The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced this week that two Marines killed during World War II were accounted for.
Marine Corps Sgt. Donald D. Stoddard, 22, of Boulder, Colorado, was accounted for on March 16, 2020, and Marine Corps Reserve Pfc. J.L. Hancock, 21, of McLean, Texas, was accounted for on Feb. 17, 2021.
In November 1943, Stoddard and Hancock were members of Company B, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 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, while the Japanese were virtually annihilated. Stoddard and Hancock died on the third day of battle, Nov. 22, 1943. They were reported to have been buried in Row D of the East Division Cemetery, later renamed Cemetery 33.
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In 1946, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company centralized all of the American remains found on Tarawa at Lone Palm Cemetery for later repatriation. However, almost half of the known casualties were never found. No recovered remains could be associated with Stoddard or Hancock, and, in October 1949, a Board of Review declared them “non-recoverable.”
In 2009, History Flight, Inc., a nonprofit organization, discovered a burial site on Betio Island believed to be Cemetery 33, which has been the site of numerous excavations ever since. In March 2019, excavations west of Cemetery 33 revealed a previously undiscovered burial site that has since been identified as Row D. The remains recovered at this site were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
To identify Stoddard's and Hancock's remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
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Stoddard's and Hancock's names are recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific along with the others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to their name to indicate they have been accounted for.
Stoddard was buried June 26, 2021, in his hometown.
Hancock will be buried on Aug. 4, 2021 in San Antonio.
DPAA is grateful to the Republic of Kiribati and appreciative to History Flight, Inc., for their partnership in this mission.
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