| Name | PVT Eugene Parker Miller |
| Branch: | USMCR |
| Unit: | G Battery 3rd Marine Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division |
| Location of Recovery: | Betio, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands (Modern Day Kiribati) |
| Date of Loss: | November 21, 1943 |
| Status: | ACCOUNTED FOR 2022 |
Circumstances:
On November 28, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private Eugene Parker Miller, missing from World War II.
Private Miller entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Utah and served with Battery G, 3rd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. He was wounded by enemy fire on Betio Island while disembarking from a ship on November 21, 1943, during the Battle of Tarawa. A witness reported seeing medics rush to Private Miller’s assistance before transferring him to an unknown location for treatment, but efforts to locate Private Miller in the immediate aftermath of the battle were unsuccessful. He was declared missing in action on November 21, 1944, and was officially declared killed in action one year later. In 1946, as part of the post-war efforts to recover missing soldiers, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company centralized all of the American remains found on Tarawa at Lone Palm Cemetery for later repatriation. However, due in part to loss or movement of cemeteries on Betio Island, the remains of almost half of the over 1,000 casualties could not be recovered. The 94 sets of remains that were recovered but could not be identified were buried as Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetary of the Pacific in Honolulu. In 2019, while analyzing one such Unknown set, DPAA discovered that a previously accounted-for soldier killed during the Battle of Tarawa had been misidentified. In July 2021, DPAA disinterred this misidentified soldier’s grave and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory for forensic analysis. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established the remains as those of Private Miller.
Private Miller is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
