HERE - The American Surveyor

The LosT
“Burial of the dead. (Tarawa) This
subject was so poorly handled
that it is Being discussed separately.”
—General G.B. Erskine
Chief of Staff, V Amphibious Corp
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
Graves
of Tarawa
>> By Michael W. Michelsen, Jr.
This official 1944 government photo of Grave 18 on Tarawa shows the graves
of four U.S. Marines—Robert J. Brand, Basil Norman, Jr., Frank C. Andruseasdy
and Henry Lutzow—who are still listed as missing in action.
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
The
Google Earth image of US Graves located by History Flight’s 2008 Betio grave survey. Present day shorelines are greatly
different from WWII area due to coastal erosion. (Image courtesy of Google Earth)
he island of Tarawa
today is an atoll in
the Pacific Ocean, a
former British colony
of the Gilbert Islands. It
consists of 24 islets, eight
of which are inhabited principally by
a Micronesian population that subsists
on some minor exports and on air from
New Zealand. But until November 1943,
Tarawa was a major stronghold of the
Japanese Imperial Army. Realizing its
strategic importance, more than 4,400
troops as well as Korean conscripts and
slave laborers built an impenetrable
network of bunkers and pillboxes to
defend the island from attackers.
As early at 1919, American military
strategists had identified Tarawa as a
critical stepping stone for a possible
invasion of Japan if that time ever came.
The plan was called War Plan Orange.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor the United States implemented
the plan, an “island hopping” campaign
which ended in giving American forces
a foothold that allowed them to establish
airfields within B-29 striking distance of
Tokyo, the beginning of the end.
The Assault Begins
During the early morning hours of 20
November 1943, Marines of the 2nd
Marine Division mounted an amphibious attack against the Japanese stronghold on Betio Island, at the southwestern
end of the Tarawa Atoll. The battle
lasted 72 hours, and would become infamous for the high number of casualties
American forces suffered.
Although the American invasion force
was the largest yet assembled for a single
operation, consisting of 17 aircraft carriers,
12 battleships, eight heavy and four light
cruisers, 66 destroyers, and 36 transports,
to carry and supply a total of more than
35,000 soldiers and Marines, the Japanese
defenders exacted a heavy toll. More
than 1,677 American died, 2,296 more
were wounded. Only 17 of the Japanese
defenders of the island survived.
The pain suffered as a result of the
battle was compounded for many
Americans because the bodies of many
of the Marines who lost their lives
were buried on the island and never
recovered after the war. One of those
burial sites contains the remains of Lt.
Alexander Bonnyman, who earned
the Congressional Medal of Honor
for leading his platoon of Marines in
a strategically important assault on a
Japanese bombproof shelter during
the battle.
After more than 14 years of research,
Mark Noah, a World War II history
buff in Marathon, Florida, started raising
money for a mission to the South Pacific
islands to find those missing men, and
cause the military’s Joint POW-MIA
Accounting Command to launch a
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
LosT Graves
According to official U.S. Government reports, 400 Marines were buried in Cemetery 33 on the Betio Island, Tarawa
Atoll. Only 129 have been recovered by the end of World War II.
formal investigation into bringing those
remains home for burials with full
military honors.
“There is plenty of evidence that the
remains are there,” Noah explained.
“The chaplain who was responsible
for graves registration kept meticulous
records of who was buried, along with
information such as service number,
branch of service, date of death, nature
of wounds, but Tarawa was only the
first step in the American campaign to
reach Tokyo, so at the time our troops
had more pressing things to do than
to tend to bodies, and space was at
a premium due to their need for the
airfield on the island, so the remains
were lost in the shuffle.”
“Five of the burial sites have had U.S.
Marine remains accidentally dug up
during the extensive construction activity that has taken place over the years,”
Noah said. “As a result, we have known
generally where they are buried, but
having the remains found, identified, and
returned for burial and to give families
of the missing men a sense of closure is
our foremost goal.”
Back to the Island
Mark Noah is shown during a dive of F/O Johnson’s sunken B-25 bomber off the
Marshall Islands.
In November 2008, Noah and members
of a survey team from Wfi Research
Group (Fall River, Mass), began the project of finding the missing graves. Using
Mala X3M Ground Penetrating Radar
with 250 MHZ antennas and a survey
quality Trimble GPS system donated
for the trip by Ashtead Equipment of
Atlanta, GA, the search began in earnest.
The team set up a network to map the
known burial locations. As the project
progressed, additional data was collected
concerning other potential burial sites,
which were also investigated with the
GPR and mapped.
According to Ted Darcy, president of
Wfi Research Group (Fall River, MA),
since the graves were dug by bulldozers
in long trenches, the search team was
able to use the GPR in a cross-cut
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
The LosT G
A History Flight team member is shown right inspecting the wreckage
of a missing Navy Hellcat aircraft found during a search mission on
Yap Island.
method to determine the exact location
of the graves, which previously had only
been known by their general location.
After the exact boundaries of the graves
were determined, GPS gave surveyors
geo-referenced points for maps.
“The trouble we continually faced
in this project was that it seemed like
every time we turned around we found
yet another burial location,” Noah
explained. “This is not surprising
considering men were buried whenever
there was a lull in the fighting and
wherever they fell. The troops had a
monstrous sanitation problem with not
only thousands of bodies decomposing
in the tropical sun, but the rotting food
and excreta of more than 30,000 men
forced them to do whatever they could,
wherever they could, and any time they
could. As we soon found out, bodies
On Tarawa, ground penetrating radar was put to good
use by geophysicist James Harrison, who worked
with History Flight locating the “lost” graves of U.S.
Marines missing in action since WWII. Hits were
recorded with GPS carried on the scientist’s back.
were buried everywhere on that island
in several individual unit cemeteries as
well as combined cemeteries.”
All told, more than 43 burial locations
were found on the island, each containing from one set of remains to hundreds
at different locations.
GIS maps provided a central repository
for data collected from not only burial
records, but also from the positional data
gathered in the field with GPR equipment
as well as oral records from survivors as
well as the island’s inhabitants.
According to Noah, “It wasn’t long
before we were able to combine the
ability to gather burial information
about individual casualties and the
positional data recovered with our GPR
to create a GPS-fueled map that would
be immensely valuable in proving our
case to the Joint Identification Lab who
would ultimately be tasked with finding
and identifying the remains, which is a
holistic approach that would have been
impossible not long ago before we had
access to these technologies.”
After about a month of searching and a
second trip taken in January, 2008, a total
of 139 sets of remains had been found.
Tarawa is the first of 14 projects we
hope to accomplish in the coming years,”
Darcy said. “There were numerous
problems encountered with the Tarawa
project but we were able to overcome
them all. “From the beginning, the Army
botched the job of recovering the dead on
Tarawa, and they were of no help to us in
fixing the problem. In fact, they wanted
$ 30 for each record of personnel lost
on the island. Instead, we found original
burial records. That’s how we were able
to tell the searchers where to look.”
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
raves
Noah emphasizes that the intent of the
project was never to uncover remains.
“I’m not a professional archaeologist,
just an amateur historian interested in
the subject,” he said. “The pros should
do the actual digging. That way we are
preserving the integrity of the study so
those who know a lot more about what
they are doing can do their jobs.”
On 27 April 2008, Noah turned over a
report of his findings to the Department
of Defense POW-MIA Office and the
Commandant of the Marine Corps.
“It’s kind of an unwritten understanding that when a service member dies in
combat, his body will be identified and
buried with full military honors. It’s sad
that these fellows have stayed buried this
long without being found and returned,
but it’s also understandable since these
offices are so busy with more recent
losses that they have difficulty starting
new searches without a lot of evidence as
These two U.S. Marine skeletons were found on Tarawa by History Flight in April 2010.
History Flight was able to place them in protective government custody pending their
identification.
to where these graves might be located.
Fortunately, shortly after we delivered our
report to the Commandant of the Marine
Corps, we received communication from
his office, thanking us for our effort and
promising action on the matter.”
In the News
“When this project started, we were
concerned about contacting the families
of those lost to let them know of finding
their next-of-kin, but as the publicity
about this project unfolded, many of
these families have instead contacted
us for information,” Noah explained.
“These families have been waiting for
their closure for more than 66 years. We
owe that to them. And we owe the right
to come home to all the fellows we lost.”
According to officials of History
Flight, as of 2010, an additional burial
location has been discovered with an
estimated 100 more burials located.
In 2008 History Flight funded and
conducted two six-week long searches
in the Marshall, Caroline and Gilbert
Islands. One search resulted in the finding of U.S. Navy Pilot Lt. Harry Brown
in the wreckage of his airplane that was
shot down over the Pacific Island of Yap.
A second MIA Hellcat was found by a
History Flight-funded search in 2009.
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com
The LosT
History Flight’s lost-grave search team photographed during our 6th successful expedition to Tarawa, where they re-surveyed
cemetery 27 (the likely burial site of Medal-of-Honor recipient “Sandy” Bonnyman) with ground-penetrating radar, EM38 earth
conductivity meter, magnetometry, and an extraordinary cadaver dog named Buster. Team members included (front row): Matt
Benson, geophysicist; Kautebiri Kobuti, Kiribati national employed as an agent for History Flight; Paul Dosti, retired police
detective and Buster’s handler, and Dr. Donald Allen, team veterinarian and author of “Tarawa the Aftermath.” Back Row: Keith
Phillips, political affairs expert and founder of “Operation Homecoming”; Mark Noah, History Flight founder, team historian and
author of “The Lost Graves of Tarawa”; James Harrison, geophysicist and expert in the recognition of uncasketed human remains
with ground penetrating radar; Jennie Sturm, archaeologist, geophysicist and expert in clandestine grave detection; Dr. Chet
Walker, archaeologist, geophysicist, and expert in detection of clandestine graves with GPR, magnetometry and electromagnetic
sensing; Marc Flagg, historian, and Matt Holly, historian and dive expert.
Efforts are now underway to excavate
more remains.
Unfortunately, many of the Tarawa
missing will probably never be found
and/or identified. Those lost in the
waters surrounding the island will
probably never be found. Further,
approximately 93 sets of remains were
classified as unidentified/unknown
and were returned and buried at the
National Memorial of the Pacific at
Punchbowl in Hawaii.
“Of course, we understand that it
would be impossible for us to find and
identify every set of remains,” Noah
concedes, “but I think we owe the men
who were lost as well as their families
our best effort. That’s what I want to
see done.”
Mike Michelsen is a freelance writer
in Riverside, California
History Flight Director Mark Noah (left) is shown with Pat and Cherie Ranfranz (who
run the Missing Air Crew Project) and two Yapese guides who are holding History
Flight’s side scan sonar during a 2008 search mission to Yap Island.
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • Vol. 9 No. 6 • Copyright 2012 Cheves Media • www.Amerisurv.com