BRYANT, GUY Mar 14, 1945 age 28 KIA Iwo Jima

GUY ALBERT BRYANT b. Nov 27, 1916 Detroit d. Mar 14, 1945 Killed in Action Iwo Jima

Cpl   0964550 USMC 25^th Mar 4^th Mar Div

 Buried: Michigan Memorial Park, Flat Rock, MI

Parents: Norman Allen & Nannie Marie (Meyers)

Siblings: Louis M, Norma Adell, George A, Betty J, Norman Allen Jr, Helen A, Colleen L

This family, on both sides, is hard to track. Have to assume people either misunderstand the census questions, or perhaps lie for any variety of reasons, or as I experienced, they really aren't sure! Generally one can track people thru various databases by age, family relationships, place of residence. In this case the trail of marriages, moving, establishing who lives with whom, accounting for enumerator spelling errors, and just plain misinformation, I present relevant information that the most sense, but try not to get sidetracked. Bear in mind, you try to fill in the 10 year census gaps with marriage, birth and  death information but details aren't always in the online public record. (Bad family trees for this group; add connections but forget to match up ages with people – can’t be a child if born when a person was 3 years old.) But most of their lives play out in Ohio, Indiana and places south, but finally stay on in Michigan.

Father Norman served in the USMC WWI from 1905-09; he worked as a Ford Motor Co. machinist. He married Nannie Marie and they continued living at 3519 Cardoni in Detroit, now covered over by I-75. They had a large family living with them on thru 1930 – 8 children and a daughter-in-law.

Guy is identified in The Outpost school newspaper as an alumnus of Redford but he doesn’t seem to have lived in the area. Cardoni St. is the other side of the city and 1930, when he was 14, they all lived in Lincoln Park; the time frame is wrong for him to have attended Redford. Yes, possibly this is the incorrect Guy Bryant, but is the only one from Detroit that died in the war.

Hazel Bryant

Guy married Hazel Lee Gibson in 1937 in Indiana; she was a resident of Steuben, IN. Her family moved around from Alabama, Kentucky, Penn, Indiana, Michigan – may have also spent time in Ohio. And her mother Lucille remarried; Helen and Guy lived with her ‘parents’, the Hursts, in 1940; she was actually the stepdaughter. At Guy’s death he was survived by a wife and 2 children.
Guy’s draft registration was on Oct 16, 1940 age 23 and employed by Norman Lumber Co., 5’11” and 165 lbs with grey eyes and brown hair. He enlisted in the USMC on May 1, 1944.

June 1944 he in on the Muster Roll at the 11^th Recruit Battalion, Training Regiment, Recruit Depot, from Marine Corps Base to Sand Diego. An account of the fighting on Iwo Jima in mid-March 1944 tells of mopping up and the elimination of the final Jap pocket occupied the troops for several days. The area of resistance was studded with caves and emplacements, and was absolutely impenetrable to tanks or other support weapons. The Jap defenders fought until they were individually routed out and killed by rifleman, demolition and grenade teams and flame-throwers.

Guy’s headstone application is dated 3 years after he was killed, April 12, 1948. That same year Hazel married Arthur Wood in Southfield, MI. However, she is buried as Bryant-Wood with Guy, her first husband, in the Flat Rock Cemetery. She died at 93. Guy’s parents are in Grand Lawn Cemetery.