WWII Marine Missing for 80 Years Will Be Buried on What Would Have Been His 105th Birthday

Marine Corps Sgt. Harold Hammett's family accepted the Purple Heart and Presidential Unit Citation for his service and sacrifice, according to his obituary

More than 80 years after he died, a Mississippi Marine killed during World War II will finally be buried on what would have been his 105th birthday,

The remains of Marine Corps Sgt. Harold Hammett, 24, were finally accounted for on Sept. 23, 2023, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

He will now be laid to rest on Friday in Hattiesburg. Hammett's family is inviting community members to honor him by lining the streets from Hulett-Winstead Funeral Home to the cemetery, NBC affiliate WDAM reported. Members are also invited to the cemetery for graveside services.

Hammett enlisted in the Marine Corps in San Francisco in 1940, according to officials. By November 1943, he 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.

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"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," the agency said. "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."

"Having a loved one away from home during the holidays is always trying; however, having a son or husband off fighting in the war left the whole family on edge," his obituary read. "The fact that this battle took place just before Thanksgiving meant that most of the families, who had unknowingly earned their Gold Star, would receive their heart-wrenching telegrams on Christmas Eve – some Christmas Day or even New Years Day."

In 1964, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company centralized all of the American remains found on Tarawa at Lone Palm Cemetery for later repatriation, the DPAA said.

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Officials noted that "almost half of the known casualties were never found," and Hammett was never associated with recovered remains.

"In November 1949, a Board of Review declared him 'non-recoverable,'" the DPAA said. "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."

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The recovered remains were interred in Hawaii's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl. In 2017, the X-247 remains were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis and identification.

DPAA scientists used anthropological analysis as well as circumstantial and material evidence to identify his remains, officials said. Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

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His 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 has been placed next to his name now that he's been accounted for.

“For all these years, he’s been listed as killed in action. Matter of fact, his name is on the Granite Pillars at our park. Every Memorial Day, we read the names of the men who gave their lives for their country that are from the Hattiesburg area. We always mention Sgt. Harold Hammett," Ted Tibbett, chairman of the Hattiesburg Veteran’s Committee, told CBS affiliate WJTV. "Certainly, to his family and descendants, it’s a lot of closure for someone that gave their life for our country."

Hammett's survivors included his parents, his seven siblings and grandparents. His brother, PFC Emry H. Hammett Jr., had also been stationed with the Marines in Honolulu at the time of his death, according to WDAM.

For his service and sacrifice, Hammett's family accepted the Purple Heart and Presidential Unit Citation, his obituary added.

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