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http://www.militarytrader.com/article/139_missing_wwII_marines/
During the early morning hours of 20 November
1943, Marines of the 2nd Marine Division mounted
and amphibious attack against the Japanese
stronghold of Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll,
Gilbert Islands. The battle, that lasted 72
hours, would become infamous for the high number
of casualties the Americans suffered. The sorrow
was further compounded because many of the
American bodies buried on the island were never
recovered after the war.
In November 2007, the History Flight
organization of Marathon, Florida and the WFI
Research Group of Fall River, Massachusetts
agreed to a joint, privately funded venture to
locate and return the bodies of our war dead to
their families. With the financial support of
the VFW, The American Legion, The Baddour
Foundation, private individuals and History
Flight board members the joint effort was able
to bring a team of professional researchers,
historians and ground penetrating radar
specialists together to find 139 of the 541
missing Marines from The Battle of Tarawa.
After 14 years of research conducted by the
WFI Research Group at various research centers
around the country and the second of two survey
trips to the island completed November 8th 2008
by the History Flight Organization and the
expenditure of thousands of dollars we are happy
to announce that we have located 139 of the 541
MIAs from Tarawa in 8 separate mass burials on
the island. All are believed to be the Marines
and sailors from the actual battle and not later
casualties. 5 of the 8 burial sites have had US
Marine remains accidentally dug up during the
extensive construction activity on the island.
One of the burial sites contains the remains of
Lt Alexander Bonnyman who won the Congressional
Medal of Honor in the battle of Tarawa and is
still buried on the island today.
The graves were located using a Mala X3M
Ground Penetrating radar with 250 and 500 MHZ
antennas and a surveyor quality Trimble GPS
system donated for the trip by Ashtead Equipment
of Atlanta GA.
“We are in the process of compiling the final
reports on our efforts and when completed we
will be contacting the Department of Defense
POW-MIA Office and the Commandant of the Marine
Corps” stated Mark Noah of the History Flight
organization. “We’ll make one additional trip to
the island to search for the remaining grave
sites and make arrangements for the return and
identification of the bodies. Allowing the
families of the missing to finally have closure
is our foremost goal” said Noah.
“Tarawa is the first of 14 projects we hope
to accomplish in the coming years” said Ted
Darcy of the WFI Research Group. “There were
numerous problems encountered with the Tarawa
project but we were able to overcome them all.
We’ll be covering each of them in more detail in
the final report which will be released next
year” said Darcy.
The find of 139 missing in action service
personnel is the largest in the history of the
American Armed Forces. The previous high was the
recovery of 19 Marines from Makin Atoll several
years ago. Sadly, 72,766 American Armed Forces
personnel are still listed as MIA from World War
II, 541 are in the Tarawa area.
For more information on History Flight, log
onto www.historyflight.com |
