May 21, 2026
On Memorial Day, we remember. We remember names etched in stone and carried quietly in the hearts of families across generations. Some of their stories are told often. Others wait, sometimes for decades or longer, for their ending.
Before he was a soldier, and before he became a name among the missing, Irvin C. Ellingson was a student who also played football at Mayville State Teachers College. A young man from Dahlen, N.D., he was growing into his future. Like so many of his generation, that future was interrupted by war. At just 22 years old, Irvin answered the call to serve, leaving the familiar prairie behind for the uncertainties of the Pacific Theater.
When Irvin Ellingson arrived at Mayville State Teachers College on Sept. 13, 1937, he joined more than a campus. He became part of a community rooted in connection, camaraderie, and personal service. As a student-athlete, he built friendships that would stay with him long after he left campus. The bonds formed in classrooms, on the field, and in shared everyday moments became a source of strength that stayed with him far from North Dakota.
Years later, while stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base, Irvin experienced just how powerful those connections could be. In a letter to his aunts and dated Nov. 6, 1943, he described the remarkable moment when he was reunited with an old college friend, now his pilot during a training exercise.
“We were both so surprised that we could hardly talk,” he wrote, remembering the joy of that unexpected meeting. The reunion didn’t end in the air. He was welcomed into his friend’s home, where he shared a meal and an evening with his college pal and his wife, who was Irvin’s classmate at Mayville. Together, they talked for hours about M.S.T.C., recalling classmates and wondering where life had taken them all. “That visit was almost as good as a trip home for me,” Irvin wrote, “and it really perks up the old spirit.”
In moments like these, the heart of Mayville State, “The School of Personal Service,” comes alive. The relationships built there were not restricted by time or distance. They endured, uplifted, and reminded Irvin of who he was and where he came from. Even in the midst of war, those connections brought him comfort and a sense of belonging and home that could never be taken away. The same feeling of belonging Irvin and his friends experienced while at M.S.T.C. in the 1930s is alive and well at Mayville State University today.
By the spring of 1945, Staff Sergeant Irvin Ellingson was serving as a radar observer aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, part of the 878th Bombardment Squadron, 499th Bombardment Group. The missions were dangerous and involved long flights over open ocean, deep into enemy territory. Still, they forged on.
On April 14, 1945, Irvin’s aircraft was sent on a combat mission to Tokyo, Japan. Somewhere over Chiba Prefecture, their plane was shot down.
Irvin survived the crash, which in itself was a miracle, but survival did not mean freedom. Captured by enemy forces, he became a prisoner of war, held in the Tokyo Military Prison. Far from home and far from everything he knew, he endured the uncertainties and hardships of captivity.
On May 26, 1945, tragedy struck again. A fire swept through the prison. Irvin Ellingson, just 25 years old, died there, months before the war ended.
For his family, loss came without closure.
After the war, the American Graves Registration Service worked to recover and identify the fallen service members across the Pacific. Though remains were recovered from the Tokyo Military Prison, none could be identified as Irvin. His name joined the long list of the missing, inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
For decades, that was where Irvin’s story remained … unfinished.
For families, stories like this never truly end. Generations later, Irvin’s nephew, Lon Enerson, who along with several other family members is also a Mayville State alumnus, helped lead the effort to bring his uncle home. It has not been a simple process for Lon and his family members, but it is a testament to persistence, science, and dedication.
In 2022, teams from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the remains of 37 unidentified servicemen connected to the Tokyo prison fire. Inside a laboratory, scientists began their work. They studied bones, pieced together fragments of history, and used ever-advancing technology: mitochondrial DNA, genome sequencing, and detailed anthropological analysis.
Little by little, they reconstructed identities that had been lost to time. On June 17, 2025, 80 years after his death, Irvin Ellingson was finally accounted for.
For his family, the moment was profound. They traveled to Hawaii, where, in a quiet, private room, they sat with Irvin’s remains, then they were carefully placed on an Army blanket. It was not just a meeting. It was a reunion that spanned generations, a promise fulfilled.
Soon, Irvin will begin one last journey.
On June 18, 2026, his casket will be flown with honor from Honolulu to Fargo, where a military escort will accompany him with family members and other North Dakotans welcoming Irvin home. A convoy will travel from Fargo to Grand Forks, where a gathering to honor Irvin will be held at Veterans Park.
On June 19, family and friends will come together for a day of remembrance. It will be time filled with gratitude, woven with patriotism and the unending strength of family ties.
On June 20, in Dahlen, the story will come full circle. A final farewell will be held at Dahlen Lutheran Church. After the service, Irvin’s casket will take a quiet, meaningful detour to the Ellingson family farm, where he was born and raised. The same land that shaped him will welcome him home, if only for a moment. Finally, he will be laid to rest at Middle Forest River Cemetery, with his parents and siblings.
On Memorial Day we remember sacrifice, and stories like Irvin Ellingson’s remind us of something more. They remind us that service does not end in loss. It continues in memory. Even after decades, we do not stop searching. Every name and person matters. Every story deserves an ending.
In addition, Memorial Day reminds each of us to serve in our own way, to show up for our communities, to care for one another, and to carry forward the values for which so many gave all.
Irvin Ellingson was a son, a student, a soldier. He was 25 years old. And now, after 80 years, he is coming home.
This Memorial Day, we remember him, and we remember all of the fallen, not only for how they died, but also for how they lived, served, and continue to inspire service in us. They are never forgotten.
