Emmett Leonard Kines

Leonard Emmett Kines was born in Grafton, West Virginia, on 27 June 1919. He grew up as part of a large extended family – his parents, Jacob and Jocia (Cox) Kines, raised seven children, and there were aunts, uncles, and grandparents living nearby. After finishing grammar school, Emmett (as he was known) worked on family farms and with the Civilian Conservation Corps; he spent some time living with an aunt to help care for his grandparents. In his free time, Emmett enjoyed fishing, hunting, and playing pranks on his siblings. “He had a great sense of humor,” said his younger sister Betty. “He was my buddy.”


Even with these strong family ties, Emmett felt a call to serve the country. “Being a Marine was something he always wanted to do,” recalled Betty. And in November 1942, Emmett made that dream come true.

Kines enlisted at Clarksburg, West Virginia, on 4 November 1942 and was soon on his way to boot camp at Parris Island. The next month, he was assigned to duty with the 5th Replacement Battalion at Camp Lejeune. This unit was slated for rapid deployment to the Pacific, and the month of January was a whirlwind for Private Kines and his fellow Marines:

• January 10: Depart Traning Center, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
• January 15: Arrive Port of Embarkation, San Diego, California
• January 16: Embark on SS Matsonia and sail
• January 25: Arrive Pago Pago, Tutuila, Samoa
• January 27: Disembark at Pago Pago
• January 28: Arrive at Upolu, Western Samoa

Nor would Kines stay long in Samoa. On 5 April 1943, he joined Fox Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines at Camp Paekakariki, New Zealand. The months that followed were filled with training exercises, endurance marches, and liberties in nearby towns, where locals made the Marines feel right at home. Kines sent several letters back home to Grafton during this time, but unfortunately, most details of his time spent in New Zealand have since been lost.

In late October 1943, Private Kines’ company boarded a transport ship for the most extensive amphibious exercises they’d experienced to date. They would be aboard for nearly a month, with only a brief stopover at Efate in the New Hebrides group. While at sea, the men were informed that the rumors were true: they were headed for combat in the Gilbert Islands.

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 Private Kines. He was simply recorded as “killed in action” – 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. Emmett Kines was one of the men buried here in “Division Cemetery 3.”

Kines’ 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. (For reasons that are no longer known, Kines’ name was omitted from this memorial plaque. He had an individual marker in Cemetery 33, Plot 8, Row 1, Grave 2.)

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 turned over to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency for forensic analysis.

Laboratory work including dental and anthropological analysis, plus chest radiograph comparison and an mtDNA sample submitted by Betty Kines Huffman solved the mystery of Emmett’s fate. The original records were accurate: he had been buried in the trench near the beach where he died. An official identification was made on 1 February 2016, and Kines’ remains were returned to his family for burial.

His last remaining sibling, Betty, was present for his burial in West Virginia National Cemetery. “I’ve spent my whole life missing him,” she said, “and now he’s back home.”

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing
Woodside Memorial Park, Pruntytown, West Virginia

FINAL BURIAL
West Virginia National Cemetery