On August 19, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of First Lieutenant Justin Green Mills, missing from World War II.
First Lieutenant Mills entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Texas and was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. He was killed in action on November 20, 1943, during the Battle of Tarawa, and his body was recovered and buried at Betio Island. His remains were not identified among those disinterred from the atoll in 1946, after the war. In 2014, excavations by the private organization History Flight, Inc. located Cemetery 26 on Betio. In 2015, History Flight returned to Cemetery 26 and uncovered several sets of remains that corresponded to 1stLt Mills’ likely burial site. The remains were eventually accessioned into a DPAA laboratory in the U.S., where analysts eventually identified some of them as those of 1stLt Mills.
First Lieutenant Mills is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
We honor you, Justin Mills.