On May 15, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of Private First Class Royal Lawrence Waltz, missing from World War II.
Royal was the son of Royal Leander and Maude Evelyn (nee Parrish) Waltz.
Private First Class Waltz was with his brothers in Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 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.
It was November 20th (D-Day of the "Battle of Tarawa") when young Royal - just 20 years old - perished.
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, including the Division Cemetery. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Royal'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 2009, the non-profit organization History Flight located a burial site on Betio and recovered human remains there. This discovery prompted the reexamination of 94 sets of "Unknown" remains that had been previously recovered from Betio and moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. One set of "Unknown" remains was found to be associated with another set of remains recovered by History Flight, and DPAA analysts used modern forensic tools to identify these collective remains as those of PFC Waltz.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight and the Department of Veterans Affairs and for their partnerships in this mission.
Royal's family placed a memorial marker at Grangeville Cemetery in Armona, CA (66011420) in hopes that one day he would be found and returned home.
Royal was the son of Royal Leander and Maude Evelyn (nee Parrish) Waltz.
Private First Class Waltz was with his brothers in Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 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.
It was November 20th (D-Day of the "Battle of Tarawa") when young Royal - just 20 years old - perished.
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, including the Division Cemetery. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Royal'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 2009, the non-profit organization History Flight located a burial site on Betio and recovered human remains there. This discovery prompted the reexamination of 94 sets of "Unknown" remains that had been previously recovered from Betio and moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. One set of "Unknown" remains was found to be associated with another set of remains recovered by History Flight, and DPAA analysts used modern forensic tools to identify these collective remains as those of PFC Waltz.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight and the Department of Veterans Affairs and for their partnerships in this mission.
Royal's family placed a memorial marker at Grangeville Cemetery in Armona, CA (66011420) in hopes that one day he would be found and returned home.
On May 15, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of Private First Class Royal Lawrence Waltz, missing from World War II.
Royal was the son of Royal Leander and Maude Evelyn (nee Parrish) Waltz.
Private First Class Waltz was with his brothers in Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 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.
It was November 20th (D-Day of the "Battle of Tarawa") when young Royal - just 20 years old - perished.
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, including the Division Cemetery. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Royal'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 2009, the non-profit organization History Flight located a burial site on Betio and recovered human remains there. This discovery prompted the reexamination of 94 sets of "Unknown" remains that had been previously recovered from Betio and moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. One set of "Unknown" remains was found to be associated with another set of remains recovered by History Flight, and DPAA analysts used modern forensic tools to identify these collective remains as those of PFC Waltz.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight and the Department of Veterans Affairs and for their partnerships in this mission.
Royal's family placed a memorial marker at Grangeville Cemetery in Armona, CA (66011420) in hopes that one day he would be found and returned home.
Royal was the son of Royal Leander and Maude Evelyn (nee Parrish) Waltz.
Private First Class Waltz was with his brothers in Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 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.
It was November 20th (D-Day of the "Battle of Tarawa") when young Royal - just 20 years old - perished.
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, including the Division Cemetery. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Royal'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 2009, the non-profit organization History Flight located a burial site on Betio and recovered human remains there. This discovery prompted the reexamination of 94 sets of "Unknown" remains that had been previously recovered from Betio and moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. One set of "Unknown" remains was found to be associated with another set of remains recovered by History Flight, and DPAA analysts used modern forensic tools to identify these collective remains as those of PFC Waltz.
DPAA is grateful to History Flight and the Department of Veterans Affairs and for their partnerships in this mission.
Royal's family placed a memorial marker at Grangeville Cemetery in Armona, CA (66011420) in hopes that one day he would be found and returned home.
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