OSU Professor Travels to Kiribati for U.S. Repatriation Ceremony
Wed, Sep 13, 2017
About 2,500 miles west of Hawaii lies the Tarawa Atoll, one of 33 coral atolls constituting the island nation of Kiribati. In World War II, Tarawa was on the outer fringe of the Japanese Empire before United States Marines attacked the island and took control of its airfield. It was not without cost, as around 1,100 U.S. casualties occurred during the 76-hour Battle of Tarawa. Yet after the war ended, only 300 or so of these men were located and brought home. It wasn’t until History Flight, Inc., a private, non-profit organization dedicated to recovering WWII MIA personnel, set out to find them that so many have been located and returned to the United States in coordination with the U.S. government’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
College of Arts and Sciences
