WASHINGTON –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Marine Corps. Cpl. Claire E. Goldtrap, 21, of Hobart, Oklahoma, killed during World War II, was accounted for on June 1, 2018.
In November 1943, Goldtrap was assigned to Company A, 2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 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, but the Japanese were virtually annihilated. Goldtrap died on the first day of the battle, Nov. 20, 1943, during the first wave of the assault.
The battle of Tarawa was a significant 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 Goldtrap’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 October 2016, DPAA disinterred Tarawa Unknown X-277 from the NMCP and sent the remains to the laboratory for analysis. Records indicate that X-277 was originally buried in Cemetery #11 on Betio as an Unknown. Even though Goldtrap’s Casualty Card indicated he was buried in Cemetery #33, Cemetery #11 was located in close proximity to the beach designated “Beach Red 1,” where Goldtrap was reported to have disembarked from the USS Thuban to support amphibious operations.
To identify Goldtrap’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.
DPAA is grateful to the Department for 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 72,741 service members (approximately 26,000 are assessed as possibly-recoverable) still unaccounted for from World War II. Goldtrap’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others killed or lost in WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
For family contact information, contact the Marine Corps Service Casualty office at (800) 847-1597.
Goldtrap will be buried April 10, 2019, in his hometown.
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.
Goldtrap’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000XknREAS