A World War II veteran from Indiana will be laid to rest Monday more than seven decades after his death at the battle of Tarawa.
Navy Reserve Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class Thomas J. Murphy, 22, of Greencastle was killed on Nov. 20, 1943. But his remains were unaccounted for until late last year.
Murphy will be buried next to his brother Lester Oliver and his sister-in-law Juanita Ison Oliver in Greenwood Cemetery in Ohio.
Murphy's remaining relatives will receive friends at a reception on May 27, and a graveside funeral service with full military honors on May 28 at 11 a.m.
The Battle of Tarawa
Over several days of fighting, about 1,000 Marines and Sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded on the island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), all were buried in battlefield cemeteries on the island. A few years later most of the remains were recovered and moved to other burial sites, but Murphy's remains were not found. A review board declared his remains non-recoverable in 1949.
But in 2015, the nongovernmental organization History Flight, Inc., discovered another burial site on Betio Island, with what they believed were the remains of 35 U.S. Marines. DPAA investigated and located even more areas with remains, which were sent for analysis.
Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis to identify Murphy's remains in Sept. 2017.
A monument in Honolulu honoring those missing in the Pacific lists Murphy's name; a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.
According to DPAA, the battle at Tarawa was a key victory because it provided the Navy a platform to advance the Central Pacific Campaign against Japan.
DPAA says of the 400,000 American service members who died during World War II, 72,917 are still unaccounted for. About 26,000 of those are considered "possibly recoverable."
