Galway native in repatriation of US Marines lost in WW2

A Galway City native has just played a key role in repatriating the remains of 20 US soldiers who were killed in battle on a remote Pacific Island during World War II – it’s the latest high-profile case for a man whose professional career has been built around helping to bring closure to some of the worst atrocities in global history.

James Murphy – originally from Ardilaun Road in Newcastle – was one of main forensic archaeologists involved in the discovery of the Marines lost on Tarawa Island who were finally returned to the US late last month.

More than 990 US Marines and 30 US sailors were killed in the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943, after the US launched an amphibious assault on the small island some 2,300 miles southwest of Honolulu.

“This was a battle that lasted just three days – 76 hours – but with enormous casualties because the Marines ran into a massive Japanese defence.

“They’d said it would take a million men a hundred years to take the island – and this happened in three days,” says James.

But the Galwegian was already no stranger to the darker side of war.

He has nearly 20 years’ experience in the field of archaeology and has spent the majority of his forensic archaeology career in mid- and post-conflict environments in the Middle East and the Balkans, working on several infamous cases of genocide and mass atrocities.

These included human-rights abuses and mass-atrocity cases such as the Anfal campaign against the Kurds – and those against Shia populations in Iraq, as well as war crimes in Bosnia and the atrocities committed by Islamic State in Iraq.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.