Edward Glenn Walker, age 26, from Lebanon, Tennessee, Wilson county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Saturday, November 20, 1943
Death details: On March 21, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency accounted for Captain Edward Glenn Walker Jr., missing from World War II. Captain Walker entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Tennessee and served as the commanding officer of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. His company landed at Red Beach 2 on Betio Island on November 20, 1943, during the Battle of Tarawa. The Marines came under heavy fire as they landed and five of the Company’s six officers were lost, including Capt Walker. Searches of the island conducted after the battle recovered a set of remains that were mistakenly identified as those of Capt Walker and returned to Tennessee. Capt Walker’s actual remains were labeled as unknowns and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. In 2017, these remains were disinterred and examined with modern forensic tools that helped successfully identify them as those of Capt Walker.
Cemetery: Remains were believed to be sent home and buried, but they turned out to be that of another undertermined Marine. Walker’s remains were wrongfully bruied three times, including twice on the South Pacific island. He was finally laid to rest in 2021 in Lebanon.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency