JAY BENTLY MORELAND and WILLIAM WRIGHT MORELAND

Sergeant Jay Bently Moreland (born March 21, 1923) and Staff Sergeant William Wright Moreland (born January 8, 1925, and generally referred to as Bill or Billy) were brothers who were born in, and educated in, the Bushong, Kansas, community. Given that there was only about a year and a half or so in age difference, Jay and Bill were more than brothers; they were best friends. They went to school together (and both were on the 1941 Bushong Rural High School basketball team), they worked together on the family farm, and they spent their spare time together as best friends do.

The two brothers enlisted together in the United States Army in February, 1943. At their request, they trained together and deployed together as members of the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion. They died together when they were killed in action on June 6, 1944, as their D-Day landing craft approached Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. Jay was 21 years old, and Bill was 19 years old.

At the time of their deaths in 1944, Jay and Bill were survived by their parents (Elsie Mae Houk Moreland and Everett Lafayette Moreland of Bushong, Kansas), an older brother (Paul Moreland and his wife Mildred), two older sisters (Marjorie Moreland Mounkes and her husband Darrel; and Doris Moreland Frederick and her husband Chester), and two younger brothers of the home (Edward Eugene Moreland and Larry Wayne Moreland) plus six aunts and uncles. All of these are now deceased, with the exception of the youngest sibling, Larry Moreland (of Charleston, South Carolina). As of 2026, Jay and Bill’s closest family include, in addition to their youngest brother, seven nieces and nephews: Everett Moreland of Burlington, Colorado; Frances Moreland Holdsworth of Winchester, Kansas; Trish Moreland Hutchinson of Wichita, Kansas; Mary Frederick Lett of Salina, Kansas; Karen Frederick Schafer of McPherson, Kansas; Sallee Mounkes Dixson of Eugene, Oregon; and Jay William Mounkes of Overland Park, Kansas; plus numerous great-nieces and great-nephews. Niece Linda Frederick Murdock is deceased.

The work of combat engineers like Jay and Bill is one of the most critical and dangerous assignments in wartime. They serve at the forefront of military operations, such as that on D-Day, as they were tasked to arrive at the onset of the invasion so as clear the way for subsequent waves of infantry troops, tanks, trucks and whatever else might be essential to a successful operation.

When the landing craft in which Jay and Bill died drifted ashore a few days after D-Day, the search and recovery team discovered that the passenger compartment they shared with twenty-two others had been violently destroyed as the mine which the vessel had struck detonated the fuel tank adjacent to the passenger compartment. All were likely killed instantly; and their remains were such that individual identifications were not possible. These remains were ultimately buried, as a group, in the American Cemetery on the bluffs above Omaha Beach. With the discovery of DNA and the development of the new field of genetic genealogy, it has become possible to make posthumous identifications, even decades later, with just skeletal remains. The remains buried in France have been returned to the U.S., and extraordinary efforts have been made at the Department of Defense laboratory in Omaha, Nebraska, to make identifications. Last year, certain remains yielded a match with Moreland family DNA.

Jay and Bill will now have the funeral they did not have in 1944. The repatriation and burial of remains will be held on Saturday, 10 October 2026, beginning at 1:30 pm with a private family and friends gathering at the Roberts-Blue-Barnett Funeral Home (605 State Street, Emporia, Kansas), followed approximately an hour later with an all- invited public procession from the funeral home to the Bushong, Kansas, cemetery for a full military burial ceremony at the Moreland family plot.