A word of caution to the reader:
This article contains uncensored, highly graphic photographs of World War II combat dead. These images are shown not to shock or stir controversy, but to give an honest and accurate depiction of the hellish aftermath of Operation GALVANIC, and the extreme challenges faced by those tasked with collecting, identifying, and burying the fallen. Because these images may be upsetting for some, reader discretion is advised.
Operation GALVANIC – the amphibious assault and capture of Tarawa atoll undertaken by Navy and Marine Corps units in November 1943 – captured the public attention immediately and completely. “Beachheads punched out by Yankees,” blared newspaper headlines. “Wreck Jap bases at Tarawa.” These articles were often accompanied by photos of the battle, fresh from the front lines. An unusually high percentage of these images showed dead Americans, an unfamiliar sight to most readers. Editors worried that their audience might become distressed. The Kansas City Star quickly noted “US TOLL NOT TOO HIGH. LOOKS WORSE THAN IT IS.” The subhead explained: “Losses Appear Shocking Because Bodies Littered Beach in Short Period of Time” – hardly a reassuring message for readers with friends or relations in the 2nd Marine Division.[2]
Then the casualty lists were released to the press. Families received unwelcome Western Union telegrams – in many cases, a day or two before Christmas. Front pages swapped photos battle casualties for portraits of the dead. “LOCAL MARINE DIES FOR COUNTRY,” they said. “HEROIC DEEDS… SAVED BUDDIES… NEVER HAD A FURLOUGH.” A full-color documentary, With The Marines at Tarawa, arrived in theaters: families saw, or thought they saw, their loved ones smiling or waving or running or falling, larger than life, one final time.
Although nearly eight decades have passed, photographs of the war-torn beaches and grainy footage of running Marines reappear in the news a few times every year. Inevitably, the face of a young man appears – smiling and confident in a new uniform, or bashful and awkward in a service photo – with a chyron announcing that a local hero is returning home. Relatives offer memories or family lore: growing up without a brother or an uncle, a grandmother’s lifelong dream to have a child returned, half-remembered stories related to a photo on the mantelpiece or a footlocker in the attic. They appear overwhelmed with unfamiliar emotions but express a universal sentiment: he’s back where he belongs.
Most of these long-awaited homecomings are an attempt to rectify “a series of errors by several individuals… and a series of unavoidable circumstances” unique to the Tarawa campaign. The massively bloody battle littered the tiny island of Betio with six thousand corpses over a matter of days. Before the shooting even stopped, Naval Construction Battalions (Seabees) began repairing roads and building new infrastructure. Within days, American aircraft could land on the former Japanese airstrip. By March 1944, Naval Air Base Hawkins Field was a familiar home to Navy and Army Air Corps bomber squadrons who flew strikes as far away as the Marshall Islands. Between the crew’s tents and Quonset huts sat pristine cemeteries with immaculate rows of crosses. Individual graves lay beside duckboards and under trees, as if to remind the airmen and sailors of the island’s cost. The cemeteries – all forty-one of them – were neatly organized into the jigsaw of base roads and buildings, as if by design. This turned out to be the case: original burials were “beautified and reconstructed” by the garrison troops. While the scale of the project was proudly presented to Marine Corps authorities, the “memorial” nature of these monuments received little mention, and less attention.
Thus, when the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company (QMGRC) arrived in 1946 to consolidate the cemeteries in preparation for shipment home, they expected a physically strenuous but relatively straightforward operation. However, after weeks of frustrating effort the 604th QMGRC only found “about fifty per cent of the bodies previously reported buried on that Atoll… of that number, only about 58% were identified.”[3] This stunning admission triggered a ripple of criticism in military channels – and a tidal wave of righteous anger from the families of the fallen, who had been assured of their loved one’s proper burial and now struggled to grasp how a body could seemingly disappear. Anthropologists working at the Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu spent two years searching for clues in bones, teeth, and personnel records; their efforts identified 186 men. Added to the 215 identified by the 604th QMGRC, and the 116 known buried at sea, the total stood at 517 cases resolved – and five hundred more declared permanently non-recoverable.
The Marine Corps desired an inquest into the perceived failure of the 604th QMGRC, but this was ultimately denied. Navy Inspector General Charles Lockwood decided that the fault lay, not with the fifty men who exhumed the remains, but to a much longer series of poor decisions and practices set in motion before the first Marine set foot on Betio. These choices, and the “unavoidable circumstances” of war, created the difficulties that have plagued recovery efforts from 1946 to the present day.
Part I: The Aftermath
The worst part of the whole battle is the aftermath,
when you have to bury your dead.
Lewis Michelony, D/1/6th Marines
Hardly a square yard of Betio was free from the evidence of violent death.
The island – said to resemble a bird lying on its back – was barely 300 acres of sand just a few feet above sea level.[4] An airstrip stretched diagonally across its widest point. Around the flat paved surface and wooden aircraft revetments lay scores of fortifications and strong points, an apex example of Japanese defensive engineering. Concrete blockhouses covered with sand, palm-log bunkers and anti-boat gun pits, slit trenches and minefields and firing ports in sea walls. It was small wonder that Admiral Keiji Shibazaki boasted that “it would take one million men one hundred years” to conquer the island.
Instead, it took the V Amphibious Corps – mainly the 2nd Marine Division with supporting naval sea and air forces – a few days. Admiral Shibazaki and nearly five thousand members of his garrison, which included Japanese combat units and Korean labor troops, perished almost to a man.[5] They sold their lives dearly: over a thousand Marines and sailors fell in the surf, on the beaches, and among the shell holes and fallen palms. Their bodies dotted the island and washed in the waves.
They could not remain where they fell, but getting them underground was a massive logistical hurdle for which the combat troops were poorly equipped. The scope of destruction and the sheer number of casualties were stupefying.
The first blow against successful identification of Betio’s dead came in November 1943, before the battle even ended. A trio of Lockwood’s “unavoidable circumstances” – the need for rapid burial, inconsistent identification, and untrained personnel – would have disastrous repercussions in the years to come.
Rapid Burial: Sanitation and Morale
“What I saw on Betio was, I am certain, one of the greatest works of devastation wrought by man,” wrote Robert Sherrod. “Words are inadequate to describe what I saw on this island of less than a square mile. So are pictures – you can’t smell pictures.”[6]
Tarawa is located just a few degrees off the equator; temperatures during the battle reached into the triple digits, and the heat and humidity created ideal conditions for putrefaction. Sherrod observed the bodies of several Japanese soldiers “already turning a sickly green, though they have been corpses only two days.”[7] Bodies turned black, swelled, and ruptured. A stench permeated the air; a “miasma of coral dust and death, nauseating and horrifying,” in the words of Major General Holland M. Smith.[8] Pilots flying over Betio were sickened by the smell; the experience of men on the ground, like Platoon Sergeant Roger Scovill (Battery M, 10th Marines) defies the imagination.
The odor was overwhelming. It was like a burning garbage dump. If you’ve ever experienced the smell of burning hair – all those bodies cremated by burning or the sun – any body lying in the open would begin to boil, the fluids in the body. Within a very short period – let’s say, two, three hours – the only way we could tell a Marine from a Japanese was by the web gear that we were wearing and by the armament that the man had. It was a very, very extreme situation to observe.[9]
PFC Wilfrid A. Urban (H/2/6th Marines), who fought on the nearby island of Buariki, concurred. “We had to wrap the remains in a poncho and remove one of the dog tags before the burial. The smell of death was so strong we could only stand the job for a 15 [or] 20-minute period. It does not take long in 120-degree heat for a human body to decompose. That was one job I never want to experience again.[10]
Corporal Michael Witowich (K/3/8th Marines) likened the smell to “cat manure,” and recalled feelings of stomach-turning nausea and anger. “Makes you want to puke. I put some cotton in my nose, but the smell was horrible, with the maggots crawling over the bodies, over their eyes and mouth. And we sat there eating our rations – a dead Jap here, a dead Marine there. I was very bitter about losing my buddies. Seeing them lying there, burying them, leaves an awful feeling in your heart.”[11]
Exposure to rotting flesh was bad for sanitation; the sight of decomposing friends was bad for morale. The combined effect reduced the fighting efficacy of the surviving Marines. Therefore, getting dead men underground as rapidly as possible was of utmost importance. This was generally not possible during the first two days of the battle, as the tactical situation was “in doubt” for quite some time.[12]
When the fighting moved on, however, burials happened rapidly. A single cemetery along Beach Red 2 received 112 bodies on 22 November; the next day, the same crew buried 66 more a short distance away. Western Betio was dotted with dozens of individual graves for Marines were buried as a matter of expedience. Their graves, at least, were marked: Japanese and Korean bodies, which outnumbered Americans by about five to one, were simply tossed into craters or fortifications and covered with sand.
Lockwood summed up the issue in his 1947 investigation:
Unfortunately, the necessary speed of burials meant that proper identification was not always taken from the dead, nor were the locations of graves properly marked – which in turn exacerbated the second and third “unavoidable circumstances.”
Inconsistent Identification
According to regulations, every man in Naval service was supposed to have a pair of metal identification tags in his possession at all times. “These tags are prescribed as a part of the uniform,” instructed the 1940 Marine Corps Manual, “and when not worn as directed… will be habitually kept in the possession of the owner.”[14] The tags were stamped (or acid etched, for those of longer service) with the name, service number, religious preference, blood type, date of last tetanus shot, and USMC or USN. While the format and material used varied slightly based on place and date of issue – some tags even included fingerprints on the back – the tags were such a vital part of a Marine’s kit that they were subject to scrutiny at inspection. The reasoning was plain, in the Manual’s own language:
In order to secure proper interment for those who fall in battle, and to establish beyond a doubt their identity, should it become desirable subsequently to disinter the remains for removal to a national or post cemetery or for shipment home, the identification tag suspended from the neck of the officer or enlisted man will in all cases be interred with the body. The duplicate tag attached thereto will be removed at the time of the burial and turned over to the surgeon or person in charge of the burial, from which a record of same, together with the cause and date of death, shall be made and reported to the commanding officer.[15]
The tags themselves, however, were small and easily lost. Men unaccustomed to wearing items around the neck took to carrying tags in their pockets. Cords might break on field exercises or on liberty. And the Corps was very clear that while the first pair was issued free, the cost of replacement tags would come out of a Marine’s next payday. Thus at any given time, a certain percentage of any Marine unit was without their regulation tags.
Some men lost tags accidentally, others deliberately. The 2nd Marine Division went into Operation GALVANIC with an unusual superstition: identification tags brought bad luck. Where this belief arose, and how prevalent it was, is difficult to determine – but it was notable enough to be remarked upon by persons interviewed for Lockwood’s investigation. Some Marines just chucked their tags, while others “would exchange tags as a good luck measure.” The effect of this practice had tragic implications when they went into battle. Chaplain William Lumpkin (2nd Marine Division) remarked that “in almost one-third of the cases [he buried on Betio], no identification was found on the bodies.”[16]
Before landing on 21 November 1943, First Sergeant Lewis Michelony (D/1/ 6th Marines) “made sure the men had dog tags before they landed, and that they had a first-aid kit. They were ‘musts,'” he explained, “because that was the only way that you could identify anybody.” He went on to explain how this worked in practice:
Then, of course, there was the impact of violent death. Platoon Sergeant Scovill commented that “Marines who were fortunate enough not to have their dog tags blown away” were more easily identified: the obvious implication is that many were not so fortunate.[18] A Marine Corps casualty card for PFC Raymond Warren includes a unique notation: “The head was practically severed from his body and caused the loss of his dog-tags, and later [caused] identification complications to burial authorities.”[19] Warren was buried as an unknown; his remains were eventually located in 2015 and accounted for in 2019.
Identification tags lost all value once removed from a body, and troops with an incomplete understanding of Graves Registration protocols unwittingly compounded identification problems by trying to help. Chaplain Warren Wyeth Willard of the 8th Marines recalled a conversation with one Private Yontz who “took the identification tags from [several] bodies and placed the tags into the hands of a Marine Colonel.” Yontz provided twelve names: one was an error, another man was only wounded, and the remaining ten were buried as unknowns.[20] Lieutenant (MO) Sol Kozol handed Willard a stack of tags removed from bodies; of those nineteen, at least three were not actually dead, and ten were buried as unknowns.[21] Technically, Yontz and Kozol were following guidelines as prescribed in the Marine Corps Manual – namely, turning tags in to an officer in charge. However, the information was evidently not properly reported or recorded, and the men who put the bodies in the ground had no idea who was who. The dismal ratio – six out of 31 identified at burial – was compounded across the island.
Dog tags were not the only means of identification. Trained corpsmen could fingerprint the unidentified dead – these prints would later be compared against service records of men reported killed or missing. Unfortunately, the condition of remains often made fingerprinting impossible. Many Marines wore sterling silver bracelets inscribed with their names, but these too could be lost or discarded. Chaplain Willard, drawing on his experience handling burials in the Solomon Islands, took care to collect “pocketbooks or other identification material” from corpses and recommended others do the same. “In many cases on divers [sic] parts of the Island of Betio, bodies were in such a state of decomposition that the unpleasant task of searching their outer garments was not carried out,” he wrote in his battle report.[22] However, any named items were usually damp with water or biological fluids, and there was no way to guarantee perfect accuracy in assigning a name from a wallet or notebook to a dead man.
Willard also noted a decidedly ghoulish tendency of Marines who “pilfered… money and valuables before our working parties could reach [the dead].” This was a personal sore point for Willard, who discovered the body of a particular friend whose pack was turned inside out by some rummaging scavenger. The chaplain recommended shore patrols to prevent the “mad rush for souvenirs” until burials were complete, and “all companies be lectured by their commanders regarding the wickedness and depravity of such malicious practices.”[23]
The complications arising from initial misidentification may be seen in Willard’s experience with “Navy and Marine Corps Cemetery #1.” He buried 112 men on 22 November 1943 and kept a detailed roster of individual names. Ten of these names are known to be wrong: either the individual survived the battle, or never existed at all. (Willard was not prone to guessing or fabrication: these names came from some unknown, and inaccurate source – possibly misplaced personal effects.) Another 21 men were not identifiable by any means, and from these, only six were in any condition to be fingerprinted. Thus, 31 of 112 – or 28% – of the men buried in a single cemetery had their identities compromised or obliterated within hours of death. And Willard, as will be seen, was among the most capable and conscientious of men when it came to handling the dead.
Lack of Trained Personnel
I didn’t know at that time that there was a graves registration service.
The battle for Guadalcanal gave the Marine Corps its first opportunity to develop Graves Registration protocols in the field: with the limited guidance of Army Technical Manual 10-630 “Graves Registration” and a healthy dose of common sense, they managed surprisingly well until the Army arrived. Among the lessons learned was the need for a Marine-specific Graves Registration organization, and the first such unit – an ad hoc group cobbled together from service troops – was formed by I Amphibious Corps in December 1942. However, this group existed only for a brief time before disbanding, and while division-level units made efforts to organize units to assist with cemetery burials it was far from a top priority.
While the 2nd Marine Division had a dedicated Graves Registration Section as part of their Service and Supply Company, none of these personnel were physically present for Operation GALVANIC. “The Graves Registration Section, as such, never landed at Betio,” commented Admiral Lockwood, “nor was any of its equipment available to forces ashore during the first days of the invasion.”[26] Instead, according to Chaplain Willard, each regiment of the Division was assigned a squad of eight service troops to assist with graves registration activities. These squads had at least rudimentary training – but this did not much matter in practice, as Willard writes “many of these men were drafted for working parties and were not allowed to do what they had been trained to do.”[27] Instead, Willard had to rely on two personal assistants (Assistant Cook Marion Gonzales and PhM3c Edward Rosenberg) and whatever working parties he could commandeer.
The dearth of trained Graves Registration personnel was not felt in the collection of bodies or digging of graves; labor could be done by anyone available, as Platoon Sergeant Scovill relates: “Every man who was physically able to work, had to assist in bearing the dead from the third day to the tenth in organized parties.”[28]Specific knowledge pertaining to identification, mapping of burials, marking of graves, and accurate record keeping was not part of a regular Marine’s training. While chaplains and their assistants worked on large cemeteries, smaller graves were dug all over Betio by men taking care of fallen comrades in arms. Markers were crafted from sticks or scrap lumber, or with a helmet-topped rifle stuck in the ground. Locations were sometimes inaccurately reported, or not reported at all. An examination of primary sources reveals a dizzying array of burial locations: West Division Cemetery, Wireless Station Cemetery, Division Cemetery #3, Map Coordinates KH10035, “next to the Japanese cement mixer.” Some locations had multiple names; some Marines are reported as buried in two, three, or four different places. The Graves Registration Section had to piece together a casualty report from all of these different sources, and their final effort was inevitably incomplete. For example: in their February 1944 “Recapitulation of Known Graves,” the GRS Section reports two “isolated” burial locations with a total of seven bodies. In reality at least thirty-three isolated graves amounting to more than fifty bodies are known to have existed.
In the end, the lack of on-the-spot regulated oversight by trained personnel resulted in spotty, confusing, and often contradictory records. When looking at Marine Corps casualty records for Tarawa, the most common refrain is some form of “burial details unknown.”
Part II: Burial Details
A Chaplain commandeered our services to help bury our dead. We'd drag the bodies out of the surf, he'd clip a dog tag, and we'd put them in a bomb crater where a bulldozer would cover them up.
Richard Frise, 2nd Special Weapons Battalion
Although the work was rapid by necessity and complicated by the aforementioned “unavoidable circumstances,” the combat Marines on Betio still did their best to care for their dead buddies with reverence and dignity. The types of burials they effected fall generally into three broad categories: inadvertent, isolated, and cemetery.
Inadvertent Burial
As the name implies, these bodies were covered up either during the battle – for example, by exploding artillery – or accidentally during cleanup and construction. There is no accurate way to count how many of Betio’s dead fall into this grouping, but we do know that it happened because their remains are occasionally found by construction workers or citizens of Kiribati – such as the 1974 discovery of a buried LVT, with American bodies still inside.
The case of PFC Randolph Allen may serve as an example. Allen, a rifleman from Rush, Kentucky, was reported as killed in action on 20 November 1943 – “burial details unknown.” His skeletal remains were found in 2013, entangled with four Japanese soldiers. Archaeologists noted a stratum of blackened sand and the “pugilistic” posture of two bodies, which indicated the scorching heat of a flamethrower. It appeared that Allen and the four Japanese soldiers had all died together in a shell hole which was later filled in – either by debris from another explosion, or by Marines seeking to cover up enemy dead without realizing one of their own lay there too.
Isolated Burial
While the term “isolated interment” conjures up an image of a lonely single grave – and, indeed, this was often the case – the term has a specific definition. The 1941 edition of Technical Manual 10-630 “Graves Registration” stipulates that any grouping of less than twelve graves “will be considered as isolated burials.” By contrast, twelve or more graves “were to be established, marked, registered, and reported as a cemetery.”[29]The nature of the fighting on Betio and the need for swift burial resulted in many “isolated” graves containing anywhere from one to eight bodies.
It is not known for certain how many of these graves originally existed on Betio. Thirty-three were well-marked and conspicuous enough to survive until the Navy’s “beautification” process began in 1944; others may have been damaged or destroyed without any record of their original location. The majority of known isolated graves (later turned into memorials) were located on western Betio where the 2nd Marines faced heavy fighting.
Cemetery Burial
Graves Registration protocols dictated that isolated burials were to be avoided whenever practical in favor of larger cemeteries. This made sense even to those without any specific training: gathering remains together made record keeping and eventual recovery easier. The 2nd Marine Division followed this guidance in the Solomon Islands and repeated the practice on Betio. The first cemeteries were established before the fighting ended.
In this brief clip from “With The Marines at Tarawa,” two men identified as chaplain’s assistants are removing dog tags from fallen Marines.
The chaplains rendered great service but could not be everywhere at once. In their absence, burials were accomplished “by organization” – platoons, companies, or battalions taking care of their own fallen. There are two standout accounts of cemeteries established by rank-and-file Marines seeking to provide their friends with some semblance of proper burial. First Sergeant Lewis Michelony described the origins of “Gilbert Islands Cemetery”:
I told each platoon they would have to send so many men to pick up Japanese and Marines. Where we were, there was no graveyard. There was a big tank trap, so we laid Japanese down on one side of the tank trap, and on the other side we laid Marines down. We had gotten parachutes, torn the silk off, and made masks. The smell was sickening, just terrible! There were four men with a poncho, and they would pick up a dead man (or a part of a man) and they would lay him down. When we got to [1Lt. Hugh D.] Fricks I took my mess gear out, and I carved his name and officer number and rank on it, and I put KIA 23 November 1943 on it. We didn’t have crosses [markers] then.
I would go to my men, and I’d ask them, if I didn’t recognize a body, “Okay, you were his platoon. What happened to Jim Jones? What was wrong with him?” “He got hit.” “Where did he get hit?” “He got hit in the head, a gunshot wound to the head, evacuation unknown aboard ship.” Or they might answer, “Killed in action and buried.” In some cases, I got the burial place where they were buried.
This was the worst job I ever had. Nobody told me, from any other war or battle, what you did with your casualties, you know. I never even gave it a thought, but then when it happened, all these things just sort of came to you.[37]
A half-dozen Marines, members of the engineer regiment, are walking around the beach, examining the bodies. “Here’s Larson,” says one. “Here’s Montague,” says another. The bodies, as they are identified, are tenderly gathered up and taken fifteen or twenty yards inland where other Marines are digging graves for them.
This is unusual, because most of the Marines are being gathered by burial parties, which have not progressed this far. But these men are looking for dead from their own particular company. Since they are leaving by transport in a few hours, I suppose they think “Here is the last thing we can do for these boys we have known so long. We’ll do it with our own hands.”[39]
The dead men, members of Company D, Second Battalion, 18th Marines, were shot down within moments of coming ashore on 20 November – “their boots were only ten feet from the water,” according to Corporal William Bennett.[40] Sherrod walked on without witnessing the actual burial; so author Brent Peterson takes up Bennett’s story. “They decided that Lieutenant [Richard W.] Vincent should be buried in the first grave to the east, as he was their leader. One by one they carried bodies from the water’s edge to the fresh graves, wrapped them in the brown and green ponchos and placed them in the sand. Some of their bodies had to be bent back into a suitable shape for burial, and at best they only slightly resembled the living Marines that their friends remembered. Corporal August Gustafson fashioned wooden crosses for each man; names were written in grease pencil, along with ‘USMC’ and ’20-11-43.’ Gustafson made an additional, larger cross inscribed with ‘D-2-18.’[41]
Sherrod hits upon another important fact: the Marines were leaving Betio. The Red Beach burial took place on 24 November as combat units were in the process of boarding transports. Notice came swiftly, as Chaplain Willard wrote: “At 0600 I took a walk. On one little sector I discovered 72 of our dead Marines, that had not been buried. At 0700 received notice that we would have to go aboard ship at 0900. Made 66 crosses, put on names and dog tags. Packed gear.”[42]
The departure of the 2nd Marine Division meant that additional burial records and casualty reports had to be compiled after the fact. Record keepers like 1Sgt. Michelony had to make the rounds of squads and platoons inquiring after men who failed to answer at muster. Approximately 200 men were initially reported as “missing in action,” and the majority of these were later declared dead. It took months, and in some cases up to a year, to finalize the whereabouts of every man who fell on Betio.
In the meanwhile, the remainder of battlefield cleanup was left in the hands of Navy garrison troops – men who lacked an immediate personal connection to the Marines who died to take the island. The last burials on Betio, for bodies far past individual identification, was less “the last thing we can do” and more an unpleasant chore to be completed as quickly as possible.
On 1 December 1943, a memorial service was held for the fallen. Men from the 6th Marines, the defense battalions, Seabees and naval aviators gathered beside the airfield to hear Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish services pronounced over the East Division Cemetery. The ceremony was brief: the day, like most, was sweltering and hot, and there was a long list of tasks ahead for those charged with transforming Betio into a fully functioning air facility. As they dispersed back to their routine, however, the garrison troops – especially the Seabees – had little notion of how much sweat they would pour into the island’s many cemeteries.
Part III: Reconstruct & Beautify
“So there let them rest
On their sun-scoured atoll..."
Memorial cemetery dedication, Betio
Photograph for LIFE Magazine by J. R. Eyerman
V Amphibious Corps did not expend a thousand lives to conquer Betio for the sole purpose of wiping out a Japanese garrison. The tiny island was just barely big enough for an airstrip – one that placed American bombers in range of strategic targets elsewhere in the Pacific. Securing the airfield for rapid use was so mission critical that American fire support took pains to avoid hitting the runway – a remarkable feat, since the runway covered most of the island’s surface. The first American aircraft touched down on Betio on 24 November 1943; by 1 December, Navy fighter squadrons were operating from Betio, and on Christmas Eve the airfield launched a heavy bomber strike on Wotje. In less than a month, American troops repaired or constructed “two coral runways, one 150 feet by 6,150 feet, the other 300 feet by 5,600 feet [with] adequate taxiways, night lighting, control tower, communications, and gasoline facilities.”[43] The base became known as “Naval Air Station Hawkins Field” after 1Lt. William D. Hawkins, a Marine who fell in action at Tarawa.
The man in charge was Commander Erl Clinton Barker Gould. A veteran aviator of considerable reputation, Gould had most recently served as executive officer of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, a massive training base for Navy and Marine pilots. He arrived at Betio as skipper of ACORN-14, an advanced base construction unit, and was soon placed in charge of Hawkins Field.[44] On 9 February 1944, Gould was named “Island Commander, Betio” – a tenure that would last through June. His efforts to bring Hawkins Field into fighting condition “under nearly continuous enemy bombing activity” earned him a Legion of Merit, with specific praise for “personal foresight and resourcefulness” overcoming “adverse working conditions of the worst sort.”[45]
Gould fully appreciated the sacrifice of life required to secure Betio. He saw forlorn Marine graves dotting the island everywhere he looked, and his ACORN-14 men buried “several more known members of the Second [Marine] Division…. [and] a substantial number of unknown bodies… mutilated beyond recognition.”[46] Gould witnessed burial ceremonies for men who died in bombing raids, operational accidents, and a horrific double crash of two B-24 bombers shortly after takeoff on 21 January 1944. He felt not only the immediate loss of young men and comrades, but could easily imagine the pain of families at home: his two sons were elsewhere in the Pacific, serving in the Marine Corps.
“To Reconstruct and Beautify..."
The Island Commander’s plan called for replacing the original Marine burial grounds with landscaped memorials, laid out by the book and maintained by the garrison. Regulation white crosses would replace scrap lumber, paths and boundaries would be neatly defined, and painted plaques would invite reverence and reflection from the men stationed on Betio. This approach, Gould felt, would appropriately commemorate sacrifice while conveniently opening space for additional construction, for the memorials could be rotated or relocated according to the needs of Hawkins Field. Crucially, there were no plans to move any of the dead men.
Gould’s idea was ambitious, and he had the skilled workers to pull it off. Many of the men under his command were “Seabees” – members of 98th Naval Construction Battalion or 549th Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit who spent their civilian lives as professional carpenters, builders, and machine operators. Lieutenant Elmer J. Miller drafted the designs for the new memorials, while Lieutenant A. E. Dishman of the 549th CMBU organized the work force. Lieutenant Francis T. Cooke was charged with “the identification and recording of graves,” ensuring the correct number of memorial markers. Cooke’s job was immense: Gould wanted markers for every man who fell in the battle – even those who were buried at sea.
Before and after beautification. At left, “Division Cemetery #2” with the original crosses made by Chaplain Willard and his assistants. At right, the same area, now called “Cemetery 25”
The Navy also did some administrative clean-up on the cemeteries. While Marine records gave burial grounds a multitude of descriptive (and conflicting) names, Gould’s Island Command decided on a simple numbering system. Most references to Tarawa’s cemeteries use the Navy system for the sake of simplicity.
| Marine Corps Name (if any) | Navy Number |
|---|---|
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
|
“Single grave on east end of Betio Island” |
Isolated Grave 9 |
|
Cemetery B Cemetery Green B 2nd Marines Cemetery #2 |
Monument Cemetery 10 |
|
West Division Cemetery |
Memorial Cemetery 11 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Grave 12 |
|
Cemetery A Cemetery Green A 2nd Marines Cemetery #3 Beach Red 1 Cemetery |
Monument Cemetery 13 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 14, 15, 16A, 16B, 17, 18, 19 |
|
D-2-18 Cemetery |
Monument Cemetery 20 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 21, 22, 23, 24 |
|
Beach Red 2 Cemetery Navy & Marine Corps Cemetery #2 1/8th Marines Cemetery Central Division Cemetery, 8th Marines #1 |
Memorial Cemetery 25 |
|
Beach Red 2 Cemetery Navy & Marine Corps Cemetery #1 Central Division Cemetery |
Memorial Cemetery 26 |
| Marine Corps Name (if any) | Navy Number |
|---|---|
|
8th Marines Cemetery #2 Division Cemetery #3 Cemetery 3 |
Monument Cemetery 27 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Grave 28 |
|
“Grid Location 213085” “Near airport, isolated grave” “Next to Japanese cement mixer near Hawkins Field” |
Isolated Grave 29 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 30, 31 |
|
6th Marines Cemetery #1 |
Isolated Grave 32 |
|
East Division Cemetery Cemetery 1 |
Memorial Cemetery 33 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 34, 35, 36 |
|
“Grid Location 213085” |
Isolated Grave 37 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Grave 38 |
|
“KH 238072 D-2 Map 14 Oct 43” |
Isolated Grave 39 |
|
[none] |
Isolated Graves 40, 41 |
Administrative decisions separated the reconstructed cemeteries into three main categories, generally based on the number of men originally buried nearby – but also with an eye to the needs of the expanding base.
Memorial Cemeteries
The most conspicuous and largest projects, these constructions looked like formal cemeteries one might see on a military post back home. Four of these cemeteries were installed on Betio. Gould described their locations using landmarks that veterans of the battle could identify from memory:
“The main one where memorial services were held on 1 December 1943 just south of the airstrip near the turning circle” (Cemetery 33)
“Another immediately south of Colonel Shoup’s original headquarters” (Cemetery 26)
“A third about one hundred yards southwest of the tree upon which our Colors were first raised” (Cemetery 25)
“The fourth a short distance inland from the northwest end of Betio” (Cemetery 11)
Each Memorial Cemetery was laid out to exacting dimensions, from the size of the individual markers (“thirty-six inches high, painted white”) to the spacing of plots (“three feet side to side, in rows nine feet apart”). Coconut log borders and fencing marked the edges. Every Memorial Cemetery featured a decorative plaque, “shellacked to withstand the weather and inscribed with gold leaf.” These plaques all bore the same message:
Here lie Officers and Men of the Second United States Marine Division…
who fell in action on this atoll
November 20-24, 1943
A few lines of verse, jointly composed for the occasion by Captain Jackson R. Tate (USN) and Colonel Vivian Fox-Strangeways (British Resident Commissioner) were inscribed over a Marine emblem:
So there let them rest
On their sun-scoured 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.
A fifth cemetery went up on the island of Buariki, where the Second Battalion, 6th Marines chased down and eliminated the last Japanese forces in the Tarawa atoll. In this case, the old markers were simply replaced with regulation crosses, with fencing and plaques added. There was no attempt – and no need – to do much else; Buariki was not intended for military development.
Although constructed atop existing Marine Corps graves, the four Memorial Cemeteries on Betio were laid out to conform with the needs of base construction rather than to replicate the original burial order. Cemeteries 25 and 26 made a nod to accuracy: the Navy installed one marker for each man, known or unknown, on the Marine burial records. Massive Cemetery 33 and cross-shaped Cemetery 11, centerpieces of the project, contained many more memorial markers than men. Gould openly stated that “all cemeteries on Betio Island bear a memorial aspect in that accurate detail to locate every cross has never been available. Furthermore, crosses have been erected in them for a large number of men reported missing and others buried under memorial monuments so that there stands a cross in memory of every officer and man who fell here.”[51]
However, not every grave was purely ceremonial. Men who died during the occupation of Betio were buried in Cemetery 33, alongside the empty graves commemorating the battle casualties.
Monument Cemeteries
While the Memorial Cemeteries contained individual markers for all casualties, Commander Gould decided that “at four sites… where substantial numbers of officers and men are known to have been buried, it has appeared appropriate to erect memorial monuments.” These Monument memorials took the shape of imposing log crosses about ten feet high, and a plaque fashioned to look like an open book. The painters applied their talents to include the names of every man (or number of unknowns) buried nearby, along with an excerpt from John Mansfield’s poem “Truth”:
Man with his burning soul
Hath but an hour of breath
To build himself a ship of truth
In which his soul may sail –
Sail on the sea of death
For death takes toll
Of beauty, courage, youth
Of all but truth.
The Monument Cemeteries – which the Navy named “Cemetery 10,” “Cemetery 13,” “Cemetery 20,” and “Cemetery 27” – replaced four sizable Marine Corps burial sites. Original markers were taken down and discarded; the monuments, in most cases, were planted directly atop the bodies. Notably, the Monument Cemeteries stood in heavier traffic areas where a smaller footprint was more convenient for military operations.
A fifth monument (the Coastwatcher Memorial) was also placed, presumably at the suggestion of Colonel Fox-Strangeways, to commemorate twenty-two British subjects who were executed on Betio in October 1942.
Isolated Graves
Most of the original burials on Betio were “isolated” graves – lone Marines or small groups interred on the spot where they died. Captain Gould’s men marked off thirty-three such graves and attended to each with the same professional precision as the Memorial and Monument Cemeteries. Regulation crosses and coconut log borders could be seen between base buildings, among the aviator’s tents, beside fuel dumps, and along runways.
Gould noted that “a few bodies were moved to avoid necessary construction work over them,” and later copped to “two instances for base construction purposes.” Otherwise, he said, no attempt was made to relocate any remains. However, he added a crucial point of clarification: “Some [isolated] graves… are known to be improperly located. In these instances, bodies well identified by name tags, clothing, etc., were buried at varying distances from the sites shown on the map in question.” This statement makes clear that some isolated graves were only memorials. Gould did not specify which graves were “improperly located,” nor did he mention which two were moved to make way for construction.[52]
Examples of isolated graves after beautification. From left: Cemetery 4, Cemetery 9, Cemetery 23.
However, the graves were nearly all shams – and during the beautification the process, two major cemeteries disappeared completely, without so much as a memorial or a map reference. “While this arrangement of markers undoubtedly improved appearances, it destroyed whatever accuracy the first crude grave markings possessed, making it practically impossible to identify most of the graves in later disinterments,” wrote Commander Lockwood.[55]
Certainly, Erl Gould was not thinking ahead to “later disinterments” – he was focused on winning the war, and the needs of the living always outweighed those of the dead. Navy wartime policy dictated that all remains buried overseas would remain there at the very least until the end of hostilities. Furthermore, Gould was a Great War veteran and knew that most American dead from that conflict were permanently buried in other countries. He could not have anticipated the chaos his project would cause, or the pain and strife it would inflict on the families of the Marines he sought to honor.
The Marine Corps had foreknowledge of the memorial nature of the cemeteries; it was not secret information on Betio. When their Graves Registration representatives returned from a visit to Betio in 1945, they issued a memo to Commandant Alexander Vandegrift:
Investigation made by this Headquarters indicates that graves in the four cemeteries on Betio Island are largely commemorative (unoccupied). In some instances, bodies will be found interred, but it is uncertain whether the bodies interred are actually the bodies indicated by the markings above them. It is understood that in some cases graves marked "unknown" contain parts of bodies only…. It is therefore recommended that all interments in the four cemeteries listed [11, 25, 26, 33] be considered memorial.[56]
Even this warning could not prepare authorities for the reality of the mess they would find on Betio after the war.
Part IV: Recovery & Reburial
At this point our difficulties began.
Isadore Eisensmith, 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company.
The 4th Platoon, 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company landed at Betio on 4 March 1946. They had a big job ahead.
Few Graves Registration Service (GRS) units in the Pacific had as much accumulated experience as the 604th. Activated in 1943, they trained in Hawaii and deployed to the Pacific in time for the New Guinea campaign; their war took them as far north as Iwo Jima. After the surrender, they were detailed to cross the Pacific yet again, revisiting old island battlefields to collect and consolidate the dead from temporary graves, in preparation for a massive repatriation effort unlike any yet attempted. The detachment was led by 1Lt. Isadore “Issy” Eisensmith, with Lieutenant (DC) Henry Robinson as senior medical officer. The enlisted ranks contained embalmers, clerks, dental specialists, bulldozer drivers, and diggers. At Dr. Robinson’s insistence all hands arrived with a rudimentary knowledge of tooth charting – courtesy of a compulsory crash course taught en route to Betio.[58]
As the men unloaded the freighter Lawrence Phillips and cleaned out the fales in which they would live, Lieutenant Eisensmith made a tour of inspection. He counted “approximately 43 graves (cemeteries) containing from one body up to 400.” In keeping with protocol from other islands, Eisensmith planned to collect remains, confirm identities, and rebury everyone in a new location until transport home could be arranged. He found a spot near the old base chapel, negotiated with British officials for its use, and set his bulldozer driver to work pulling stumps.[59] Chaplains Francis W. Kelly and William R. O’Neill, who helped with the battlefield burials on Betio, arrived via airplane from Kwajalein. By 15 March the new cemetery – called “Lone Palm” for the single tree within its boundaries – was cleared, graded, and ready for use; two days later, the first bodies were exhumed from their temporary graves.
Corporal Hubert Clayton Luther, who earned a posthumous Navy Cross with I/3/2nd Marines and was buried on the spot where he died in 1943, was the first body brought to the 604th’s morgue and laboratory. His remains were examined, teeth charted, and any personal effects catalogued. The bones were carefully wrapped in a blanket, then placed into a wooden coffin with duplicate identity tags.
The second was a skeleton uncovered while grading the southwest corner of Lone Palm. He had no personal effects and no means of identification, and after receiving the same thorough examination as Luther, was also placed into a coffin with tags reading “Unknown X-1.” Betio had surrendered its first unknown soldier. As it happened, later laboratory examination revealed that X-1 was almost certainly a Japanese or Korean battle casualty.[60]
On 18 March 1946, Lieutenant Eisensmith divided his platoon into four teams. One would handle operations at Lone Palm while another was assigned to the numerous isolated graves. The other two groups started with the largest cemeteries: Grave 26, with 119 markers, and Grave 33, with 400.[61] It was anticipated that Lone Palm would grow rapidly as the teams worked row-by-row through the massive burial grounds.
Eisensmith must have been aware, at least on some level, that some of the burials on Betio were memorials. At the very least, a conversation with the Garrison Force Commander intimated that Cemetery 11 was “primarily a ‘memorial.'”[62] However, from the sudden tone of dismay in his operation report, the true scope of the problem evidently caught him by surprise. “At this point,” he wrote, “our difficulties began.”
After two days of excavating no bodies had been recovered. This created much concern. Father O’Neill, who buried Marine dead on this spot shortly after the invasion, finally made the suggestion that we see if traces of the original rows could be found.
Originally, the remains were buried side by side in three rows. These rows were supposed to be diagonal to certain tree stumps. By a series of prospect excavations and narrow trenches, the middle row was found first. Later the other two rows were found. These rows were also diagonal to the way the cemetery was laid out.[63]
The team at Cemetery 26 faced similar problems: no bodies under the five rows of markers. Father Kelly – who worked with Chaplain Willard in 1943 to bury men on this spot – recalled the original three-row layout and suggested digging a trench all the way across the cemetery. His idea bore fruit, and the three rows were located. Soon all four GRS teams were laboring in the Cemeteries 26 and 33, so that approximately 30 remains arrived at Lone Palm Cemetery for reburial each day. Kelly and O’Neill conducted daily services.
Finding the bodies was only part of the challenge. Because the Marines had been buried as they fell, many still had live ammunition and grenades on their person. The grenades were particularly dangerous as the handles were badly corroded: one exploded but caused no injuries. Father O’Neill and T/Sgt Angelo S. Galluzzi designated themselves as UXO disposal and dumped the rusting munitions into the sea. A Japanese mine was unearthed in Cemetery 26 and safely removed. Work was delayed by heavy rain, intense heat, and a fire that burned down part of the mess hall.
Cemetery 26 was declared “closed” on 26 March; 123 bodies had been found, instead of the expected 119, and the workers started in on Cemetery 25. Now wise to the nature of memorial cemeteries, they started right in with a test trench and quickly found the original burials running perpendicular to the rows of crosses. The same troubles plagued Cemetery 25 – missing or illegible tags, random grenades, poor dental work – and it took nearly a week to finish the job. Cemetery 25 was closed on 2 April; so was Cemetery 33, where only 129 bodies were found under 600 markers.
These cemeteries gave Eisensmith and Robinson a worrisome preview of the identification process.
Very few of the remains had any means of identification such as regulation tags, shoes, or names stenciled on their web equipment and ponchos.
The identification tags found were almost useless to us for the chemical reaction of the coral had corroded them until they were illegible. Most of the tags were almost disintegrated when found by us.
Tooth charts were not of much value… it appeared that additional dental work had been done since the original charts were made and no record kept of it.
The tooth charts taken from the remains did not check with those furnished by [the] Marine Corps for the person whose identification tags were found. It seems that the Marines had traded identification tags for reasons unknown.[64]
Lieutenant Eisensmith, accompanied by nine soldiers and four Gilbertese islanders, sailed fifteen miles to the island of Bairiki to exhume remains from the cemetery there. Bairiki, codenamed “SARAH” during the war, was the scene of a short but vicious fight on 27 November 1943. Japanese troops attempting to escape Betio ran into the Second Battalion, 6th Marines and were wiped out to a man; the Marines suffered 34 killed in action. The 604th must have groaned to see another manicured, fenced cemetery – but much to their surprise, Bairki turned out to be a textbook operation. Thirty-two of the thirty-four bodies were found under the correct markers; the other two were located after a half day of searching. Two men were buried under the wrong markers but checks of ID tags and dental charts resolved the issue in short order. Only one man was designated as an unknown, but later laboratory analysis correctly named him as PFC Roger W. Dehring of E/2/6th Marines. The entire Bairiki operation took just two days.
Eisensmith returned to find work on all isolated graves completed. This effort had been somewhat successful, but still “it was found that many of the graves did not contain all the remains reported buried there.”[65] Clearly, some of the isolated graves had also been memorials; others were determined to be underwater.[66] Unfortunately, the 604th did not specify which isolated burials were problematic, but tallying up their reports of interment suggests as many as 18 of the 33 isolated graves either had unidentifiable remains or no remains at all.
The 604th took a well-earned weekend break, enjoying payday, a wreath-laying service at Lone Palm, and “a very good U.S.O. show” in the evening. They were back at work on Monday, 8 April. One group went to Cemetery 11, “the cross cemetery near the Chaple [sic]” while others tackled the first of the monument cemeteries: Grave 18 (formerly Navy Cemetery 10) and Grave 14 (formerly Navy Cemetery 13).[67]
The Cemetery 11 crew anticipated trouble from the beginning, having been told by the Garrison Force Commander that 11 was “primarily a memorial.” It took two days of digging to find the first two bodies – and then nothing but sand for a solid week. Diggers were dismayed to find seawater seeping into the excavation. Work was suspended pending the arrival of a pump from Kwajalein.
Grave 14 and Grave 18 faced a different set of problems. There were no real guidelines on where to dig; remains were supposed to be in the vicinity – 42 at Grave 14, 20 at Grave 18 – but no plots to exhume. Test holes and trenches were dug with no success. Finally, somebody at Grave 14 suggested looking under the massive cross monument. A chain was looped around the base, and the cross dragged onto the beach with one of the garrison’s clapped-out heavy trucks. Beneath the concrete pedestal lay the dead Marines. The cross at Grave 18 was quickly removed, and work on both locations progressed quickly. Grave 14 recovered 41 remains, while Grave 18 found nineteen.[68]
Simultaneously, a small group boated over to the island of Buota to exhume a small cemetery next to Mullinix Field. They expected ten remains but located two dozen, including the elaborate grave of Navy Commander George Tilghman. No less impressive was the commander’s casket – a steel-and-wood construction unlike any other encountered in the Gilberts.[69] “Contrary to all the other cemeteries on Tarawa, there was no doubt about the identification of these remains,” noted Eisensmith. “Index cards with all pertinent information were found buried in each of the caskets.”[70]
Back on Betio, the crews started work on Cemeteries 20 and 27. Cemetery 20, located near the British wireless station, was the old D-2-18 Cemetery of which Robert Sherrod wrote. All of the remains were found – except for Captain Richard Vincent, the platoon leader buried in the easternmost grave. From start to finish, operations at Cemetery 20 took only two days.
Cemetery 27, by contrast, was a complete failure. The 604th expected to find 40 bodies under the big cross monument – but none were found. The pit reached a depth of seven feet, twice that of a normal Betio burial, and still no trace of any remains. Frustrated, the 604th branched out. “Explorative excavations were started throughout the area,” wrote Lieutenant Eisensmith. “At the same time, trenches were started in front of the four large Quonsets in the area around the boat basin, but all this work was in vain…. The area around the barber shop and the area along both sides of the road was dug up, but no remains, no remnants of equipment, or any other debris that would have indicated a burial place were found.” The soldiers spent half a month working on Cemetery 27 before abandoning the project on 1 May.[71]
With the ongoing debacle of Cemetery 27 weighing on his mind, Lieutenant Eisensmith badly needed some good news. He got it on the morning of 24 April: the long-awaited water pump for Cemetery 11 arrived by airplane, along with a replacement for the unit photographer, Corporal Robert Tingle. However, the day turned tragic shortly after the aircraft departed: a large plume of black smoke rose above the lagoon, and “immediately everyone seemed to know that the C-47 had crashed.” A rescue boat raced to the scene and was met by a small fleet of Gilbertese canoes. The bodies of Lieutenant Colonel Fred O. Tyler, Captain Robert B. Poteet, and Captain Wesley J. Siedenburg were fished from the water that afternoon; a few days later, the lower half of one man’s body was recovered from the wreckage. There was no hope of individual identification, so the legs were declared a “group burial” representing Captain William A. Lanman, Cpl. John R. Whitehead, Jr., Cpl. William M. Young, and Cpl. Robert Tingle. The seven men were given a military funeral and joined the dead of Tarawa in Lone Palm Cemetery.
In early May, the 604th’s journal commented that “the end of operations seems to be near.” Teams were still working in the waterlogged Cemetery 11, and a contingent sailed 90 miles to Apamama to collect eleven more remains. Idle soldiers were assigned to fill in and level off the excavated graves. Chaplains Kelly and O’Neill flew out of Betio, on their way to discharge and home. Dental technicians made final checks of records against unidentified remains, and nineteen battle casualties had their names properly assigned. The new photographer, LaTerre, took pictures of every unidentified skull. Exhumations were completed and the remnants of the memorial cemeteries hauled to the dump. Lone Palm was itself “beautified” with coral pathways, chain fencing, a flagpole, and newly planted trees. On 20 May 1946, Eisensmith authorized a beer party for his men in recognition of two months of hard work.[72]
He must have admitted, as he looked over the four plots of white crosses, that the cemetery was much smaller than he had hoped it would be. Lone Palm contained only 527 remains – and 274 were under markers labeled “unknown.”[73]
The Lost Cemeteries
Chief among the omissions at Lone Palm were nearly 90 battle casualties from three major cemeteries that were never located by the 604th. The failure to find approximately 40 remains at Cemetery 27 was well documented, but two others were not mentioned in the unit’s report at all.
The first was “Gilbert Island Cemetery,” originally created by 1Sgt. Michelony and his comrades from the 6th Marines, with 33 reported remains. Its more common name – “East Division Cemetery, Row D” – is something of a misnomer, for the grave was never within the established boundaries of East Division. Photographs show Rows A, B, and C, but no fourth row. (Chaplain O’Neill conducted memorial services at East Division after the battle; when he returned to Betio in 1946, he would have remembered seeing only three rows of markers.)
Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown, no memorial was raised over “Row D” during the beautification process and its precise location was not known to the 604th. It is certain that they searched for it; among their files was a burial roster for Row D, and Chaplain O’Neill was himself a veteran of the 6th Marines – he would not have allowed so many of his old comrades to be ignored. Although one man reportedly interred in “Row D” was identified, none of the rest were found, and the search was ultimately abandoned.[74]
The other lost cemetery is more of a mystery. Known as “Beach Green Cemetery C” or “2nd Marines Cemetery #1,” it once stood along the western shore of Betio and held the remains of thirteen men. Its origins are almost completely obscure; only a few photographs are known to exist, and it does not appear on any Navy-produced maps of the island. Author William Niven postulates that “Cemetery C” was marked on a hand-drawn map created on 26 November 1943, and presents logical evidence for this conclusion – namely, the proximity to other cemeteries designated “A” and “B.”[75] Like “Row D,” this Green Beach burial was never memorialized by the Navy project, and the 604th was unable to locate the site.
Today, Cemetery C is the last of Betio’s mass graves to elude archaeologists.
Part V: Identification & Accounting
Why have I been deceived? Why didn't they tell me the cold hard facts in the beginning?
Susie Ratliff, mother of Private Robert Hillard
Identifying Betio’s dead was as problematic – if not more so – than finding remains in the first place.
The 604th QMGRC arrived on the island with a few key records on hand. They had rosters of the fallen, as prepared by the 2nd Marine Division in 1944. They also had dental charts – “Navy Form H-4” – for each individual known to be dead or missing from the battle. (One key clue was absent. Chaplain O’Neill spent a week at Marine Corps Headquarters searching for “original lists and diagrams showing the location of bodies in the various cemeteries and… a chart showing the location of cemeteries on the island.” He came up empty, and to this day these diagrams have not been found.)[76] Using this documentation, Lieutenant Robinson and his team of dental corpsmen hoped to confirm the name of each body that came through their morgue.
The process began as soon as a body was found. A pair of corpsmen attended each exhumation team; when a body was unearthed, these men “would immediately obtain the skull, thoroughly clean the teeth of all dirt, and proceed to make the dental examination and record of condition found on one of the blank H-4 forms.” Simultaneously, a clerk filled out Form 1042 “Report of Burial.” These forms were then submitted to Robinson, who pulled the relevant dental record and checked all the information personally. He was a strict arbiter. “In the event that there was no clue as to identification, and there was present even the slightest unusual dental condition, a search was made through each record of the bodies buried in the particular cemetery or location.” Robinson’s task was made more difficult by the similarity of records (many remains showing the results of common dental work, like extracted wisdom teeth) and the condition of the remains:
“There were remains found with one or more teeth missing from the jaws. In many instances the teeth were found adjacent to the skull. In other instances the teeth were not recovered. Another common condition found was that parts of one or both jaws were missing. Several skulls were found with one jaw missing, and a few remains were exhumed for which no skull was found….”
Damage of this sort could affect identifying features – and, as Robinson correctly argued, “unless there was some dental peculiarity, no matter how slight, it followed that positive identification was impossible.”[77] The lieutenant erred on the side of caution, rejecting a number of possible matches over slight discrepancies that he could not resolve with the resources or information available. At the very end of field operations, Robinson collected his conflicting files and collared his eight most proficient corpsmen for a final review. This home stretch effort resulted in nineteen additional identifications.
Confirmation of identity by dental records was vital to the process – for, as noted, few of the bodies had legible means of identification, and those who did sometimes had items that did not match the tooth chart. Robinson noted that “117 bodies were positively identified by dental charts alone, and 137 bodies were identified by correlation of other information with dental charts. The identity of 40 remains was definitely disproven after other information had led to a tentative identification.“[78] [Emphasis added]
An unusual step was taken for those whose remains could not be identified by dental records. Photographers Tingle and LaTerre took portraits of the skulls from the front and both profiles. As far as is known to this writer, this practice was not repeated elsewhere in the Pacific Theater and was possibly due to the high proportion of unidentified remains. Every clue would be helpful in future investigations.
Central Identification Laboratory
The penultimate stop for Betio’s battle casualties was the Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu. At this facility, a handful of expert anthropologists – Doctors Mildred Trotter, Charles Snow, and Paul Graves – worked with a team of technicians to check and confirm the identities of dead men from across the Pacific Theater. The workload was immense, and the pressure correspondingly high: they were the final checkpoint before remains were released to families for final burial.
The Tarawa dead arrived in their caskets from Lone Palm accompanied by the records created by the 604th: new tags, reports of burial, dental charts, and any other pertinent information. In the quiet confines of the laboratory, new clues came to light. Remains were spread carefully on examining tables and checked for duplicate bones. Often parts of two, three, or four individuals were found “commingled” in caskets; an articulating right arm, for example, might be removed and “associated” with another set of remains. Teeth were charted again. Remains were sent for fluoroscopy. Estimates of age, height, weight, and stature were recorded. The trained eye of a professional anthropologist could spot the defining physical traits suggestive of Caucasian or Asian ancestry; any remains thought to be Japanese or Korean were removed for separate burial. The doctors even created descriptions of how each individual might have appeared in life. They worked without access to personnel files, to avoid confirmation bias, and submitted their findings in each case for review by an external board.
The 604th sent 282 remains to CIL as “unknown.” The laboratory resolved 186 of them in just over a year. In 1949, the anonymous remains were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific with full military honors.
Meanwhile, the Marine Corps was grappling with the fallout from the 604th’s mission. Form letters were mailed to the families of Marines whose bodies had not been found.
I regret extremely that I must inform you that the remains of your son were not found to be beneath the marker previously reported. Subsequent investigation has revealed that in some instances well-meaning persons had erected individual commemorative markers in memory of our heroic dead. Since the Graves Registration Service has been unable to locate the remains…. it must be assumed that his body was among the unidentified dead and that the cross was erected in his honored memory rather than actually as a marker identifying the location of his grave.
Continued efforts are being made to locate unmarked graves and every scientific means known is being employed to establish the identity of our unidentified dead.
Naturally, this news was not well received. Families who had received photographs of memorial graves, details of specific burial sites, or boxes of personal effects could not understand why the apparently arbitrary decision of “non-recoverable” was made. Mrs. Susie Ratliff, whose son Robert W. Hillard was among those so designated, was nearly incandescent.
If his remains are truly lost or were never recovered, as I have been informed, why have I been deceived? Why didn’t they tell me the cold hard facts in the beginning so I could accustom myself to them all at the same time? A woman can stand much after she has become accustomed to it, but to be told one thing, as I was, and then after accepting it as reported, to be informed of something quite contrary, is more than I can sanely take. It is almost the same as freshly receiving that fateful telegram over four years ago.[79]
The Navy Department convened an investigation into the “deplorable graves situation,” and Commandant Vandegrift pressed for a formal Court of Inquiry. However, Inspector General Lockwood declined to pursue one, stating it would be “of no further avail” and that “at this late date, due to disintegration of the bodies and their identification tags, no effective action can be taken to remedy the conditions.” Commodore Erl Gould, the man behind beautification, was officially notified of his “error in judgment with regard to rearranging the grave markers,” and recommendations were made for better filing of records and more durable dog tags.[80]
None of this, of course, brought any comfort to the families of the missing.
Epilogue
Betio’s cemeteries have not lain undisturbed in the decades since the 604th QMGRC departed. Construction projects, housing development, and even gardening projects by Kiribati citizens have turned up bones and rusted military gear. Representatives of the American government were called to the island every few years to conduct investigations, examine evidence, and take charge of remains. Occasionally, an identification resulted – Maurice Drucker in 1965, Thomas Scurlock and Ernest Tucker in 1982, Darwin Brown and Raymond Gilmore in 2002 – but others followed their comrades into “unknown” graves in Hawaii. These finds were all by chance; no formal searches for the missing Marines were made.
Interest in locating the cemeteries resumed in 2010, with the discovery of Private Herman Fred Sturmer. A non-profit organization called History Flight began researching burial sites and conducting digs. They located PFC Randolph Allen in his long-lost shell hole and found Captain Richard Vincent in a coffin near the site of Cemetery 33.[81] History Flight notched a spectacular success in 2015, with the discovery of Cemetery 27 and the remains of 42 men including Medal of Honor recipient 1Lt. Alexander Bonnyman. They followed this feat in 2019, exhuming “Row D” and more than thirty additional remains. The majority of these have since been accounted for; additional digs at other sites have netted other full and partial remains.
With the public eye on Betio, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recommended the exhumation of the Tarawa unknowns in Honolulu. The remains were brought back to a laboratory setting for reexamination with modern forensic methods. Matching chest x-rays and DNA samples has resulted in the identification of another forty casualties.
To this day, however, there are more than 350 Betio casualties still unaccounted for – more than one tenth of all USMC personnel not recovered from World War II.
[1] Charles Andrews Lockwood, “Investigation of Burial of Deceased Marine Corps Personnel on Tarawa Atoll,” 11 March 1947. Office of the Commandant, General Correspondence January 1939 – June 1950, (NARA RG-127, Box 783). Hereafter “Lockwood Report.”
[2] B. J. McQuaid, “Jap Boast Fails,” The Kansas City Star 30 November 1943.
[3] 1Lt. Isadore Eisensmith, “Memorandum To Chief, Memorial Branch, Quartermaster Section, Army Forces, Middle Pacific,” 3 July 1946, 3. Hereafter “Eisensmith Report.”
[4] By way of comparison, New York’s Central Park measures 840 acres.
[5] Of an estimated 4,836 Japanese and Korean personnel, 17 soldiers and 129 labor troops survived to be captured.
[6] Robert Sherrod, Tarawa: The Story Of A Battle, (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1943), 123.
[7] Ibid., 124.
[8] Joseph H. Alexander, Across The Reef: The Marine Assault of Tarawa, (Washington: Marine Corps Historical Center, 1993), 48.
[9] Roger P. Scovill, oral history interview conducted by Mark Van Ellis (16 September 1997), transcribed by Nathan King & Abigail Miller (2003), collection of Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center.
[10] “Battle of Tarawa leaves lasting impression,” The Greensboro News and Record (2 June 2011), online edition last updated 25 January 2015.
[11] Laurence Rees and Colin Stinton, “Testimony of Michael Witowich,” transcript available online at WW2History.com
[12] One of the more memorable quotes from the battle of Tarawa – “situation in doubt” – is attributed to General Julian Smith on 20 November 1943.
[13] Lockwood Report.
[14] Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Manual, (Washington: USGPO, 1940), 21.
[15] Ibid.,22.
[16] Lockwood Report.
[17] Lewis Michelony, interview conducted by John Daniels, 2 May 1993. World War II Veterans Oral History Collection, National Museum of the Pacific War Digital Archive, last accessed 5 November 2021.
[18] Scovill oral history.
[19] The Marine Corps Casualty Card for Raymond Warren cites a letter from one George J. Fox, but does not provide further context.
[20] The eleven dead Marines were John F. Scisley, Wesley L. Kroenung, Victor Gaviglia, A. C. Caley [sic; probably Allan C. Daley], F. C. Woolsey, D. O. Cole, J. D. Reynolds, Clifford A. Winkler, W. A. Parks, D. D. Voorheis, and Kenneth F. Mannix. Scisley, Gaviglia, Woolsey, and Winkler were identified after the war. Kroenung and Cole were accounted for in recent years from unknown remains buried in Honolulu. Daley, Reynolds, Parks, Voorheis, and Mannix are still unaccounted for.
[21] The ten unidentified were Frank Krchmar, S. J. Mayer, R. N. Smith, A. Bonnyman, P. S. Haraldson, L. L. Livingston, M. Green, A. R. Stubbs, W. R. Shafer, R. O. Hamar. Krchmar, Mayer, Smith, Livingston, and Green are still unaccounted for.
[22] W. Wyeth Willard, “The Gilbert Islands campaign, report of chaplain, and recommendations,” 30 November 1943. Hereafter Willard Chaplain’s Report.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Lockwood Report.
[25] For a detailed discussion about inter-service responsibilities in peacetime – and how they fell apart early in the war – see Edward Steere’s authoritative work The Graves Registration Service in WWII (Washington: USGPO, 1951).
[26] Lockwood Report.
[27] Willard Chaplain’s Report.
[28] Scovill oral history.
[29] War Department, Technical Manual No. 10-630: Graves Registration (Washington: USGPO, 1941), 6. Further, a cemetery was “to remain until the disposition of all bodies, during an armistice or after cessation of hostilities, is definitely agreed upon.” Isolated graves could potentially be moved or consolidated at any point, circumstances permitting.
[30] W. Wyeth Willard, The Leathernecks Come Through (New York: Revell, 1944), 217. Leathernecks 217.
[31] Ibid, 218.
[32] Ibid.
[33] W. Wyeth Williard, unpublished personal journal. Courtesy Katie Rasdorf.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Remains in Row A, Grave 35 were noted as “Pair of legs,” while remains in Row B, Grave 64 were “Burned to death.” A handful of men were buried under wrong names.
[36] Willard, Leathernecks, 219.
[37] Michelony oral history.
[38] Robert Sherrod, Tarawa: The Story Of A Battle (New York: Duell, Sloane & Pierce, 1944), 126-127.
[39] Ibid., 127-128.
[40] Brent Peterson, Once Upon A Lifetime: The Epic True Story of Corporal William Wesley Bennett, USMC (B. Peterson Books, 2021), 279.
[41] Ibid., 280-281.
[42] Willard, unpublished diary entry.
[43] CINCPAC, Operations in Pacific Ocean Areas – December 1943, Part IVD: “Development of Bases in GILBERT Islands,” 31 March 1944, 15.
[44] ACORN (Aviation, Construction, Ordnance, Repair) was the code name for Navy advanced base construction, accomplished by Construction Battalions (Seabees). ACORNs were small-size air bases that could be swiftly transitioned to American use after capture.
[45] Erl C. B. Gould, synopsis of Legion of Merit citation, transcribed by The Hall of Valor Project.
[46] Erl C. B. Gould, memorandum to Commanding General 2nd Marine Division, “Cemeteries, Memorial Monuments, and Graves,” 15 June 1944 (NARA RG-313.) Hereafter Gould Report.
[47] Lockwood Report
[48] Gould Report
[49] This work was led by Painter Second Class J. E. Anderson, 98th Construction Battalion. Captain Gould also commended the efforts of Painters First Class E. W. Soderberg and K. H. Dewitt (549th CBMU) and Painter First Class J. E. Quick (CASU-16).
[50] Gould Report.
[51] Ibid.
[52] The author suspects that PFC Leonard E. Kristal and PFC Harold R. Burch may be the two moved men. Their USMC burial information references proximity to the airport, and specifically to a Japanese cement mixer at Hawkins Field. The Navy put markers for these men in Cemetery 29 on the eastern end of Betio – while Kristal and Burch, both members of the 2nd Marines, landed and fought on the other side of the island near Beach Green. Neither Marine has been accounted for, and both are probably still on Betio somewhere.
[53] William L. Niven, Tarawa’s Gravediggers (Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2015), 37. Niven provides a scanned copy of this letter, which is dated 9 September 1944, and notes that the Betio Island Commander at the time was Jackson R. Tate. However, the letter is in reference to communication from 1 June 1944 – during Gould’s tenure – and as Gould was the only Island Commander referenced in the post-war inquiry, it is believed that this letter of appreciation was directed to him and not to Tate.
[54] “Casualties: Last Landing,” TIME Magazine, Vol. 47 No. 13 (1 April 1946), 97.
[55] Lockwood report
[56] Memorandum from the Commanding General, FMF PACIFIC to Commandant of the Marine Corps, “Commemorative Graves,” 24 April 1945.
[57] Robert Sherrod, “Tarawa Today,” Life Magazine Vol. 48 No. 6 (5 August 1946) 19.
[58] Eisensmith Report, 2.
[59] The bulldozer broke down after about a day, and the rest of the Army Garrison Force heavy equipment on the island was in poor condition. Much of the digging and physical labor was done by hand.
[60] “Schofield Mausoleum #1, X-1, Betio,” Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD.
[61] 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company, “Diary 21 Feb 1946 to 9 June 1946,” (NARA RG-407). Hereafter 604th Diary.
[62] Eisensmith Report, 7.
[63] Ibid., 3.
[64] Ibid., 4-5.
[65] Ibid., 6.
[66] Ibid., 10 This was the result of coastal erosion and shifting tides, particularly on the western end of Tarawa, and seems to have affected Isolated Graves #9 and #12.
[67] 604th Diary. Why the GRS troops re-numbered these graves is not known.
[68] Ibid. 7.
[69] Tilghman, the commander of Mullinix Field, was killed on 4 January 1944 when a bomber ground-looped and crashed into his parked Jeep.
[70] Eisensmith Report, 8.
[71] Ibid., 8-9. Cemetery 27 was finally discovered by History Flight archaeologists in 2015.
[72] 604th Diary.
[73] Eisensmith Report.
[74] PFC Manuel Nunes (M/3/8th Marines), recorded as the 33rd and last body in Row D, was reburied in Lone Palm Cemetery on 21 March 1946. It is not known whether the 604th really found part of the row, or if “Row D” was a clerical error on the original report. The 604th was exhuming Row B at the time Nunes was found. Interestingly, Isolated Grave 35 was marked to Sgt. Jerome B. Morris, one of the Row D internees. No exhumation reports exist for Isolated 35, and Morris was not recovered until 2019.
[75] Niven, Tarawa’s Gravediggers, 251-252.
[76] Lockwood Report.
[77] Lieutenant H. H. Robinson, “Dental Officer’s Report on Identification Operation at Tarawa,” 31 May 1946.
[78] Ibid.
[79] Robert Hillard, Official Military Personnel File (OMPF), Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD.
[80] Lockwood report.
[81] Vincent was originally buried at Cemetery 20 on the other side of the island. This discrepancy, plus the presence of a coffin – extremely unusual on Betio – led to the theory that Vincent’s body was accidentally unearthed by the garrison forces and reburied in Cemetery 33 during the war.