DPAA

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001J4tYDEAZ

305326

On October 23, 2000, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) accounted for Private First Class Kenneth M. Montgomery, missing from World War II.

Private First Class Montgomery, who entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Illinois, was a member of Company B, 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. On August 17, 1942, members of the 2nd Raider Battalion participated in an attack on a Japanese seaplane base on the small island of Butaritari, Makin Atoll, in the Gilbert Islands. PFC Montgomery was killed during the ensuing battle. He was buried on Butaritari by local villagers in a mass grave with other Marines who had died during the assault. His remains were not recovered after the war. In 1999, a CILHI investigative team traveled to Butaritari and interviewed a villager who participated in the burial, which led the team to a communal gravesite located under an abandoned coral road. The team recovered a set of commingled remains, which were brought to the Central Identification Lab in Hawaii in late 1999. Analysts eventually identified PFC Montgomery from among these remains.

Private First Class Montgomery is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Last First Middle ServiceNumber Rank

CASTLE VERNON Leroy 307868 FM1C

EARLES I B 293609 CPL

GALLAGHER WILLIAM Albert 307593 PFC

GASTON DANIEL Albert 340727 CPL

HICKS ASHLEY Warren 345385 PFC

HOLTOM GERALD Price O-007549 CAPT

JOHNSON HARRIS Jonathan 334067 CPL

KUNKLE KENNETH Kirk 268716 CPL

LARSON CARLYLE Oscar 346391 PVT

MACIEJEWSKI EDWARD * 299149 CPL

MAULDING ROBERT Benton 337436 PVT

MONTGOMERY KENNETH Maurice 305326 PFC

MORTENSEN NORMAN Warren 326651 PFC

NODLAND FRANKLIN Merrill 333878 PVT

PEARSON ROBERT Brooks 275291 CPL

SELBY CHARLES Austin 326661 PVT

THOMASON CLYDE * 246433 SGT

VANDENBERG JOHN Eugene 335768 PFC

YARBROUGH MASON Opel 309064 CPL

Kenneth M Montgomery