It took almost a century, but the familiar military ethos applied when it came to a United States Marine killed in the South Pacific Battle of Tarawa during the Second World War, because he was laid to rest Saturday alongside his parents in First Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

“Leave no man behind.”

Charles Oetjen was not forgotten.

This from the Chicago Tribune:

“I think he would have been happy with this,” said Ken Oetjen, a second cousin, following the funeral service that began the day before with a military salute at O’Hare International Airport and concluded with a 21-gun salute, “Taps” and a motorcycle escort by the Illinois Patriot Guard Riders.

After they learned about a year ago that the private first class’s remains had been discovered by History Flight Inc., an Atlanta-based nonprofit dedicated to finding and retrieving remains of the estimated 88,000 soldiers buried or missing on foreign soil, Ken and his sisters, Margaret Oetjen and Joanne Hoeksema, arranged to have the long-lost relative who died before they were born returned and reburied in the south suburbs where he’d grown up.

Oetjen’s remains were found in “Cemetery 73”, a mass grave on the 285-acre atoll, by a contractor named Paul Schwimmer.

The invasion of the Japanese-occupied reef isle was a 76-hour affair, which went awry when many of the Marines’ landing crafts were snagged in the coral, which caused the men to have to “wade shore”. This made them sitting ducks for the enemy.

It was one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the USMC. One, however, that the U.S. wound up winning.

According to Schwimmer via the Tribune, Oetjen was one of more than 1,600 Americans who perished in the battle (6,000 Japanese and 1,000 Koreans were also killed). He added one more harrowing detail — which did aid him in the search for the late Marine’s remains:

” … It was so hot and humid that they had to use bulldozers to bury the bodies and they had to work quickly. And then they left.”

For more information and details about the incredible work History Flight does, check out their website by clicking here.