Searching for the lost Marines of Guadalcanal

Summary

In early 2016, Garcia & Associates conducted forensic archaeological investigations for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. DPAA (formerly JPAC) is the Department of Defense agency tasked with providing the fullest possible accounting for missing American service personnel from past wars. During World War II, the Battle for Guadalcanal lasted from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943 and included intense ground fighting to secure the airstrip known as Henderson Field. Not including sea battles, more than 1,200 Marines and 26,000 Japanese soldiers were killed during the six month battle in the Solomon Islands. As part of its continued effort to recover and identify missing U.S. war dead, DPAA has increased its effort to foster public-private-partnerships (P3) to maximize the number of missing personnel accounted for through search and recovery operations . GANDA was fortunate enough to participate in one of the first P3 operations. The GANDA team, working closely with DPAA personnel and local informants, conducted investigative and data recovery excavations at a suspected war-time burial site possibly associated with one of the more than 500 Marines that remain missing in action in the Solomon Islands today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17116