The remains of a missing World War II soldier from Oregon have been identified and will be returned to the state for burial, federal authorities announced Thursday.
The remains of 20-year-old U.S. soldier William Calkins were identified after they were exhumed along with other unidentified soldiers at the American Cemetery in Manila, Philippines, the Defense Department said.
The department’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is charged with recovering prisoners of war and missing service members, said Calkins captured after American troops in Bataan Province surrendered to Japanese forces. After surviving the harrowing 65-mile Bataan Death March, he was held at Cabanatuan POW Camp #1, where records show he died on November 1, 1942, at the age of 20.
In a press release, the agency included several newspaper clippings from Oregon during the war, including one that reads: “Word has been received in Salem that Private William E. Calkins, formerly of Perfection Bowling Alleys, has been taken prisoner of war.”
DPAA
Calkins was buried with other prisoners in what is known as Common Grave 704.
After the war, his remains were exhumed from the camp and moved to the Philippine capital, where they were buried as “unknowns” at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, the agency said. They remained unidentified until this year.
In 2018, in an effort to identify the unknown remains associated with Common Grave 704, the agency exhumed them again and sent them to a lab. There, scientists used DNA analysis and other techniques to identify Calkins’ remains.
A rosette will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the American Cemetery in Manila to mark his discovery, the agency said.
Calkins’ remains will return to Oregon in September, where they will be buried in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland.
According to the DPAA, prisoners in POW Camp #1 in Cabanatuan lived in terrible conditions and the death rate soared due to lack of medicine and food.
“Because so many men were dying, burial parties were organized every day. Every morning, the men gathered at the morgue and formed teams to begin the march to the cemetery. The camp operated a system of mass internment, where everyone who died in one day was buried in a single common grave,” the agency said. “The burial party brought the dead to the cemetery and then dug the mass grave for the next day.”
DPAA
