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News Release

Press Release | Oct. 29, 2018

Funeral Announcement For Marine Killed During World War II (Lukie, J.)

WASHINGTON  –   The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, accounted-for from World War II, have returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Marine Corps Reserve Pfc. Joe Lukie, 19, of Harvey, West Virginia, accounted for on Sept. 5, 2017, was buried October 27, in Oak Hill, West Virginia. In November 1943, Lukie was assigned to Company K, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 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. Lukie died on the first day of the battle, Nov. 20, 1943.

Despite the heavy casualties suffered by U.S. forces, military success in the battle of Tarawa was a huge 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 Lukie’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 November 2013, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (now DPAA) team conducted investigations at a disturbed cemetery site on the Island of Betio, recovering material evidence and osseous remains, which were sent to DPAA for analysis.

On April 3, 2017, DPAA disinterred Tarawa Unknown X-201 from the NMCP, sent them to the laboratory for analysis and consolidated them with previously collected remains.

To identify Lukie’s remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial (mtDNA) DNA analysis, dental, anthropological and chest radiograph comparisons, which matched his records, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.

DPAA is grateful to the Department of Veterans Affairs for their partnership in this mission

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war. Currently there are 72,787 service members (approximately 26,000 are assessed as possibly-recoverable) still unaccounted for from World War II. Lukie’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the NMCP, along with the other MIAs from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

For more information regarding the funeral, contact the Marine Corps Service Casualty Office at (800) 847-1597.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1169.

Lukie’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000LliEEAS