Marine Corps Reserve Tech Sgt Harry A Carlsen
Marine Corps Reserve Tech. Sgt. Harry A. Carlsen, 31, of Brookfield, Illinois, accounted for on June 4, 2018, will be buried October 13, in Elwood, Illinois. In November 1943, Carlsen was assigned to Company A, 2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force, which landed against stiff Japanese resistance on the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands, in an attempt to secure the island. 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. Carlsen died on the first day of the battle, Nov. 20, 1943, during the first waves of the assault.
The battle of Tarawa was a significant 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 the Marshall and Caroline Islands to advance their Central Pacific Campaign against Japan.
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. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Carlsen’s remains were not identified. All of the remains found on Tarawa were sent to the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Laboratory for identification in 1947. By 1949, the remains that had not been identified were interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Honolulu.
In 2013, DPAA received a unilateral turnover from History Flight, Inc., a nongovernmental organization, of remains recovered from Cemetery #33 on Betio Island.
On Feb. 27, 2017, DPAA disinterred Tarawa Unknown X-082 from the NMCP and sent the remains to the laboratory for analysis. The remains were consolidated with remains turned over in 2013 from History Flight, Inc.
To identify Carlsen’s remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis, dental, anthropological and chest radiograph comparison analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight, Inc., and the Department for Veterans Affairs for their partnership in this mission.
The battle of Tarawa was a significant 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 the Marshall and Caroline Islands to advance their Central Pacific Campaign against Japan.
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. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Carlsen’s remains were not identified. All of the remains found on Tarawa were sent to the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Laboratory for identification in 1947. By 1949, the remains that had not been identified were interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Honolulu.
In 2013, DPAA received a unilateral turnover from History Flight, Inc., a nongovernmental organization, of remains recovered from Cemetery #33 on Betio Island.
On Feb. 27, 2017, DPAA disinterred Tarawa Unknown X-082 from the NMCP and sent the remains to the laboratory for analysis. The remains were consolidated with remains turned over in 2013 from History Flight, Inc.
To identify Carlsen’s remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis, dental, anthropological and chest radiograph comparison analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight, Inc., and the Department for Veterans Affairs for their partnership in this mission.