The remains of hundreds of U.S. Marines on the Pacific island of Tarawa— now an atoll in the Republic of Kiribati— could be identified using modern technology, says
Stars and Stripes.
A fierce battle took place there in November 1943. Over 1,000 Marines fell in the fighting – though the exact number is still unknown. A private group, History Flight, has begun an effort to identify the remains, the
POW-MIA Awareness Conference in Washington, D.C., was told on Friday.
About 10,000 bones, dozens of dog tags, and hundreds of pounds of gear have been recovered from the site. Some of the corpses were still clad in ponchos and helmets. According to Mark Noah of History Flight, the remains were buried in shallow ground in what has become a local trash pit.
Advances in forensic technology, such as DNA analysis, the availability of global positioning software, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the latest archival research now make it possible to identify more war dead from WWII onward, conference attendees were told.
In recent years, however, Defense Department efforts to bring more cases to closure have been hampered by ineptitude at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the POW/Missing Personnel Office. Leads were overlooked, searches mismanaged, and bureaucratic lethargy ruled, according to Stars and Stripes.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently announced a major overhaul and consolidation of the two offices. The Senate Armed Services Committee backed the proposed changes on Thursday.
About 83,000 service members are listed as missing from War World II and Korea through Vietnam and Iraq. Noah said, "Many hundreds or thousands of cases remain unknown and could easily be solved with today's technology."
To locate the Tarawa remains, he used drone photography and GPS data to match old photos and maps. The History Flight team also studied narratives of the fighting and any documents relating to where the deceased were interred.
Ed Huffine, who oversees humanitarian projects for the forensic firm Bode Technology, said identifications could be made nowadays from bone fragments using nuclear DNA tests. Current technology has provided a "quantum leap," he said, presenting "a very powerful tool that will be able to assist in the identification of loved ones."
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