WASHINGTON, DC — The remains of a U.S. serviceman from Greencastle who died in World War II are coming home.

Navy Reserve Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class Thomas J. Murphy, will be buried May 28 in Hamilton, Ohio with full military honors.

In November 1943, Murphy, then 22 years old, was assigned to a Marine unit that landed against stiff Japanese resistance on the small island of Betio in the Pacific’s Gilbert Islands. Over several days of intense fighting at Tarawa, approximately 1,000 Marines and Sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded, but the Japanese were virtually annihilated.

Murphy was killed on the first day of the battle, Nov. 20, 1943.

In the immediate aftermath of the fighting on Tarawa, U.S. service members who died in the battle were buried in a number of battlefield cemeteries on the island. Murphy’s remains were not recovered.

But in June 2015, History Flight, Inc., notified DPAA that they discovered a burial site on Betio Island and recovered the remains of what they believed were 35 U.S. Marines who fought during the battle of Tarawa in November 1943.

More remains were recovered in 2017. Using dental and anthropological analysis, which matched his records, as well as circumstantial and material evidence, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified Murphy’s remains.

Despite the heavy casualties suffered by U.S. forces, the battle of Tarawa was a huge victory for the U.S. military because the Gilbert Islands provided the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet a platform from which to launch assaults on Japanese installations in the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website or atwww.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1169.

Source: WTHR