Northern California Army soldier who died as WWII prisoner of war in Philippines accounted for
A U.S. Army soldier from Northern California who was captured during World War II and died as a prisoner of war in the Philippines has been accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Friday.
Cpl. Walter L. Clark, 28, of Santa Rosa, California, was a member of the 19th Quartermaster Truck Company when Japan invaded the Phillippine Islands in December 1941. U.S. forces surrendered on the Bataan peninsula in April 1942 and on Corregidor Island in May 1942.
DPAA said Clark was among those reported captured in Bataan and subjected to the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March. He was held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1 where he and over 2,500 POWs died during the war. Citing prison camp and other historical records, DPAA said Clark died on Nov. 1, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in a common grave at the camp cemetery.
His remains were accounted for on August 27 and Clark's family has received a full briefing on his identification, DPAA said. Clark will be buried in Dixon, California, on a date to be determined.
Clark has been memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for, the DPAA said. He is among an increasing number of POWs whose remains have been identified by DPAA scientists using dental and anthropological analysis and other evidence.
According to DPAA, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed the soldiers buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery after the war and relocated the remains to a U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, two of the sets of remains from the common grave were identified and the remaining eight were declared unidentifiable, later buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.
In 2018, DPAA exhumed the remains again as part of the Cabanatuan Project and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. More information on the Defense Department's mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving their country can be found at www.dpaa.mil or at www.facebook.com/dodpaa.
