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

Corporal Kunkle entered the U.S. Marine Corps from California and was a member of Company A, 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. Cpl Kunkle was killed during the ensuing battle. On August 19, locals buried Cpl Kunkle 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 had 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 Cpl Kunkle from among them.

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

Kenneth K Kunkle