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Fulfilling Our Nation’s Promise

Marine Accounted For From World War II

Feb 9, 2024

WASHINGTON—The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Marine Corps Sgt. Harold Hammett, 24, killed during World War II, was accounted for on Sept 25, 2023.

Originally born in Avery, Mississippi, Sgt. Hammett enlisted into the United States Marine Corps in San Francisco, California, in 1940. By November 1943, Hammett was a member of L Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd 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. Hammett is believed to have been killed while his unit attempted to secure Red Beach 2 on Nov. 20, 1943. His remains were not identified after the war.

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 Hammett, and, in November 1949, a Board of Review declared him “non-recoverable.” Unknown remains designated X-247 were recovered from Cemetery 11, along with Unknown X-251. Initially these remains were considered to possibly belong to Sgt. Hammett, but at the time an association could not be made. The remains recovered were interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Hawaii.

In late 2017, X-247 was disinterred from the Punchbowl and transferred to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis and identification.

To identify Hammett’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Hammett’s name is 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 his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Hammett will be buried in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on Feb 16, 2024.

For family and funeral information, contact the Marine Corps 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.

Hammett’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000Xl8KEAS.