World War II Battle of Saipan as a Captain and Executive Officer of the Marine’s 5th Amphibious Tractor Battalion. The tag was found on the actual invasion beach where Captain Stoll fought during the first three days of the battle. After Saipan, Stoll participated in the amphibious invasions of Tinian and Iwo Jima. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1962 with the rank of Lt. Colonel and passed away in 2008.
Upon the completion of the research, IRP staff met with Historic Preservation Officer Rita Chong-Dela Cruz, and it was mutually agreed that the identification tag was to be returned to Lt. Colonel Stoll’s family. Consultations with Katherine Stoll Bushong, the eldest surviving child of Lt. Colonel Stoll, have been completed. She has informed IRP that she plans to pass this artifact on to her son, who is a Marine Corps veteran.
Ms. Bushong expressed her gratitude for the efforts that IRP invested in researching the history of the tag and for bringing this discovery to the attention of her family. The tag will soon be returned to Ms. Bushong and her family.
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