Searchers Say 139 Marine Graves Found

"The bullets were still flying in late November 1943 as Navy Seabees worked to convert parts of a blood-drenched Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands into a base to fly in troops and supplies for the continuing "Island Hopping" campaign waged by U.S. Marines.

"In the chaos, rows of markers and crosses designating the graves of fallen Marines were moved aside and were eventually forgotten.

"At the end of World War II, when the Army returned to recover the bodies of American dead on the island, it would find fewer than half of those records claimed were buried there.

"But in late November, two private companies announced they had found the final resting places of 139 missing Tarawa Marines, with Mark Noah, head of Florida-based History Flight organization, calling the discovery "the largest in the history of the American armed forces."

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