At 21, Robert J. Hatch was killed alongside about 1,000 other U.S. service members in a battle against Japanese fighters for the small island of Betio.
He made it through three days of fighting before he died on Nov. 22, 1943, and was buried either alone somewhere on the island or in a cemetery there.
The military attempted to find his body in 1946, but couldn’t. Three years later, Hatch’s remains were declared “non-recoverable.”
Yet, thanks to advanced technology and a nonprofit group called History Flight, this December, the Woods Cross native’s remains are finally coming back home to Utah.