The remains of a missing World War II soldier from Oregon have been identified and are set to return to the state for burial, federal authorities announced Thursday.
There, scientists used DNA analysis and other techniques to identify Calkins’ remains.
Calkins’ remains are set to return to Oregon for burial in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro in September.
The camp adopted a mass internment system, burying all that died in one day in one common grave,” the agency said.
“The burial party would deliver the dead to the cemetery and then dig the mass grave for the next day.”
According to federal authorities, a missing World War II soldier from Oregon has been identified, and his remains will be interred in his home state on Thursday.
The remnants of U. S. Following their exhumation at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines, Army Private William Calkins, 20, and other unidentified soldiers were identified, according to the Department of Defense.
The department’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is in charge of locating missing service members and prisoners of war, stated that Calkins was apprehended following U. S. Japanese forces accepted the surrender of Bataan province troops. He was detained at Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp 1 following his terrifying 65-mile Bataan Death March. According to records, he passed away on November 1. 1, 1942, when he was twenty years old.
The agency included several wartime newspaper clippings from Oregon in a news release, one of which said, “Word has been received in Salem that Pvt. William. Calkins is a prisoner of war who was once employed by the Perfection Bowling alleys. “.”.
Calkins was interred alongside other detainees in a location known as Common Grave 704.
As “unknowns,” his remains were interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the capital of the Philippines after being dug up from the camp following the war, according to the agency. It was not until this year that they were identified.
The agency dug up the unidentified remains from Common Grave 704 once more in 2018 and sent them to a lab in an attempt to identify them. Calkins’ remains were identified there using DNA analysis along with other methods.
According to the agency, he has been verified as being alive and will have a rosette placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery.
September will see the return of Calkins’ remains to Oregon, where they will be buried in the Hillsboro neighborhood of Portland.
The DPAA claims that the conditions in Cabanatuan POW Camp 1 were appalling and that the high death rate was caused by a shortage of food and medicine.
“Burrowing parties worked every day because so many men were dying. Before starting their daily march to the cemetery, the men would assemble at the morgue and form groups. Mass internment was implemented at the camp, according to the agency, and all those who passed away in a single day were buried in a single common grave. The corpses would be taken to the cemetery by the burial party, who would then prepare the mass grave for the following day. “.
