Charles Edward Oetjen

Charles Oetjen was born in Chicago, Illinois on 7 March 1925. He grew up in Blue Island with his parents, Edward and Hilda, and older sister Marion.

Little is publicly known about Charles’ life before the war. He was an athletic youth, particularly when tennis and basketball were involved, and played both at Blue Island Community High School. Charles was set to graduate with the class of 1943 – but never walked. Instead, just days before his eighteenth birthday, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Shortly after enlisting on 27 February 1943, Charles Oetjen was on his way to San Diego for boot camp. Upon earning his Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem, Oetjen transferred to Camp Elliott for advanced infantry training. By July, he was deemed ready for overseas duty and sailed for the South Pacific with the 23rd Replacement Battalion.

The SS President Polk arrived in New Zealand in August 1943 and the replacements disembarked, anxious for their next assignments. A large contingent, including Private Oetjen, was assigned to the 8th Marines at Camp Paekakariki. Oetjen wound up in the Easy Company 2/8, and embarked on yet another round of training. This time, however, the tactics were more advanced, the exercises more realistic, and his instructors combat veterans of Guadalcanal.

In October 1943, the 8th Marines boarded transports at Wellington for a final round of training exercises. When the ships headed out to sea instead of returning to town, the Marines aboard began to realize that the rumors were true: they were bound for combat.

The amphibious assault on Betio, Tarawa atoll – Operation GALVANIC – commenced on 20 November 1943. The Second Battalion 8th Marines was given the job of assaulting the easternmost of three landing beaches – “Red 3” – and, once ashore, moving inland to quickly secure the airfield that covered much of the tiny island’s surface. A heavy and morale-boosting naval bombardment convinced many Marines that the task would be a simple one, and spirits were high at 0900 when their amphibious tractors started paddling for the beach.

The Japanese were quick to recover. Shells began bursting over the LVTs. “As the tractors neared the shore the air filled with the smoke and fragments of shells fired from 3-inch guns,” notes A Brief History of the 8th Marines. “Fortunately, casualties had been light on the way to the beach, but once the men dismounted and struggled to get beyond the beach, battle losses increased dramatically.” Most of the beach defenses were still intact, and these were supported by row after row of pillboxes, rifle pits, and machine gun nests.

The Second Battalion, and then the Third Battalion, tried in vain to break through the Japanese defenses, suffering heavy casualties in every attempt. By evening, they were barely clinging to a sliver of beachhead, and the shocked survivors dug in among the bodies of the dead.

One of those who fell on the first day was PFC Charles Oetjen. After eighteen years of life and nine months in uniform, his combat career lasted mere hours at the most – and quite likely even less than that. He was simply recorded as “killed in action” by “gunshot wounds” – no further specifics of his fate are known.


It took two days for the dead men on Beach Red 3 to be buried. A long trench was bulldozed near the pier, and more than forty Marines were carried over and laid down under their ponchos. Charles Oetjen was one of the first men buried in “Division Cemetery 3.”

Charles Oetjen’s burial ground was “beautified” by Navy garrison troops in 1944 and renamed Cemetery 27. A single large cross was put up and the names of the fallen were painted on a plaque nearby. When the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company arrived to exhume the battle casualties in 1946, however, they found not a trace of any remains beneath the monument – nor anywhere nearby. After days of searching in vain, they gave up and declared the 40 men permanently nonrecoverable.

In 2015, the non-profit group History Flight conducted an archaeological dig at a shipyard on Betio. This expedition, the result of years of research and data supplied by GPR and a cadaver dog, found the original burial trench beneath a parking lot – quite some distance from the memorial location. The remains of 46 men were recovered by History Flight – and among them were those of  Charles Oetjen. Corroded dog tags and dental charts led to an early provisional identification; in fact, the discovery of Oetjen’s remains was the first solid confirmation that the archaeologists were digging in the right place.

However, official identification required more proof. DNA analysis, plus additional material and circumstantial evidence, finally identified Charles Oetjen on 15 December 2015. He was officially accounted for on 6 May 2016 and returned to the United States for a final burial near his hometown.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
First Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois