Print The word came in the morning, as Grace Cruz and her children gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights on Christmas Eve, 1943. Her oldest son, Jacob, was dead. A telegram from the United States Marines said the 18-year-old private was killed in action but divulged little else. The ongoing Pacific campaign meant Jacob would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting the Imperial Japanese Army. Weeks turned into months and into years. The military finally admitted it couldn’t find Jacob’s burial place. His name was etched at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.