MIA from the Battle of Tarawa
On November 20, 1943, two regiments of the Second Marine Division landed on Betio in the Tarawa atoll. Facing them were 2,600 well-trained Japanese troops with forty artillery pieces, nearly 500 pillboxes, and a system of trenches and fortifications that had taken 2,200 laborers over a year to build.
The battle lasted 76 hours. The Marines did not walk ashore, but floundered, crawled, and crept. Hundreds of them never touched dry land, being gunned down in the ocean as their landing vehicles were damaged or got hung up on the island's reef. 1,009 Marines were killed and 2,101 wounded; 129 Korean laborers and seventeen Japanese soldiers were captured.
PFC Ellis Kegley was KIA on Nov. 25, 1943 and still (2013) listed as MIA Battle of Tarawa
On November 20, 1943, two regiments of the Second Marine Division landed on Betio in the Tarawa atoll. Facing them were 2,600 well-trained Japanese troops with forty artillery pieces, nearly 500 pillboxes, and a system of trenches and fortifications that had taken 2,200 laborers over a year to build.
The battle lasted 76 hours. The Marines did not walk ashore, but floundered, crawled, and crept. Hundreds of them never touched dry land, being gunned down in the ocean as their landing vehicles were damaged or got hung up on the island's reef. 1,009 Marines were killed and 2,101 wounded; 129 Korean laborers and seventeen Japanese soldiers were captured.
PFC Ellis Kegley was KIA on Nov. 25, 1943 and still (2013) listed as MIA Battle of Tarawa
MIA from the Battle of Tarawa
On November 20, 1943, two regiments of the Second Marine Division landed on Betio in the Tarawa atoll. Facing them were 2,600 well-trained Japanese troops with forty artillery pieces, nearly 500 pillboxes, and a system of trenches and fortifications that had taken 2,200 laborers over a year to build.
The battle lasted 76 hours. The Marines did not walk ashore, but floundered, crawled, and crept. Hundreds of them never touched dry land, being gunned down in the ocean as their landing vehicles were damaged or got hung up on the island's reef. 1,009 Marines were killed and 2,101 wounded; 129 Korean laborers and seventeen Japanese soldiers were captured.
PFC Ellis Kegley was KIA on Nov. 25, 1943 and still (2013) listed as MIA Battle of Tarawa
On November 20, 1943, two regiments of the Second Marine Division landed on Betio in the Tarawa atoll. Facing them were 2,600 well-trained Japanese troops with forty artillery pieces, nearly 500 pillboxes, and a system of trenches and fortifications that had taken 2,200 laborers over a year to build.
The battle lasted 76 hours. The Marines did not walk ashore, but floundered, crawled, and crept. Hundreds of them never touched dry land, being gunned down in the ocean as their landing vehicles were damaged or got hung up on the island's reef. 1,009 Marines were killed and 2,101 wounded; 129 Korean laborers and seventeen Japanese soldiers were captured.
PFC Ellis Kegley was KIA on Nov. 25, 1943 and still (2013) listed as MIA Battle of Tarawa
Gravesite Details
Entered the service from West Virginia.
Family Members
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