"Corporal James Otto died in the Pacific war but his remains were only recently discovered. He was finally laid to rest 72 years later in a solemn ceremony"
UK Guardian
US marines storm Tarawa in November 1943. Corporal James Otto was among about 1,000 marines killed in the assault on the tiny atoll. Photograph: WO Obie Newcomb Jr/Courtesy of US Marine Corps
. . . "Marine corporal James Otto, 20, of Los Angeles, was killed in action on the first day of intense fighting to capture the tiny Pacific island of Betio from the Japanese during the second world war. In all, about 1,000 marines were killed and more than 2,000 wounded during the battle in November 1943.
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| Corporal James Otto, of the US marine corps. Photograph: Department of Defense |
"Otto’s family spent the past seven decades believing that he had been buried at sea. Then, in August this year, his closest living relative, cousin Charles Otto, 73, was informed that his remains had been found. “I thought at first someone was trying to pull my leg and get me,” he recalled. “It was hard to believe they found his remains after 72 years. They found complete skeletal remains except where he was hit in the legs.”
"The remains were identified via dental records preserved since Otto enlisted to fight. He is among at least 120 Americans found on Betio Island, part of Tarawa atoll, since 2005 by the charity History Flight using methods including subsurface remote sensing. Some have been returned to the US for interment in home cemeteries or in Arlington’s 620 acres; others are still being identified. About 74,000 service members from the second world war are still unaccounted for." . . .
“It’s been kind of mind-boggling, all of this, but it happened a long time ago. We didn’t really know him but we’re proud. The marine code is no man left behind, and we brought him home.”
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