California Marine’s body identified and recovered

Pfc. Royal L. Waltz

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Marine Corps Pfc. Royal L. Waltz, 20, of Cambria, California, killed during World War II, was accounted for on May 15, 2019.

In November 1943, Waltz was a member of Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, which landed against stiff Japanese resistance on the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands, in an attempt to secure the island. Over several days of intense fighting at Tarawa, approximately 1,000 Marines and Sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded, while the Japanese were virtually annihilated. Waltz died between the first and second day of the battle, Nov. 20-21.

In the immediate aftermath of the fighting on Tarawa, U.S. service members who died in the battle were buried in a number of battlefield cemeteries on the island. The 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company conducted remains recovery operations on Betio between 1946 and 1947, but Waltz’s remains were not identified. All of the remains found on Tarawa were sent to the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Laboratory for identification in 1947. By 1949, the remains that had not been identified were interred as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, including one set, designated as Tarawa Unknown X-228.

On March 27, 2017, DPAA disinterred Tarawa Unknown X-228 from the Punchbowl for identification.

To identify Waltz’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Waltz’s name is recorded in the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl along with the others missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Waltz will be buried in Armona, California. The date has yet to be determined.

For family and funeral information, contact the Marine Corps Casualty Office at (800) 847-1597.