World War II Honoree

Charles E. Oetjen

Branch of Service

U.S. Marine Corps

Hometown

Blue Island, Illinois

Honored By

Orville L. Kline

Rank: Private First Class. On February 27, 1943, he entered the United States Marine Corps from Illinois, receiving his Boot Camp Training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Later he completed his Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton, California. Served with Company-E as a Rifleman, Second Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, a subordinate unit of the Second Marine ‘the Silent Second’ Division in the Central Pacific Theater of Operations. His division participated in the amphibious assault against the Imperial Japanese forces in the Battle of Tarawa, on the Island of Betio, located on the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, Code Name: Operation Galvanic. Reported missing in action Saturday, November 20, 1943 on the first day of the invasion, and in remembrance of the brave, his name is recorded in the tablets of the missing, memorialized at the Honolulu National Memorial cemetery of the Pacific ‘Punchbowl’ Hawaii. In June of 2015 the history flight, a private organization, discovered a collective burial grave on Betio Island. The remains were transferred to the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency in Hawaii where he was identified. The remains of this Marine were interred with Military Honors at the First Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery July 30, 2016 in Alsip, Illinois. This Marine, an American Patriot awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, who so gallantly gave his life for his country.