https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001JAeLLEA1

On October 23, 2000, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) identified the remains of Private Charles A. Selby, missing from World War II.

Private Selby, who entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Wisconsin, 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. Private Selby was killed in action during the ensuing battle. On August 19, local villagers buried him in a communal grave on Butaritari with other Marines who had died during the assault. In 1999, a CILHI investigative team traveled to Butaritari where they interviewed a villager who participated in the burial. The team was led to the mass gravesite, located under an abandoned coral road. The site was excavated and the comingled remains were recovered and transferred to CILHI, where analysts used forensic analysis to successfully identify Private Selby.

Private Selby is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Charles Austin Selby