Members of the Nevada Army National Guard carry a casket with the remains of World War II soldier Roman Cherubini to a waiting hearse on Friday.
Photo by Steve Ranson.
The Cherubini twins will be reunited after more than 80 years.
The remains of U.S. Army Pvt. Roman Cherubini, who was killed in Burma on June 16, 1944, arrived in Reno on Friday aboard a Southwest Airlines flight that originated in Omaha, Nebraska. A military honor guard from the Nevada Army National Guard carried Cherubini’s casket to a hearse as passengers from the flight stayed on board as a matter of respect and watched the transfer of the soldier from the plane’s starboard windows.
Firefighters from the Reno Fire Department and police officers from Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority stood at attention, saluting the casket as it was transferred from the jet to the hearse. Members of the Cherubini family also attended the short ceremony.
Cherubini’s remains were identified in December by the Defense POWMIA Accounting Agency. He was 22 years old at his death.
A funeral service and burial with full military honors will be conducted Saturday at noon at the Big Pine Cemetery, 15 miles south of Bishop, California. He will be buried next to his brother Raymond, who served in World War II as a military policeman. Raymond Cherubini, a resident of Carson City, died March 29, 2005. Both Cherubini brothers were born Sept. 22, 1923, and were residents of Bridgeton, New Jersey, when they enlisted in the Army.
The military undertook a complete review of Roman Cherubini’s record and told the Nevada News Group he’s eligible for the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star along with other awards and medals.
Roman Cherubini was assigned to F Company, 2nd Battalion, 5307th Composite Unit, also known as Merrill’s Marauders. Named after Brig. Gen Frank Merrill, the unit fought the Japanese in the China-Burma-India Theater and used deep mission tactics behind Japanese lines, often fighting against larger Japanese forces.
According to the DPMAA, Roman Cherubini joined the unit as part of the New Galahad’s deep military infiltration in May 1944. During the course of their fighting, Cherubini’s light infantry unit and two Chinese infantry regiments captured an airport near the village Myltkynia, Burma. Two combat engineer battalions arrived later in the month as reinforcements.
One month later, the 2nd Battalion advanced south from the village and faced heavily fortified Japanese positions north of the village on June 16.
“Although the exact circumstances of his death were not recorded, the U.S. War Department declared Cherubini killed in action on June 16, 1944,” the DPMAA reported.
The Marauders disbanded after more than two months of marching through 750 miles of the dense jungle and fighting the Japanese in five major battles. More than 200 American soldiers died either from disease or by enemy fire.
Cherubini and other soldiers killed in action were buried in temporary cemeteries, but all known burials and remains not identified were eventually transferred to a U.S. military cemetery in India. In a final journey from the war zone, the military transported the unidentified remains of other military personnel from all over the Pacific Theater to their forensic lab in Hawaii.
The DPMAA said Cherubini’s remains were exhumed from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu in January 2022 for laboratory analysis and identification, which was completed on Dec. 16, 2024.
Although Cherubini’s remains have returned to his family, he and other soldiers are remembered on the Walls of the Missing at the Manilla American Cemetery in the Philippines.