FEBRUARY/MARCH 2009 – The remains of more than 100 marines who were killed during the battle of Tarawa appear to have been discovered in mass graves on the tiny Pacific atoll, according to a group that conducted a search with ground-penetrating radar this fall.
Mark Noah, executive director of History Flight, a Florida-based military history nonprofit, and Ted Darcy, a Massachusetts historian with the private military research organization WFI Research Group, say they have located 139 graves on Tarawa in eight sites. Their find could lead to the largest identification of missing American soldiers in history.
Keiji Shibasaki, commander of the Japanese garrison on the two-mile-long islet of Betio, had bragged that it would take a million Americans a hundred years to take Tarawa. Beginning on November 20, 1943, it took 35,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines three days—in one of the most brutal amphibious assaults of the war, and the first to encounter heavy resistance on the beaches. Of some 4,700 Japanese defenders there, only 17 survived.
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More than 900 marines were killed in the fighting, many of them while wading through the surf for hundreds of yards after their landing craft were caught on a reef at low tide. The men were buried in mass graves, where the military planned to retrieve them and bring them home when the war ended. But as navy engineers swooped in to begin airfield construction on the island, many of the burial sites were covered over. After the war, only half of the bodies could be found and returned to the United States. The rest of the dead, a total of 541 soldiers, were listed as missing.
After more than a decade of research and two expeditions, Noah and Darcy, a former marine himself, say they have found at least some of those missing men. Their claim is backed by burial rosters, combat reports, and interviews with construction contractors who have found human remains at the site.
Noah and Darcy planned to share their findings with the Department of Defense in January; the federal government will conduct any excavation of the site. "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," says Noah. "Allowing the families of the missing to finally have closure is our foremost goal."
Several family members of the missing soldiers have said they would like their relatives' bodies returned to the United States. "In the marines," Darcy has told reporters, "we were taught to never leave any man behind."
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Bring them back, they never should have been covered over and left.
It is a tragedy that the US government has left those fallen men behind. They need to be excevated and brought home and given a proper burial for the sacrafices they have made for their country.
Why not leave the dead to rest. Make a nice monument where they are resting recognizing their sacrifice. The unit in hawaii wiill sift the sand for a few teeth and spend $$millions to return a tooth or bone to the family for what?? Let the dead rest in peace.
HELLO
I, MYSELF, AM A FORMER MARINE.
IN MY OPINION, THE DEAD MARINES AND SAILORS (THERE WERE
NO ARMY DEATHS ON TARAWA THAT I EVER HEARD OF) SHOULD
BE LEFT THERE WITH A MONUMENT.
THEIR PARENTS ARE LONG DEAD, THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS
ARE MOSTLY DEAD AND THEIR CHILDREN ARE IN THEIR SIXTIES
OR SEVENTIES.
IT IS NOT LIKE THEY WERE LAID TO REST IN AN ENEMY
COUNTRY (AS WAS BRITISH CUSTOM IN WW-2).
I AM NOT WORRIED ABOUT THE EXPENSE. BUT WHY ADD
MORE STRESS TO THE REMAINING FEW RELATIVES OF THESE
BRAVE MEN.?
MY OPINION ONLY.
STEVEN RADFORD
If it's true that Tarawa will be underwater in two decades, then these marines should be returned to the USA for proper burials. I would not want to think of their remains awash in the ocean.
What about Lt. BONNYMAN (MOH receipient) his body was never recovered & last we heard it was buried under a parking lot!
I came across this article by chance. Return our Marines back home to American soil and give them the respect and honors they deserve. If it were my grandfather or great-grandfather's remains, I would want him home. No American should ever be left behind.
In reply to DG's concern that Lt Bonnyman was buried under a parking lot. The reality is that this is a small, poor atoll in the mid Pacific. They do not have parking lots or shopping centers, in the North American sense. They have some vehicles, but nothing like the term "parking lot" evokes in our imaginations. Betio where the Tarawa battle took place is a small islet that was pulverized. After the battle the dead bones were in many cases bull dozed into large communal graves and a Marine Airfield laid down. This was necessary because of the climatic conditions (extreme heat) and the need to prevent disease. The lack of physical space does not allow for a cemetery for the many casualties. I hope this helps give some perspective to your genuine concerns.
Well said. The historical perspective is critical in understanding the actions of the times.
I am a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. USMC tradition has always been "never leave a Marine behind." That of course is easy to say but sometimes very hard to do. An example of that would be those left behind during the Mayaquez incident. If one reads the history surrounding the many Pacific Island campaigns and how our dead were buried and later exhumed…Tarawa is not all that unusual. We
all need to remember that the U.S. military goal at the time was to WIN the war against a very determined enemy and Tarawa was only one of the first in a long line of island fortresses that soaked up young american blood. Why not just clean up the area and place appropriate battle and casualty monuments with names of the missing. If some can be identified and if families want remains brought home then do so where possible. Otherwise leave these men where they fell with their brothers in arms.
Semper Fi…
An old gunny
Bring all of our marines Home.
From any time period,from any War.
Bring them HOME