Reported Burials
1943
Memorial Markers
1944
Remains Recovered
1946
Unidentified Remains
2024
Unaccounted For
2021
This burial ground was first established in November 1943, as the battle for Betio began to wind down. The remains of 36 men were interred here, and the 2nd Marine Division designated the spot as “West Division Cemetery.”
Little is known about the original construction of West Division Cemetery, and no photographs of the original layout are currently known to exist. Most likely, it looked similar to other Marine burial grounds with sticks or rough crosses made of scrap lumber serving as markers. Names were written on the markers; identification tags were either buried with the bodies or turned in to the nearest authority figure. (It is not known who oversaw operations at West Division Cemetery.)
Marine records suggest that the remains were laid out in two rows of eighteen. However, instead of digging new burial trenches (as was done elsewhere on Betio) the burial parties used a large shell hole to deposit the remains. This was likely done for the sake of expedience, as bodies were rapidly beginning to decompose. We know this was an issue at the West Division Cemetery, because a relatively high number of the bodies buried here were either unidentified or misidentified in Marine Corps records. The Graves Registration Section, 2nd Marine Division compiled a list of twenty men believed to be buried in West Division Cemetery, leaving 16 unknown. Four of the twenty names have conflicting burial information in primary sources.
In 1946, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company managed to identify five of the unknowns. More recent archaeological work has shown that at least six of the original names provided by the 2nd Marine Division – James, Mansfield, Reilly, Roberts, Zehetner, and Tucker – were wrong.
Conflicts & Discrepancies
Adams has a separate marker in Isolated Grave 7, which may have been a memorial.
James was identified in 2017 from remains originally buried in Cemetery 33.
Mansfield, Reilly, and Roberts were identified from remains recovered from Cemetery 27 in 2015.
Zehetner was identified in 2018 from remains originally buried in Cemetery 33.
Brand has a separate marker in Isolated Grave 18, which may have been a memorial.
Lawrence has a separate marker in Isolated Grave 15, which was likely his real grave.
Tucker was identified in 1982 from remains found with a burned-out LVT in 1979.
Wright’s Casualty Card reports burial in Cemetery A.
The unusual number of discrepancies and preponderance of unknowns makes West Division Cemetery one of the most challenging Betio burials to reconstruct accurately. And, in fact, accepting the USMC Graves Registration total of 36 burials may in itself be problematic. A D-4 (Division Quartermaster) map of Betio dated 26 November 1943 includes the West Division Cemetery – with fifty graves indicated.
It should be noted that the D-4 map does not include every cemetery indicated on the March 1944 “Location Of Graves” map produced by the Navy. While the Navy map includes some graves that are known to be memorials only, others (e.g. “Cemetery B” aka Navy Cemetery 10) were later found to contain more than twenty burials. It is possible that there is some overlap between the West Division Cemetery and other locations – which may explain how several individuals came to have multiple burial locations reported in their records.
From its presumably humble origins, the West Division Cemetery developed into a showpiece of the Navy “beautification” project. The garrison cleared space for a chapel a few yards southeast of the cemetery, and in keeping with the decorative religious spirit, the new “Cemetery 11” was laid out as a massive cross. Six smaller plots containing a total of 162 individual markers defined the shape. A large cross monument was raised in the middle, with a hand-painted plaque:
So let them rest
on their sun-scorched atoll.
The wind for their watcher,
the waves for their shroud.
Where palm and pandanus
shall whisper forever
A requiem fitting for
heroes so proud.
The new memorial dwarfed the original cemetery. Names for the individual crosses were chosen seemingly at random from lists of known Marine and Navy casualties, with no apparent regard for where the men actually fought and died. Fifty of the markers bore the names of Marines or sailors who died of their wounds and were buried at sea; ninety-two named men listed by the Corps as “Burial Location Unknown.” Clay Adams, Robert Brand, and Robert Lawrence – whose casualty records actually listed burial in the original West Division Cemetery – were omitted; their markers were placed elsewhere in isolated graves. And a few others – Clovis Bowie, for example – had one memorial in Cemetery 11 and another in Cemetery 33. How these decisions were made is one of the enduring mysteries of Tarawa.
Excavations at Cemetery 11 (“Grave 11” in GRS terms) commenced on 8 April 1946.
By this point, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company was fully aware that the manicured cemeteries on Betio were mostly memorials: digging up the graves row by row would only waste time and increase frustration. With the experience gained from earlier exhumations (and with the warning of the Garrison Force Commander in their ears) the soldiers started digging test trenches across the width of Grave 11. The work started slowly – “they are having trouble locating the bodies,” commented the unit journal – but showed promise as on the following day “Grave #11 has started to find their bodies now.” Heavy rains interfered with the work, and the Grave 11 team ran out of luck at the same time: nine days passed without a single exhumation. The next bodies they found were below the water table, and Lieutenant Eisensmith ordered work stopped until a pump could be brought from Kwajalein. At this point, only seven of the reported 36 remains had been found.
The pump arrived on 24 April, but before work resumed a real tragedy struck. Shortly after takeoff, the resupply plane exploded and crashed into the sea, killing seven men and necessitating an immediate search and recovery effort. Digging in Grave 11 did not resume until 3 May 1946, and lasted an additional ten days. In all, 35 remains were exhumed and reburied in Lone Palm Cemetery.
The 604th managed to name twelve men from Grave 11. Carlton, Hanlin, Hanna, Hoskin, Law, Maine, and Markey were on the original Marine burial rosters, while Corporal James M. Baker, PFC Stanley S. Graeser, Sergeant Gordon B. Rasmussen, PFC Arthur D. Somes, and Private Gilbert C. Stoutenberg were identified from the unknowns. Laboratory analysis in Hawaii confirmed the identities of Dougherty and Osterland in 1947. All remaining unknowns from Grave 11 were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in 1949.
Four men reportedly buried in the West Division Cemetery are currently unaccounted for, while one set of remains initially recovered in 1946 is still awaiting identification.
• Cpl. Clay Odell Adams (Row A, Grave 1)
• Cpl. Robert James Brand (Row B, Grave 3)
• Sgt. Robert Edward Simpson (Row B, Grave 15)
• PFC Richard Gordon Wright (possibly Row B, Grave 18)
• Betio Unknown X-265 (buried Lone Palm 10 May 1946)
