Lloyd Lynn Livingston
Private Lloyd L. Livingston served with George Company, Second Battalion, 8th Marines.
He was killed in action at Betio, Tarawa atoll, on 20 November 1943.
Branch
Marine Corps Reserve
Service Number 513920
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
November 24, 1924
at Batesville, AR
Parents
Floyd S. Livingston (d. 1930)
Eunice “Eunie” (Scott) Livingston
Education
Details unknown
Occupation & Employer
Farm Labor
Service Life
Entered Service
December 12, 1942
at Memphis, TN
Home Of Record
Jonesboro, AR
Next Of Kin
Mother, Mrs. Eunie Livingston
Military Specialty
—
Primary Unit
G/2/8th Marines
Campaigns Served
Tarawa
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
—
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Private Lloyd Livingston served with George Company, 8th Marines in the battle for Tarawa.
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.
Private Livingston was one of hundreds of Marines who lost his life on the first day of the battle. He was reported as killed in action by gunshot wounds; no other details of his death are currently known.
Burial Information or Disposition
Private Livingston’s remains may have been recovered and interred by Marine forces shortly after his death.
Chaplain W. Wyeth Willard of the 8th Marines was charged with staking out temporary cemeteries near the invasion beaches, and with the preliminary identification of the fallen as they were brought in for burial. On the morning of 22 November, he notes, “a cemetery site was selected behind the Divisional Command Post” on Beach Red 2. Willard and Chaplain Francis Kelly oversaw the burial of 112 men in “Division Cemetery #1” over the course of the day. The chaplains also received personal effects and identification tags from the fallen; Willard notes accepting an “identification tag or card” for “LIVINGSTON L. L. 513920.”
While Livingston’s name does not appear in Willard’s report of remains interred in “Cemetery 1,” the muster roll of Second Battalion, 8th Marines indicates he was interred in “Row B, Grave 13.” A casualty card from Willard’s personal collection bears a handwritten correction repeating this information. The original source is not known, but may have come from Chaplain Kelly – according to Willard, Kelly was in charge of the actual burials at Cemetery 1.
In the months after the battle, Cemetery 1 was reconstructed and “beautified” as Memorial Cemetery 26. Regulation white crosses replaced the original markers in ordered rows, but with no relation to the original burial order. (Interestingly, Private Livingston did not have a memorial marker at Cemetery 26, but instead at Cemetery 33 Plot 13, Row 2, Grave 7. This suggests that if he was indeed interred in the original Cemetery 1, he was buried as an unknown.)
Personnel from the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company exhumed Memorial Cemetery 26 in 1946, but were unable to identify Lloyd Livingston’s remains. Today, he may be buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Memorials
Next Of Kin Address
Mailing address of mother, Mrs. Eunie Livingston.
The Livingstons lived on Rural Route 2 outside of Jonesboro proper.
Location Of Loss
Livingston’s battalion landed on and fought in the vicinity of Beach Red 3.
