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On October 23, 2000, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) accounted for Captain Gerald P. Holtom, missing from World War II.

Captain Holtom entered the U.S. Marine Corps from California and was a member of Headquarters Company, 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. Capt Holtom was killed in the ensuing battle. On August 19, locals buried Capt Holtom in a communal grave on Butaritari. 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 Capt Holtom's remains.

Captain Holtom is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Gerald P Holtom