[fso301]

Scratchin my head about why a mass grave. Has to be a good reason.

My dad was at Tarawa. The atoll is barely large enough for an airstrip. Dead marines and Japanese were everywhere and when thousands of corpses are lying out in the tropical sun, a health crisis can start real fast.

I'm speculating now but the graves registration people may have done their jobs and moved on but shortly thereafter, marked graves had to be moved to accomodate work on the airfield.

[stylin19a]

Thanks...that makes sense.

If they could move the equipment in to build the airfields, they had to be able to get back to the ships, but the ships probably wouldn't have been able to accommodate the dead either. So no place to go with them except in the ground.

Mass graves (I think the article said they identified 8 grave) makes sense.

thanks again.

[billorites]

If I have my morbid mass grave trivia correct, the largest mass grave(s) in a U.S. military cemetery is just outside of Richmond, VA at Cold Harbor.

That battle was fought in June of 1864 and was a terrible bloodbath.

Union officers, including an ancestor of mine, got headstones which relatives could visit and make believe marked their graves.

889 other Union soldiers were buried in mass graves within the boundaries of the tiny Cold Harbor Cemetery.