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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
Marine Corps Reserve Pfc. Sam J. Kourkos, has now been accounted for. In November 1943, Kourkos was assigned to Company M, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, 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 wounded, but the Japanese were virtually annihilated. Kourkos died sometime on the second day of battle, November 21, 1943.