News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: WWII MIA's Identified

Date: December 01, 2000

"WWII Marine Raiders ID’d by Hickam lab

The remains of the 19 men arrived at the Army's premier forensic lab last December for identification

The list of those identified Nov. 10 Special: Bringing Them Home
By Gregg K. Kakesako Star-Bulletin


Fifty-eight years after they were left behind on a remote Pacific atoll, 19 World War II casualties -- members of the elite Marine Raiders -- have been identified.

The 19 were declared missing in action for nearly six decades in the first U.S. offensive against a Japanese outpost, 1,000 miles northeast of Guadalcanal on the island then known as Makin Atoll.

Their identification by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory -- the military's premier forensic facility at Hickam Air Force Base -- brings an end to a long-forgotten skirmish that gave the United States a badly needed victory in early days of the Pacific war following the infamous Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

John McCarthy, publisher of the quarterly magazine Raider Patch, said the U.S. Marine Raiders Association hopes to rebury the Makin Raiders with military honors at a special site at Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 17 -- the 59th anniversary of the Pacific commando raid.

But the Pentagon said yesterday that Cpl. Mason Yarbrough, of Sikeston, Mo., will be returned to his hometown for burial next month. McCarthy said he has talked with Yarbrough's family, and there is concern about the health of his 87-year-old invalid mother.

"There has been a marker for him over a grave site for the past 50 years," MacCarthy said. "The wake is planned for Dec. 14, with burial the next day."

Monument planned So far, the Marine Raider Association, which represents the more than 8,000 Marines who belonged to the special World War II commando unit, has the commitments of 11 of the 19 families.

"If our scenario works out," McCarthy said, "they will be buried side by side under individual headstones with a special monument in the center."

McCarthy said there will be space set aside for the nine other Makin Raiders who are believed to have been captured after the 1942 raid and later executed on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. The Army hopes to return to that Pacific island sometime early next year to try to locate those remains.

The names of the 28 Marine Raiders will be inscribed on a special Arlington monument.

McCarthy, who served with the Army's 2nd Infantry Division in World War II, has close ties to the Makin Raiders since his sister was engaged to one -- Pvt. Robert Maulding, of Vista, Calif.

"He had just turned 19 when he was killed," McCarthy said. "He was just an outstanding person."

Remains found in mass grave The 19 sets of remains were excavated from a mass grave in the Republic of Kiribati from the island of Butaritari and returned to U.S. soil in December 1999, and sent to the Army laboratory for identification.

There, scientists and anthropologists began the exhaustive forensic identification process, including the use of mitochondrial DNA.

The skeletal remains are those of 19 members of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, who were killed in action on Aug. 17 and 18, 1942, during a raid on what was then known as Makin Atoll, and now known as Butaritari.


Courtesy of CILHI Anthropologists and other workers excavate the mass grave on Butaritari Island. U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory uncovered 20 sets of remains, including 19 Marines who were killed in a 1942 commando raid on the remote Japanese outpost. Anthropologists had dug a series of trenches around the suspected grave site before finding the remains, many still wearing boots and helmets.

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The first recovery mission was held in August 1998 and was followed by two others in November and December 1999. The shallow mass graves were discovered on the northern shore of the island under a crushed coral road. It was the largest and most significant recovery project undertaken by the Army lab since it was created in 1973.

The Japanese had occupied the atoll's main island in December 1941 after attacking Pearl Harbor, and constructed a seaplane base in its lagoon.

In August 1942, two companies of Marine Raiders, led by their founder, Maj. Evans Carlson, were dispatched by small rubber boats from the submarines Nautilus and Argonaut, which they had boarded at Pearl Harbor. In the predawn raid, 221 Marines attacked the Japanese garrison, destroying two seaplanes and killing 83 enemy soldiers. In a firefight, Sgt. Clyde Thomason was killed while directing the actions of his platoon. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.


Island native helps discovery Brad Sturm, Central Identification Lab anthropologist, said Carlson paid a native $50 to bury the 19 Marines, thinking the rest of the Marines had been evacuated to the submarines.

But 12 Marine Raiders did not make the beach rendezvous and were left behind. Three were captured a day later, on Aug. 19, 1942. It is not known whether they were taken prisoner or executed. The other nine were caught two weeks later and taken to Kwajalein.

Among the Marines who survived the battle was Maj. James Roosevelt, son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It was the recollections of Tokerai Bureimo, a 75-year-old Butaritari native, that led the recovery team to the mass grave site. Bureimo said he had helped bury the Marines when he was 16 years old.

Eventually, 20 sets of remains were uncovered. One is believed to be that of a native islander.

On. Dec. 17, 1999, the remains of 19 Americans were put aboard a KC-130 Hercules aircraft escorted by a Marine color guard and flown to Hickam Air Force Base.

Bureimo, who speaks no English, is said to have broken out in a chorus of the Marine Corps Hymn as the remains were placed on the aircraft.

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On the net: www.cilhi.army.mil

World War II warriors The 19 Marines identified are:


Sgt. Clyde Thomason, of Atlanta, the first enlisted Marine awarded the Medal of Honor.

Cpl. Mason O. Yarbrough of Sikeston, Mo.

Capt. Gerald P. Holtom of Palo Alto, Calif.

Field Musician 1st Class Vernon L. Castle of Stillwater, Okla.

Cpl. I.B. Earles of Tulare, Calif.

Cpl. Daniel A. Gaston of Galveston, Texas

Cpl. Harris J. Johnson of Little Rock, Iowa

Cpl. Kenneth K. Kunkle of Mountain Home, Ark.

Cpl. Edward Maciejewski of Chicago

Cpl. Robert B. Pearson of Lafayette, Calif.

Pfc. William A. Gallagher of Wyandotte, Mich.

Pfc. Ashley W. Hicks of Waterford, Calif.

Pfc. Kenneth M. Montgomery of Eden, Wis.

Pfc. Norman W. Mortensen of Camp Douglas, Wis.

Pfc. John E. Vandenberg of Kenosha, Wis.

Pvt. Carlyle O. Larson of Glenwood, Minn.

Pvt. Robert B. Maulding of Vista, Calif.

Pvt. Franklin M. Nodland of Marshalltown, Iowa

Pvt. Charles A. Selby of Ontonagon, Mich."