VERNON LEROY CASTLE

FM1C USMCR

307868

HQ CO, 2ND MARINE RAIDER BATTALION, MAKIN ISLAND

BORN 30 OCTOBER 1920 AT HELENA, OKLAHOMA

ENLISTED 27 FEBRUARY 1941 AT OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

NEXT OF KIN MRS. LOIS E CASTLE, MOTHER, ROUTE #1, JET, OKLAHOMA

KILLED IN ACTION 17 AUGUST 1942 AT MAKIN ISLAND, GILBERT ISLANDS

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001J4tCfEAJ

On October 23, 2000, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) identified the remains of Field Musician Corporal Vernon L. Castle, missing from World War II.

Field Musician Corporal Castle, who entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Oklahoma, was a member of Company B, 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. On August 17, 1942, members of the 2nd Raider Battalion conducted a raid on the Japanese seaplane base on the small island of Butaritari in the Gilbert Islands. During the ensuing battle, FM1 Castle was killed. On August 19, he was buried on Butaritari by local villagers in a mass burial with other Marines who had died during the assault. His remains were not recovered after the war. In 1999, a U.S. investigative team traveled to Butaritari and interviewed a villager who participated in the burial. This interview led the team to a mass gravesite located under an abandoned coral road that had been built by U.S. Navy Seabees after the island was taken by U.S. forces in 1943. In late 1999, the comingled remains recovered from this gravesite were received at the Central Identification Lab in Hawaii. Analysts used forensic analysis to identify FM1 Castle from among these remains.

Field Musician Corporal Castle is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Vernon L Castle