Edgar Russell Norcross grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of Russell and Dorotha Norcross. Following the death of his father in 1939, he lived with his mother on Concord Street. On May 17, 1943, at the age of 17, Norcross enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in his hometown to serve during World War II.

He trained as an aviation radioman and anti-aircraft gunner, eventually joining Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 943 (VMSB-943) at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in California. In January 1945, Norcross deployed to the Pacific theater. He was assigned to Marine Torpedo Bombing Squadron 232 (VMTB-232), operating out of the Ulithi atoll in the Caroline Islands as part of the Air Defense Command.

On March 16, 1945, 18-year-old PFC Norcross was serving as the radio gunner aboard a TBM-3 Avenger torpedo bomber. His squadron executed a glide-bombing strike against a Japanese-held airfield on Yap Island. During the attack, Norcross’s aircraft took damage or malfunctioned, crashing onto the island. None of the crew members survived the impact. The Marine Corps officially reported Norcross as killed in action, but because the island remained a contested zone, his remains were initially declared non-recoverable.

Following the war, the American military exhumed a double-burial grave on Yap Island in 1947, but the technology of the era could not individually distinguish the degraded remains. The co-mingled remains were transferred to the Manila Mausoleum in the Philippines and designated as “Unknown X-398.” For decades, Norcross’s name was memorialized only on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) reopened the case and disinterred Unknown X-398 on December 11, 2020. Using modern anthropological testing, radioisotope analysis, and mitochondrial DNA sequencing matched with surviving family members, scientists officially identified the remains as those of PFC Norcross on June 12, 2025.

After 81 years away from home, PFC Edgar R. Norcross is being returned to the Granite State. He will be laid to rest with full military honors at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen on July 7, 2026.