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This individual is a MIA from the Battle of Tarawa and one of 514 missing heroes for which our foundation has conducted extensive research to help find and return home. Almost 100 comprehensive "Investigative Reports" on the Tarawa heroes currently buried as an "Unknown" have been submitted to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). If you are a family member, please feel free to contact our charitable foundation for more information. - The Chief Rick Stone Family Foundation - www.ChiefRickStone.com
Three-quarters of a century after he was killed in World War II, a metro Detroit soldier has finally come home.
Marine Corps Reserve Pfc. Kenneth W. Likens was given full military honors at a service and burial Friday at Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly.
Likens, of Mount Clemens, was only 20 when he was killed in a battle in 1943 on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa. For decades, his family held out hope his body would be found.
In September, it was announced that Likens was accounted for in May of this year — more than 75 years after he was killed on Nov. 22, 1943.
Likens was among about 1,000 Marines and sailors who were killed in the battle; with more than 2,000 wounded, The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency previously said.
It said that Likens was a member of Company B, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force, which landed against Japanese resistance on the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands.
World War II Marine Corps Reserve Private First Class Kenneth W. Likens, 20, of Mount Clemens, whose remains were accounted for May 31, 2019, more than 75 years after he was killed in action in 1943.