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World War II soldier Luther Rhodes laid to rest 83 years after his death.

World War II soldier Luther Rhodes was laid to rest in Edneyville Saturday, 83 years after his death on Guadalcanal.

By Amy McCraw, Published: March 28, 2026

A funeral service delayed for 83 years finally took place Saturday in Edneyville when family, friends and veterans gathered to honor the memory of World War II soldier Luther Rhodes, a Marine killed in action while fighting the Japanese in the battle for Guadalcanal.

“After so many years and such a devoted search by his brother, Marvin, we thank you for this great homecoming,” former Edneyville United Methodist Church pastor Bob Kudez said as he prayed during the graveside service at the church’s cemetery on Bearwallow Road.
The pastor told about 250 people who attended the service that Rhodes was a great Marine who showed great love by laying down his life while fighting for his friends.
His remarks came after a Marine squadron from Greenville, S.C., carried Rhodes’s coffin from a funeral home hearse to his gravesite.
Those who attended the service stood silently around the cemetery as the Marines moved the coffin and fired their weapons in salute to Rhodes’ service. A soldier also played Taps on a bugle. The Marines presented Marvin Rhodes with the folded American flag that had draped his brother’s coffin.
A group of motorcycle riders from the Patriot Guard Riders also participated in the funeral procession along Bearwallow Road and stood holding several American flags during the service.
The funeral marked the end of a long search for Rhodes' remains that began in 1942.
Luther was the fourth child in a family of 10 siblings - five boys and five girls – who grew up in Edneyville.
Marvin was the baby of the family and not yet born when Luther, at the
age of 17, persuaded his father to sign for him to join the U.S. Marine Corps on Nov. 11, 1941.
Luther Leru “Dusty” Rhodes, who his fellow Marines sometimes called “The Kid,” was a private first class serving in the Marines when he was killed less than a year later on Oct. 7, 1942 while fighting in the battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The battle was America’s first offensive of the war in the Pacific.
Marvin was just six months old when his brother died.
Military authorities in the 1940s deemed Luther Rhodes’ remains “non-recoverable.”
In a handwritten letter to the commandant of the Marine Corps in 1946, Marvin’s parents, Harley and Lexine Rhodes, expressed their deep sorrow that Luther’s body had not been identified “as we hope to have his body returned to his beloved land the USA for his final resting place.”
They even had a marker for Luther’s grave placed at the cemetery where other family members are also buried.
Marvin, 83, eventually took on the search for his brother’s remains and provided a DNA sample years ago to the government’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in hopes that it would help them find out what happened to his brother.
Officials from that agency contacted Marvin in September with the news that his brother’s remains were located at an American cemetery in Hawaii.
In January, Donavan Mansfield, who is the head of the United States Marine Corps Repatriation Program, met with Marvin and other members of the Rhodes family to explain more about how Luther died and what happened to his remains.
A limited number of Marines, who were trying to hold Henderson airfield on the island, repelled repeated Japanese attacks. And their resources were cut by 50 percent during the battle because the Navy ships that carried their supplies were forced to pull away from the area.
“Whenever I tell these stories, I can’t emphasize enough the mettle, the fortitude,” Mansfield said. “These were marines, but they were 18, 19, 20-year-old kids at the same time - and just the things they had to overcome during these engagements and keep going forward and keep going forward and just insurmountable odds and just battle after battle, success after success. If you did the math on it, there is no chance it should have even occurred that way.”
The fact that the Marines held off the Japanese and won the battle of Guadalcanal is evidence of the unique character of the men who fought there, he said.
“I can’t emphasize enough how different they were. I tell people all the time that they were just built different, men like Luther. I can’t emphasize enough how proud Marvin and the whole Rhodes family should be this week to have that legacy attached to their family name. It’s incredible what these young men had to overcome.”
Luther was killed in action at the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal on Oct. 7, 1942 and buried in a makeshift cemetery on the island.
But by the time the military began sending those soldiers home for burial, Luther Rhodes’ remains were no longer identifiable and listed as unknown.
Bodies of the unknown soldiers buried on Guadalcanal were later removed and buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The cemetery, known as the Punchbowl, is in an extinct volcano near the center of Honolulu, Hawaii.
Rhodes’ body remained the at the cemetery until 2019 when advances in DNA technology made officials at the government’s Defense Pow/Mia Accounting Agency believe they could identify some of the remains of the Marines who were moved to the cemetery from Guadalcanal.
The DPAA used the DNA Marvin had provided years earlier to identify the remains of his brother.
Leaders at Hendersonville’s Hedrick-Rhodes VFW Post 5206 have taken on an effort to locate the 13 soldiers from Henderson County who were missing in action during World War II.
Luther Rhodes was the first MIA they decided to try to locate.
The VFW contacted U.S. Senator Tedd Budd’s office, where a distant relative of Rhodes happened to work on staff, and asked for help. Shortly after Budd’s office became involved, Marvin received the call telling him his brother’s remains were found.
Officials at the VFW continue working to locate other soldiers from Henderson County who remain missing in action.