In November 1943, U.S. forces invaded the Japanese-held Gilbert Islands (now the Republic of Kiribati) in what was known as Operation GALVANIC. This operation was part of the Allied “island hopping” campaign to take control of Japanese outposts in the Pacific Islands. This would allow the Allied forces to establish air supremacy and a series of bases throughout the Pacific, enabling them to edge closer to Japan until attacks could be launched against the nation’s mainland.

On November 20, approximately 35,000 troops from the U.S. 2nd Marine Division and the Army’s 27th Infantry Division began amphibious assaults on Tarawa’s Betio Island and Makin Atoll, respectively. The U.S. invasion, supported by a significant naval presence, represented the largest-yet assembled in the Pacific. While light Japanese defense on Makin meant fewer casualties there, the fortified and concentrated defenses on Betio led to a long and costly 76-hour fight known as the Battle of Tarawa.

Of the 1,021 U.S. personnel killed during the Battle of Tarawa, approximately 350 remain unaccounted-for. Many of the missing were Marines killed during the first day of the assault; there are often few details surrounding the deaths of these Marines, but it is likely that they were killed by artillery or machinegun fire while still in the transport boats or while wading to shore. The remains of some of these individuals were recovered, but survivors believed that many drifted out to sea. Marines killed on land, and a handful of those recovered from the lagoon, were buried in isolated graves or cemeteries around Betio. The Marines left Betio on November 24. Once they left, U.S. Navy construction battalions, known as Seabees, began work to improve the island’s airstrip and turn the island into a military base. This project required that the Seabees relocate of some of the burial sites. A second project called for the beautification of the remaining cemeteries and isolated burials. The Seabees realigned the cemeteries, evened out rows, erected monuments in the larger cemeteries, and replaced the original grave markers with white crosses. A handful of the larger cemeteries were also expanded as the Seabees erected crosses for men not originally buried there.

In March 1946, the U.S. Army’s 604th Graves Registration Company arrived on Betio to disinter the Americans buried on the island and consolidate the remains in a cemetery on the island’s western end known as “Lone Palm Cemetery.” Unfortunately, the Seabees’ decision to move or alter many of the burial sites significantly complicated recovery efforts, and many graves were found to contain no remains beneath their markers. Recovery efforts became even more complicated when officials discovered that few of the remains possessed any sort of identification media, such as identification tags, wallets, or rings. The few identification media that did survive were often illegible. Officials worked to identify these remains using other methods but were often unsuccessful.

In December 1946, the 604th GRC disinterred the remains buried in Lone Palm Cemetery. Those who had been identified were buried in locations designated by next of kin. The unidentified remains were sent to the Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Between 1948 and 1951, the CIL added additional identifications to the list. Ultimately, the efforts of the 604th GRC and the CIL resulted in the identification of more than 400 individuals from Betio. Remains that could not be identified were buried as Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP).

Over the next 60 years, storms and construction projects on Betio Island continued to uncover isolated remains associated with Americans killed during the Battle of Tarawa. These remains were turned over to the U.S. Government.

In September 2010, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) traveled to Betio to excavate several sites believed to be associated with isolated graves or cemeteries from the Battle of Tarawa. The island had been visited previously by a private U.S.-based group, History Flight, which used ground-penetrating radar to identify possible cemetery sites from the Battle of Tarawa. Since this initial excavation, JPAC, its successor organization the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), and History Flight personnel have regularly returned to Betio to conduct further excavations. Excavations of sites believed to be cemeteries associated with the Battle of Tarawa are ongoing.

The DPAA expanded efforts to identify missing personnel from Betio in 2016, when the agency received approval to disinter and reanalyze 94 caskets of unidentified remains associated with Tarawa. All the caskets have been disinterred and are undergoing analysis at DPAA facilities in Hawaii.