Kines, Emmett Leonard
Marines Reserves Private

Emmett Leonard Kines, age 24, from Grafton, West Virginia, Taylor county.

Parents: Jocia M. Kines

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Saturday, November 20, 1943
Death details: On February 1, 2016, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) accounted for Private Emmett Leonard Kines, missing from World War II. Private Kines, who entered the U.S. Marine Corps from West Virginia, was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division. On November 20, 1943, Private Kines was killed during the amphibious assault on Betio Island, as part of the Battle of Tarawa. He was buried in a Marine cemetery on Betio, though specific details regarding his loss and the burial of his remains were unrecorded at the time. Between 1946 and 1947, the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company recovered remains from Betio, but Private Kines’ remains were not identified from among them. In 2015, the independent organization History Flight Inc., in partnership with DPAA, located a burial trench on Betio and recovered human remains there, and DPAA analysts used modern forensic techniques and identified Private Kines from among these remains.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency