- Accounted For

01/22/1982

On January 22, 1982, the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) accounted for Private First Class Thomas Lorance Scurlock Jr., missing from World War II.

Private First Class Scurlock, who joined the U.S. Marine Corps from Texas, served with Company C, 2nd Amphibious Tractor Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. On November 20, 1943, he 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, but his remains were not recovered after the war. In 1979, a construction company operating on Betio located human remains and in 1980, a CILHI investigative team excavated this site and recovered remains. Some of the recovered remains were later identified as those of PFC Scurlock.

Private First Class Scurlock is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Thomas L Scurlock, Jr