81 Years After Dying On The Beaches Of Saipan, A Marine Finally Comes Home To SMC

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — On the same day of the week he died — a Thursday — Pfc. Helmut Fred Behlert came home, city officials announced in May.

His casket arrived at San Francisco International Airport on a commercial flight from Hawaii, descending from a cargo hold into the cold night air as a line of American flags snapped in the wind. Marines marched across the tarmac to receive him. Emergency lights flashed. Jet engines roared. And Ruth Green, 94, stepped forward and gently placed her hand on the flag draped over her uncle's coffin.

"I'm just so glad that I've got him back home where he can rest," she said. "I didn't think it would be after all these years, but it brought tears to my eyes."

Behlert was 27 years old when he was killed on June 15, 1944 — the first day of the Battle of Saipan, one of the largest and deadliest amphibious assaults of World War II. The Pacific campaign was designed to bring U.S. bombers within striking distance of major Japanese cities and factories. Thousands of American service members died in the effort.

His family was told he had been lost at sea.

For nearly six decades, that was all they knew.

Then, in 2001, Green's sister-in-law came across a column by advice columnist Ann Landers describing efforts to identify missing American service members through family DNA. Green's brother submitted a sample. Years passed. By the time military officials were able to make a positive identification through advances in DNA analysis, Behlert's mother, siblings, and much of his generation were gone.

In December 2025, Green's phone rang. It was the Marines.

"At first everybody kept telling me it was a scam," she said. "Then I believed him after a while."

Born in Salt Lake City on Oct. 25, 1916, Behlert deployed overseas with the Marines in October 1942 as a scout. He fought at Guadalcanal and Tarawa before the assault on Saipan claimed his life. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, among other honors.

Green, born in 1931, grew up in San Francisco and later raised her family in the East Bay, spending much of her career at IBM — where, she noted, she typed so fast she broke the springs on her typewriter. She was still a child when her uncle went to war, but the memories remained vivid. Once, after she cut her knee on broken glass while running to meet him, he covered the wound with his hand so she wouldn't see the blood and cry.

"I still have a scar on this knee," she said. "I thought he was wonderful. He was my favorite relative of all."

Marine Staff Sgt. Jonathan Peralta, who escorted Behlert's remains back to California, said the mission struck him in ways he hadn't anticipated. Peralta is 27 — the same age Behlert was when he died.

"It definitely hit harder than I would have expected," Peralta said. "I let Ms. Green know that it has been the honor of my lifetime to bring back home our warrior. The cloth that we wear, we are only wearing it because of people like him."

After the tarmac ceremony, a police-escorted procession carried Behlert north to Duggan's Serra Mortuary in Daly City, where members of the Patriot Guard Riders carried the casket inside. Peralta inspected the open coffin to ensure Behlert's new, pressed uniform was properly aligned. Green rose from a pew and ran her fingers across it before the coffin was sealed.

"He'll finally be laid at rest," she said, "and nothing else is going to harm him ever."

Behlert is scheduled to be buried with full military honors at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is also expected to approve a resolution honoring his service, which will be presented to Green and her family.

"There's always a right time to honor those extraordinary American soldiers who put country above self," said Supervisor Jackie Speier, who co-sponsored the resolution.