William Joseph Henry, the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Henry, graduated from Saint Peter’s College in 1936 with a Bachelor of Science degree and subsequently entered the United States Marine Corps, joining Company G, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division that was activated on May 1, 1943.  After fighting in the Battle of Saipan, the Battle of Tinian and the Kwajalein Atoll, the 25th Marine Regiment invaded Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.  On the first day of that battle, Corporal Henry was "Killed in Action" by machine gun fire. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster (which means two awards – he was wounded in Saipan), the WWII Victory Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and Presidential Unit Citation with 1 Star.

Corporal Henry is memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii. His name is among the 28,788 members of the American Armed Forces who are missing in action or were lost or buried at sea in the Pacific during World War II, the Korean War or Vietnam War. Their names are listed on marble slabs in ten Courts of the Missing, which flank the Memorial’s grand stone staircase. The dedication stone at the base of the staircase is engraved with the following words: “In these gardens are recorded the names of Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country and whose earthly resting place is known only to God.”