Name: Albany Arthur Doucette Rank: Private First Class Service Number: 31033450 Service: 182nd Infantry Regiment, Americal Division, United States Army Awards: Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Date of Birth: November 24, 1915 Place of Birth: Ipswich, Essex County, Nova Scotia Date of Enlistment: April 14, 1941 Place of Enlistment: Boston, Massachusetts Address at Enlistment: Beverly, Essex County, Massachusetts Age at Enlistment: 25 Occupation: Shoe factory machinist Marital Status: Single Height: 5 feet, 10 ½ inches Complexion: Light Eye Color: Blue Hair Color: Brown Date of Death: November 20, 1942 Age: 26 Memorial: Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Philippines Reference: Walls of the Missing Albany was the son of James Henry Doucette (1884-1949) and Marie Rose de Lima ‘Délima’ (Boucher) Doucette (1885-1942), and the brother of Arthur George Doucette (1906-1986), Theodore James Doucette (1908-1955), Lillian Hazel (Doucette) Dumas (b. 1912), Henry Charles Doucette (1914-1976), and Leo Joseph Denis Doucette (1917-1964). Albany’s father was born in Salmon River in Clare, Digby County, Nova Scotia. His mother was from Quebec. His parents married in Ipswich, Mass. In 1904. Albany’s brother Leo served in the United States Naval Reserve in WWII, enlisting April 5, 1945, and serving until discharge on April 5, 1946. His brother Henry served as a Technical Sergeant in the US Army in WWII. The family lived at 35 Lyman Street in Beverly, Massachusetts. Albany attended Beverly High School. When he registered for the US Draft on October 16, 1940, he was working for the USMC on Elliot Street in Beverly, Mass. but this was not the US Marine Corps, rather the United Shoe Machinery Company. In the 1940 census he was clerk janitor at the factory, and immediately before enlistment in the spring of 1941, as a machinist at United Shoe. After enlisting April 14th, Abany was assigned to the 182nd Infantry Regiment, part of the Americal Division, which served in the Pacific theater of war. 4 days before his 27th birthday, Private First Class Albany Arthur Doucette was lost to the grueling jungle combat of the Guadalcanal Campaign near Point Cruz on November 20, 1942. Serving with the 182nd, which had arrived just days earlier to reinforce the battle-weary 1st Marine Division, PFC Doucette was part of the offensive in western Guadalcanal. The regiment's immediate objective was to push Japanese forces back across the Matanikau River and expand the American perimeter around the vital airstrip, Henderson Field, securing it from enemy artillery fire. On the day of his death, Doucette’s unit was engaged in a bitter, close-quarters struggle for control of the deep, jungle-choked ravines just south of Point Cruz. This small coral peninsula on Guadalcanal's northern coast was a heavily fortified Japanese stronghold, featuring deeply concealed, interlocking machine-gun positions and mortars. Due to intense combat and urgent evacuations, Private Albany Doucette was hastily buried on the battlefield near Marine Private John W. G. Onnen, who was also killed. In February 1943, a Graves Registration Team exhumed the battlefield graves to relocate them to the First Marine Division Cemetery. During this process, the team misidentified Private Onnen’s remains as Private Doucette's, marking the new grave with Doucette's name while Onnen’s hidden identification tag went undetected. In 1947, the cemetery was exhumed again to transfer all service members to the Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) in Hawaii for permanent burial. Throughout this mass relocation, the overlooked ID tag remained unnoticed. Upon arrival in Hawaii, forensic analysts conducted a thorough examination and finally discovered Onnen's Marine ID tag among the remains. While this successfully corrected the identity of the remains to John W. G. Onnen, USMC, it revealed a tragic consequence: because Onnen had been buried in Doucette's place, Private Doucette's true final resting place was never established, and his remains were never found.

Source: American Battle Monuments Commission findagrave honorstates.org missingmarines.com