RADFORD -- The bodies of nearly two dozen U.S. Marines have been missing on Guadalcanal for nearly 66 years. A group of Radford University students now hopes to find them and bring them home.

"It's a humanitarian mission," said anthropology professor Donna Boyd, one of the professors who plan to take seven students to the Solomon Islands in July to search for the remains of the ill-fated group of Marines known as the Goettge patrol.

The students, accompanied by three professors, plan to use ground-penetrating radar in hopes of pinpointing the site where Japanese soldiers buried the Marines in 1942 during World War II. Previous efforts to find the men's graves have been unsuccessful.

"It's going to be an invaluable experience working in the field," said Sarah Clark, 20, a rising senior from Virginia Beach majoring in psychology and minoring in anthropology.

The 25-man Goettge patrol, named after the Marine intelligence officer in charge, Lt. Col. Frank Goettge, set out in a boat on Aug. 12, 1942, toward an area west of the Matanikau River, where they believed a group of demoralized Japanese soldiers might be willing to surrender. Not long after landing on the beach, though, they were pinned down by enemy fire. Over the course of the night and into the morning, most were killed. In the end, only three survived: they swam more than 4 miles back to an American camp.

Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.