https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001JAeSCEA1

On October 23, 2000, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) accounted for Corporal Mason O. Yarbrough, missing from World War II.

Corporal Yarbrough entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Missouri and was a member of Company B, 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. He was killed in action on August 17, 1942, while supporting the 2nd Raider Battalion when it attacked a Japanese seaplane base on the small island of Butaritari, Makin Atoll, in the Gilbert Islands. On August 19, he was buried on Butaritari by local villagers in a communal grave with other Marines who had died during the assault. His remains were not recovered or returned to the U.S. at the time. In 1999, a CILHI investigative team traveled to Butaritari and interviewed a villager who participated in the burial, which led the team to the communal grave located under an abandoned coral road. The team excavated the site and recovered the commingled remains. In late 1999, these remains were received at CILHI, where U.S. analysts were able to individually identify Cpl Yarbrough.

Corporal Yarbrough is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Mason O Yarbrough