JJ_BPK
11-25-2008, 05:25
Most of you don't know PFC James Bernard Johnson. He is a Marine. He is my
fathers younger brother and for whom I am named. He died during the assault
on Tarawa, Nov 1943. He was interned on Tarawa in what should have been a
temporary burial plot, as was the practice during WW II conflicts. After the
war was over, the military was supposed to move all the fallen to permanent
internment, or return the individuals to their family, for state side
burial. This did not happen.
A lot of small processes broke down on Tarawa.. It's a small island,, so
space was a premium.. It was a very costly island, one of the worst
casualties counts in the South Pacific.. Land was a premium and a runway was
needed, and barracks,, and a war needed to be fought.. The war still had
almost 2 more years to go..
Shit happens...
To this day there are thousands of Americans, and our allies, and our
opponents,, buried in the South Pacific,, in Europe,, in Korea,, and in
Vietnam who did not make it home..
Let me regress a bit,, Why am I telling you all this??
As happens to most FOGs, especially those that had military time,, they
start reminiscing. In this case I was doing a little work on documenting our
family's history and was trying to fill the void where my uncle's name fit
in. At this time and to my knowledge, there is know one left that has ever
met my uncle Jimmy.. Not a good starting point..
So,, I turned to GOOGLE with what little information I have.
Name: James B Johnson
Rank: PFC
Service: Marine
Place: Tarawa, Gilbert Island chain, South Pacific
After a while, I found an organization that is doing exactly what I could
not do. They are trying to find the graves of the Marines still on Tarawa.
And one of those individuals lives right here on Big Pine Key......
I would like to introduce you to two individuals that are trying to make a
difference,, and they are succeeding where there has been failure.
- Mark Noah, executive director of History Flight
- Ted Darcy, X-Marine and founder of WFI Research Group
I would also like to thank Mark and Ted and the rest of their team for a job
well done...
It is the dedication of individuals like Ted & Mark, that should put a
warm-fuzzy in all of us..
Here is their story...
Remains from WWII battle on Tarawa found, Florida group says By William R.
Levesque, Times Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 25, 2008
www.tampabay.com/news/military/war/article916251.ece
The Marines quickly buried their dead after the 1943 battle for Tarawa, one
of the bloodiest fights against the Japanese in World War II.
Then the bulldozers came to build runways. Markers were lost. In 1946, the
military went back to find those graves on the Pacific atoll.
They couldn't locate half of them.
But on Monday, a nonprofit group with headquarters in the Florida Keys
announced that it had helped locate the graves of 139 missing Marines and
sailors whose remains had long been presumed lost.
The group, History Flight, based in Marathon, worked with WFI Research Group
in Fall River, Mass., to confirm the location of the remains in eight burial
pits on the tiny atoll, 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.
The discovery is described by the groups as the largest ever of MIA remains
from any American war. The military could not confirm this.
"This is an incredible find," said Donald Allen, an Ohio author who wrote a
book, Tarawa - the Aftermath, about the battle. He is not affiliated with
WFI or History Flight.
"These were somebody's sons, brothers, fathers. It's extraordinarily
meaningful to know where they are," he said.
History Flight, which has not removed or disturbed the remains, said it will
notify the Marines and the Department of Defense, which is expected to
recover and attempt to positively identify the bodies.
All are presumed to be those of Americans, given the location and manner of
burial, History Flight said.
History Flight said 541 troops were eventually listed as missing after the
three-day battle in November 1943, one in a series of ever-bloodier fights
leading to the doorstep of Japan. Most who died on the atoll were Marines.
More than 1,600 Americans were killed in the battle. Of 4,500 Japanese
defenders on Tarawa, just 17 survived.
Tracing the history of those missing troops has proven a complicated
journey. It began in 1992, when WFI founder Ted Darcy, a Marine veteran who
served 20 years ending in 1989, started research.
"There's no closure until that body comes back," Darcy said.
When the troops were buried in 1943, most were undoubtedly identified by the
military, History Flight said. The graves were marked with the expectation
that after the war the bodies might be recovered and sent home.
But war construction on the atoll, including air strips, covered many of the
burials. After the war, the Army tried to locate the bodies.
But only 49 percent of the known bodies were found.
"They lost the bodies," said Mark Noah, executive director of History
Flight, which operates a flight museum and works on identifying lost
military personnel. "These Marines, each of them was somebody's son. They
all perished and were left behind. And their families were fed the fiction
that they were missing in action."
Capt. Mary Olsen, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office in
Washington, said she had no information about History Flight's work and
could not comment on the disposition of bodies on Tarawa.
During World War II, the Marines recorded where bodies were buried and
created rosters identifying many of the dead.
But overwhelmed by the need to find 72,000 missing troops after the war, the
military didn't do enough research to locate the dead and quickly abandoned
the effort, Noah said.
"The war was over and people wanted to move on," Noah said. "The records
pertaining to the burials were kept classified until the 1970s. By then,
most of the Marines' parents were dead."
History Flight said it spent $88,000 to locate the graves using the
military's own records. It then confirmed the number of dead using
ground-penetrating radar this month and in October. The graves have not been
disturbed, Noah said.
He said funding was provided by Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American
Legion, among other groups.
Given the roster of the burials, Noah is confident that the military will
ultimately identify many of the remains. Confirmation may be made using DNA
matches with relatives.
Noah said most of the remains will be recoverable, even if they are buried
under residential areas where people don't realize they live atop graves.
In fact, through the years, a few of the remains have been unearthed by
residents digging sewer lines or even tending gardens.
Darcy, the Marine veteran who began the search for the remains 16 years ago,
said he is still in touch with families who want to know what happened to
missing kin. None could be reached for comment on Monday.
"In the Marines we were taught . to never leave any man behind," Darcy said.
The three-day Battle of Tarawa was one of the most brutal of World War II.
The main island was only 600 yards at its widest and 21/2 miles long, but it
was defended by about 4,500 Japanese in sand-covered concrete bunkers,
leading a Japanese commander to brag that "a million men cannot take Tarawa
in a hundred years." On the morning of Nov. 20, 1943, the United States
began its first major amphibious assault. The American victory provided a
crucial airfield to launch planes to bomb new Japanese targets in the
Pacific Theater.
1,670 Approximate number of Marines and sailors killed in the battle
2,300 Approximate number of U.S. troops injured
4,500 Approximate number of Japanese defenders
17 Japanese survivors
fathers younger brother and for whom I am named. He died during the assault
on Tarawa, Nov 1943. He was interned on Tarawa in what should have been a
temporary burial plot, as was the practice during WW II conflicts. After the
war was over, the military was supposed to move all the fallen to permanent
internment, or return the individuals to their family, for state side
burial. This did not happen.
A lot of small processes broke down on Tarawa.. It's a small island,, so
space was a premium.. It was a very costly island, one of the worst
casualties counts in the South Pacific.. Land was a premium and a runway was
needed, and barracks,, and a war needed to be fought.. The war still had
almost 2 more years to go..
Shit happens...
To this day there are thousands of Americans, and our allies, and our
opponents,, buried in the South Pacific,, in Europe,, in Korea,, and in
Vietnam who did not make it home..
Let me regress a bit,, Why am I telling you all this??
As happens to most FOGs, especially those that had military time,, they
start reminiscing. In this case I was doing a little work on documenting our
family's history and was trying to fill the void where my uncle's name fit
in. At this time and to my knowledge, there is know one left that has ever
met my uncle Jimmy.. Not a good starting point..
So,, I turned to GOOGLE with what little information I have.
Name: James B Johnson
Rank: PFC
Service: Marine
Place: Tarawa, Gilbert Island chain, South Pacific
After a while, I found an organization that is doing exactly what I could
not do. They are trying to find the graves of the Marines still on Tarawa.
And one of those individuals lives right here on Big Pine Key......
I would like to introduce you to two individuals that are trying to make a
difference,, and they are succeeding where there has been failure.
- Mark Noah, executive director of History Flight
- Ted Darcy, X-Marine and founder of WFI Research Group
I would also like to thank Mark and Ted and the rest of their team for a job
well done...
It is the dedication of individuals like Ted & Mark, that should put a
warm-fuzzy in all of us..
Here is their story...
Remains from WWII battle on Tarawa found, Florida group says By William R.
Levesque, Times Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 25, 2008
www.tampabay.com/news/military/war/article916251.ece
The Marines quickly buried their dead after the 1943 battle for Tarawa, one
of the bloodiest fights against the Japanese in World War II.
Then the bulldozers came to build runways. Markers were lost. In 1946, the
military went back to find those graves on the Pacific atoll.
They couldn't locate half of them.
But on Monday, a nonprofit group with headquarters in the Florida Keys
announced that it had helped locate the graves of 139 missing Marines and
sailors whose remains had long been presumed lost.
The group, History Flight, based in Marathon, worked with WFI Research Group
in Fall River, Mass., to confirm the location of the remains in eight burial
pits on the tiny atoll, 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.
The discovery is described by the groups as the largest ever of MIA remains
from any American war. The military could not confirm this.
"This is an incredible find," said Donald Allen, an Ohio author who wrote a
book, Tarawa - the Aftermath, about the battle. He is not affiliated with
WFI or History Flight.
"These were somebody's sons, brothers, fathers. It's extraordinarily
meaningful to know where they are," he said.
History Flight, which has not removed or disturbed the remains, said it will
notify the Marines and the Department of Defense, which is expected to
recover and attempt to positively identify the bodies.
All are presumed to be those of Americans, given the location and manner of
burial, History Flight said.
History Flight said 541 troops were eventually listed as missing after the
three-day battle in November 1943, one in a series of ever-bloodier fights
leading to the doorstep of Japan. Most who died on the atoll were Marines.
More than 1,600 Americans were killed in the battle. Of 4,500 Japanese
defenders on Tarawa, just 17 survived.
Tracing the history of those missing troops has proven a complicated
journey. It began in 1992, when WFI founder Ted Darcy, a Marine veteran who
served 20 years ending in 1989, started research.
"There's no closure until that body comes back," Darcy said.
When the troops were buried in 1943, most were undoubtedly identified by the
military, History Flight said. The graves were marked with the expectation
that after the war the bodies might be recovered and sent home.
But war construction on the atoll, including air strips, covered many of the
burials. After the war, the Army tried to locate the bodies.
But only 49 percent of the known bodies were found.
"They lost the bodies," said Mark Noah, executive director of History
Flight, which operates a flight museum and works on identifying lost
military personnel. "These Marines, each of them was somebody's son. They
all perished and were left behind. And their families were fed the fiction
that they were missing in action."
Capt. Mary Olsen, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office in
Washington, said she had no information about History Flight's work and
could not comment on the disposition of bodies on Tarawa.
During World War II, the Marines recorded where bodies were buried and
created rosters identifying many of the dead.
But overwhelmed by the need to find 72,000 missing troops after the war, the
military didn't do enough research to locate the dead and quickly abandoned
the effort, Noah said.
"The war was over and people wanted to move on," Noah said. "The records
pertaining to the burials were kept classified until the 1970s. By then,
most of the Marines' parents were dead."
History Flight said it spent $88,000 to locate the graves using the
military's own records. It then confirmed the number of dead using
ground-penetrating radar this month and in October. The graves have not been
disturbed, Noah said.
He said funding was provided by Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American
Legion, among other groups.
Given the roster of the burials, Noah is confident that the military will
ultimately identify many of the remains. Confirmation may be made using DNA
matches with relatives.
Noah said most of the remains will be recoverable, even if they are buried
under residential areas where people don't realize they live atop graves.
In fact, through the years, a few of the remains have been unearthed by
residents digging sewer lines or even tending gardens.
Darcy, the Marine veteran who began the search for the remains 16 years ago,
said he is still in touch with families who want to know what happened to
missing kin. None could be reached for comment on Monday.
"In the Marines we were taught . to never leave any man behind," Darcy said.
The three-day Battle of Tarawa was one of the most brutal of World War II.
The main island was only 600 yards at its widest and 21/2 miles long, but it
was defended by about 4,500 Japanese in sand-covered concrete bunkers,
leading a Japanese commander to brag that "a million men cannot take Tarawa
in a hundred years." On the morning of Nov. 20, 1943, the United States
began its first major amphibious assault. The American victory provided a
crucial airfield to launch planes to bomb new Japanese targets in the
Pacific Theater.
1,670 Approximate number of Marines and sailors killed in the battle
2,300 Approximate number of U.S. troops injured
4,500 Approximate number of Japanese defenders
17 Japanese survivors