Remains Interred
1946
Identified
1946
X-Numbers
2021
The Lone Palm Cemetery was the last – and shortest lived – of the temporary burial grounds on Beito.
During the war, the shipment of bodies back to the United States was forbidden by Naval policy: cargo space was always at a premium, and priority always went to living men and military materiel. This led to the practice of overseas burial, and the creation of scores – if not hundreds – of small cemeteries on scattered Pacific islands. While necessary at the time, this system presented an immense logistical challenge to be addressed when time permitted. In anticipation, some island commands began consolidating their small cemeteries into central locations before the Japanese surrendered.
When the war ended, most American troops were transported back to the States for discharge. Small garrisons remained on the islands, essentially to keep the lights on until demobilization could be completed. Among their many responsibilities was the maintenance and upkeep of cemeteries until trained troops arrived to take care of the dead. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company handled this work on many islands across the Pacific: searching for missing men, locating lost graves, and generally completing consolidation work as needed. In February 1946, the job of “disinterring, identifying, and reinterring the remains in a master cemetery” on Betio was assigned to their Fourth Platoon.
The primary mission for 1Lt. Isadore Eisensmith’s outfit was consolidation of remains from Betio, Apamama, Buota, and Bauriki into a single location. They would complete preliminary identification work in the field using the tools at their disposal, and re-inter all remains in an orderly fashion, essentially storing them underground until they could be shipped back to Honolulu. Most of Eisensmith’s men were recent enlistees from Hawaii, with just a few months in uniform. The NCOs, however, were well-seasoned in their work – particularly First Sergeant Chandler Gebhart, who was a mortician in civilian life. Eisensmith also had a dental officer, Lieutenant Henry Robinson, with PhM1c Albert Peacher to assist. The two Navy men held classes in tooth charting during the long voyage to Betio.
The 604th arrived at Betio on 4 March 1946. While the men cleaned out their accommodations, unloaded the ship, and organized warehouse space, Lieutenant Eisensmith spent several days traveling around Betio and the surrounding islands, “to see where the Marine Graves (Cemeteries) were located and what condition they were in.” He noted “approximately 43 graves… containing from one body up to 400” in varying locations and states of repair. Eisensmith was supplied with copies of burial reports and Navy H-4 (dental) files to help identify the deceased, and anticipated having to reinter approximately one thousand bodies.
Selecting an appropriate site for a new cemetery was of utmost importance. During his survey of Betio, Eisensmith noticed an area behind the island chapel that seemed promising: it was high enough to be above the water table, and remote enough to avoid the island’s daily traffic. The lieutenant met with the Garrison Force commander and the British Administrator to discuss the site, and came away with permission and a signed statement absolving the United States Government of financial responsibility for the land itself. He also secured the use of an airplane to help transport remains from other islands back to Betio. Eisensmith must have felt quite confident after this success – however, this would be the last aspect of the mission to go according to plan.
The 604th began clearing the cemetery site on 9 March 1946, with Corporal Glenn Houghtalen at the controls of a rickety bulldozer borrowed from the Garrison Force. After a few days of pulling tree stumps, the ‘dozer broke down completely and had to be hauled away. The 604th took stock of the other available equipment, which was in generally poor condition – the Garrison Force had no spare parts or mechanics on hand – and concluded that most of the hard work would need to be done by hand. Lieutenant Eisensmith made inquiries and hired some local islanders to assist with the manual labor. With all hands on deck, the land was cleared, graded, and ready for use by 19 March. A single tree within the boundaries inspired the name “Lone Palm Cemetery.”
The first remains were ready for burial even before the Lone Palm site was complete. Isolated Grave 8, marked to Corporal Hubert C. Luther, was exhumed on 16 March; Luther’s remains were identified in short order. A second set of skeletal remains was discovered in Lone Palm itself, with no marker or identifying material present. This man had been buried where he fell in 1943 and undisturbed ever since. It was the first opportunity for the 604th to practice with unidentified remains, and they did their due diligence: while one team collected the bones, one of the dental technicians took charge of the skull and filled out the tooth chart on the NAVMED H-4 form. Remains and paperwork went to the makeshift morgue, where Lieutenant Robinson examined the teeth again and compared his findings against records for all Tarawa casualties. If Robinson was not satisfied, he assigned an “X-number” and called Corporal Robert Tingle to photograph the skull for future reference. The remains were then carefully wrapped and prepared for burial. This process was repeated for every single body the 604th disinterred. (Although skulls were only photographed when identity was in doubt, Corporal Tingle would be kept extremely busy in the weeks that followed.)
Lieutenant Eisensmith divided his men into four teams. One was responsible for digging new rows of graves and maintaining Lone Palm, while the other three roamed the island performing exhumations. Aside from the occasional rotation or detail to other duties, the 604th kept this configuration for the rest of their mission. Isolated graves like Luther’s, and the two most conspicuous memorials – Cemetery 33 and Cemetery 26 – were the first on the list. On 18 March 1946, the first “committal ceremony” took place at Lone Palm for fifteen reinterred remains. The men anticipated long days and hard work, but the beautifully maintained cemeteries seemed simple enough to dig up row by row and grave by grave.
“At this point,” wrote Eisensmith, “our difficulties began.”
The teams working in Cemeteries 33 and 26 started digging under the white cross markers, expecting to find orderly rows of bones. This was not the case. At Cemetery 33, the team dug for two days before finding any remains: “this created much concern,” noted Eisensmith. The same situation occurred at Cemetery 26.
Fortunately, the 604th had two Tarawa veterans on their roster. Lieutenant Commanders William O’Neill and Francis Kelly were Navy chaplains who helped to bury Marines after the battle, and the cemeteries they remembered creating looked nothing like the formal presentations they now beheld. O’Neill recalled three rows at “East Division Cemetery” aligned with tree stumps; Kelly also told of three rows at “Central Division Cemetery.” Based on this information, the 604th started digging trenches across the cemeteries instead of along the rows and at last began to find the remains of battle casualties.
Finding the rows was just one part of the problem. “Most of the remains had been buried as they fell without cartridges and hand grenades being removed,” wrote Eisensmith. “The grenades constituted a hazardous obstacle, for the operating handles were almost disintegrated. In fact, the handles did come off some of the grenades as they were removed from the bodies. These grenades, when removed, were disposed of in the sea. One actually detonated.” Digging test holes was a dangerous prospect; the Cemetery 26 team unearthed an old Japanese mine, which was dumped into the sea by 1Sgt. Gebhart.
The 604th also had a terrible time identifying the remains. Few men were buried with proper identification tags; those found were so corroded as to be illegible, or were obviously mismatched when dental charts were taken. Because burials took place uncasketed and in trenches, there was considerable overlap of remains, particularly arms and legs. Skulls were smashed or missing, or had suffered damage to the jaws and teeth that made dental comparison impossible. Lieutenant Robinson was frustrated to find that the provided NAVMED H4 forms were in many cases out of date. The number of “X” cases grew alarmingly.
Daily life for the 604th settled into a routine. Most weekdays were work days, although heavy rain or oppressive heat often led to a late start or an early end to digging. Clerks labored on paperwork in the company office or the morgue. On Sundays, they attended Catholic or Protestant services. Mail and pay arrived from Kwajalein by plane. Meals were served in the Garrison Force mess hall; when the building caught fire, the 604th helped repair the damage. There was free time every week; soldiers went on day trips to the neighboring islands, lazed around the day room and beer garden, or headed to the base theater for a movie. They saw “a native stag show” one evening, and “a very good U. S. O. show” another. Occasionally, Lieutenant Eisensmith would announce a round of promotions, and on Army Day they held a wreath-laying at Lone Palm.
Committal ceremonies were held every few days, depending on the weather and the number of remains received. There was no ammunition for salutes and no bugler for “Taps,” but in every other respect the burials were conducted in accordance with Army regulations. Services were pronounced by the chaplains, and the 604th stood at attention as a flag was folded atop a chosen coffin. “At all times, the remains were handled with great care and accorded the reverence that they so justly deserve.”
The work, however, grew no less frustrating. Every cemetery seemed to have its own unique set of problems. Cemetery 11 – a cross-shaped cemetery with plots surrounding a large central marker – was of the same “memorial” nature as 33, 26, and 25; while the 604th knew not to expect bodies under markers, they also had no idea where to start digging. After days of fruitless searching, they tore up the monument in the middle and found remains beneath – but Betio’s high water table meant the bones were underwater, and a pump had to be ordered out from Kwajalein. Four other monument cemeteries stood along the island’s northern shore. Three of them had remains buried beneath the giant crosses, although never as many as the plaques suggested should be there. The fourth, Cemetery 27, had nothing – not even battle debris or disturbed dirt to suggest anyone had ever been buried there. Weeks of effort were expended to no avail; forty men were taken off the list. Some of the isolated graves had bodies buried beneath markers, others were empty sand. Some graves were underwater, and two major cemeteries – known as Cemetery C and Cemetery 33, Row D – could not be located at all. The only commonality between the cemeteries was uncertainty: trust in the original burial records, by now, was non-existent.
Oddly enough, the missions that should have been the most challenging proved to be the most straightforward. Details from the 604th made trips to Buariki, Buota, and Apemama to exhume small cemeteries. On Bauriki, 32 of 34 remains were found buried under their proper markers, and all were identified by tooth charts. Proper reports of interment were found with every body buried on Buota; the greatest challenge was opening the heavy steel casket of a Navy commander and having to work in the rain. The Apemama team was supposed to fly to their destination (about ninety miles away) but the base airplane was not available – so they cruised to the island aboard His Majesty’s Launch Margaret at the invitation of the British Resident. Exhuming the cemetery there took less than a day, and once again there were no problems with identification. (Buota and Apemama were base cemeteries, not battlefields; Buariki’s bodies were combat buried, but the work was carefully done by friends of the fallen. These conditions rarely existed on Betio.)
The men of the 604th QMGRC would also experience a deeply personal loss during the operation. On 24 April 1946, the supply plane from Kwajalein arrived as expected, bringing a water pump for Cemetery 11 and a photographer, Corporal Robert LaTerre. The 604th’s Marine photographer, Corporal Robert Tingle, was rotating home; after two years in uniform, including combat on Okinawa with the 1st Marine Division, he was more than ready for discharge. Tingle bade his buddies farewell and boarded the C-47 shortly before the 1245 departure. At 1300 hours, somebody spotted a cloud of oily black smoke rising from the lagoon about twenty miles away.
Immediately everyone seemed to know that the C-47 had crashed and a rescue boat was dispatched carrying the Army Garrison Force doctor, several members of the 604th, the boat operator, and the writer.
When we arrived on the scene of the crash, it was noted that native outrigger canoes arrived before us. These natives had recovered the bodies of LtCol. Tyler and Capt. Poteet. The bodies were transferred to the Base re-arm boat where they were given an examination by the doctor and declared dead.
The re-arm boat started circling the area of the crash looking for other survivors and any property that might be floating. About an hour later the body of Capt. Siedenburg was recovered and he was also declared dead.
Divers arrived from Kwajalein and explored the wreckage, but could only recover part of one body from the plane. These remains, along with the bodies of Tyler, Poteat, and Siedenburg, were embalmed with scratch-built equipment by 1Sgt. Gebhart and Pharmacist’s Mate Peacher. Their funeral was attended by the entire Garrison Force, the 604th, and representatives of the British Government. Burial, of course, was made in Lone Palm Cemetery.
In his final report of the Tarawa operation, Lieutenant Eisensmith noted that “about fifty percent of the bodies previously reported buried on the Atoll were found, and of that number, only about 58% were identified.” His Lone Palm Cemetery numbered 531 graves, as depicted in the grave plot chart.
The 604th would return to the Gilbert Islands twice before the decade ended, but neither trip was as intensive as the consolidation mission of 1946. In February 1948, a team under Captain Clarence Hawkins investigated reports of remains discovered at the site of Cemetery 33; they dug long trenches and “some parts of remains were uncovered as well as some Japanese equipment.” The following year, Lieutenant Robert Trapp (USN) and Captain James D’Entremont led brief searches for men lost in wartime plane crashes and recovered the partial remains unearthed by the Hawkins team. The total time spent in the Gilbert Islands was about a week in each case.
While Lieutenant Eisensmith’s platoon failed to recover hundreds of remains, their efforts in creating Lone Palm Cemetery – and to identify more than half of the men they interred – helped account for a significant percentage of the Marines, sailors, and airmen who died in the Gilbert Islands. Thousands of bones were left behind – from individual digits and teeth to articulating limbs, and even nearly complete skeletons – to be discovered by construction crews, Betio residents, and future archaeological expeditions. Lone Palm, however, is considered permanently closed and a densely-populated residential neighborhood sits atop the former burial ground.
In early May, the 604th began wrapping up their activities on Betio. One team still labored with the water pump in Cemetery 11, but the remainder were set to work filling in the excavations, dragging debris to designated dumps, and packing up supplies. Lone Palm Cemetery was treated to its own “beautification” with paths made of crushed coral, re-graded roads, and a new fence. Meanwhile, clerks and technicians pulled the files on every unidentified body and re-checked the dental records one final time. They worked for days, and were able to assign a few more names to remains before the final committal ceremony on 13 May 1946.
On 20 May, Lieutenant Eisensmith declared Lone Palm Cemetery complete, and the operation concluded. The Fourth Platoon, 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company enjoyed a beer party at their quarters that evening; two days later, they boarded the Lawrence Phillips and sailed for Hawaii. Lone Palm would stand through the end of the year; in December 1946, another unit arrived to disinter the remains for shipment to Honolulu and examination at the Central Identification Laboratory. At the same time, Lieutenant Eisensmith accepted the Meritorious Unit Commendation on behalf of the 604th QMGRC. The award was presented in recognition of “a number of difficult separate missions,” with the Tarawa operation cited as “extremely dangerous… because of the presence of many types of duds in the cemeteries, which required personal acts of bravery [to remove].”
The partial roster below is based on names culled from the unit diary. Ranks are shown as of photograph date.
Corporal Tingle (front row, third from left) died on 24 April 1946. His replacement, Cpl. Robert LaTerre, is not pictured.
1Lt. Isadore Eisensmith (Commanding)
LTCDR Francis W. Kelly (US Navy)
LTCDR William R. O’Neill (US Navy)
LT (DO) Henry Robinson (US Navy)
PhM1c Albert Peacher (US Navy)
Cpl. Robert D. Tingle (USMC)
1Sgt. Chandler H. Gebhart, Jr.
TSgt. A. S. Galluzzi
SSgt. W. B. Hillman
SSgt. Frederick W. Hempfling
Sgt. Carl E. Curtis
Sgt. H. B. Gleaton
Sgt. W. R. Haynes
Sgt. Marvin H. Haynie
Sgt. Bernard D. Holm
Tec4 Hooper
Cpl. Emil Garapic
Cpl. Robert J. H. Hildebrand
Cpl. C. J. Hoover, Jr.
Cpl. Horton
Cpl. Glenn Houghtalen
Cpl. Harold C. K. Lum
Cpl. Joseph H. Lum Ho, Jr.
Tec5 Richard H. Y. Chun
Tec5 D. E. Gray
PFC W. N. Alo
PFC R. C. H. K. Au
PFC Wilfred K. C. Chock
PFC Yoshiyuki Imai
PFC Y. Inoure
PFC R. I. Ishida
PFC John K. Kaholo
PFC Chu Poy Lau
PFC W. A. W. Lau
PFC J. W. Lum
PFC Clarence H. R. Silva
PFC Tokuichi Shimabukuro
PFC S. Shiroma
PFC A. Tagupa
PFC A. Y. Takahashi
PFC Toshio Tomita
PFC Sepronio V. Valuroso
PFC David Vasconcellos, Jr.
PFC Sadao R. Wada
PFC B. G. C. Wong
PFC W. S. N. Wong
PFC Masaharu Yayoshi
PFC K. Zane