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 reported, 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 Philippine Islands in December 1941. American forces surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942 and on Corregidor Island in May 1942.
DPAA said Clark was among those allegedly captured in Bataan and subjected to the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March. He was held in the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, where he and more than 2,500 POWs died during the war. Citing the prison camp and other historical records, DPAA said Clark died on Nov. 1, 1942, and was buried with other deceased prisoners in a common grave in 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 at a date to be determined.
Clark is commemorated 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 that it has been taken into account, the DPAA said. He is among a growing number of POWs whose remains have been identified by DPAA scientists using dental and anthropological analyzes and other evidence.
According to DPAA, personnel from the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) exhumed the soldiers buried at the Cabanatuan Cemetery after the war and moved 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 re-excavated the remains as part of the Cabanatuan Project and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. More information about the Department of Defense’s mission to ensure accountability for Americans who went missing while serving their country can be found at www.dpaa.mil or at www.facebook.com/dodpaa.
