Remains of missing WWII US soldier who survived Bataan Death March identified after 82 years

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 he was exhumed along with other unidentified soldiers and buried at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines, the Defense Department said.

The department’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is tasked with recovering prisoners of war and missing soldiers, said Calkins was caught after U.S. troops surrendered to Japanese forces in Bataan Province. After surviving the gruesome 65-mile Bataan Death March, he was held at Cabanatuan No. 1 POW Camp, where records show he died on November 1, 1942, at the age of 20.

In a press release, the agency included several wartime newspaper clippings from Oregon, including one that stated: “News has been received at Salem that Pvt. William E. Calkins, formerly employed at the Perfection Bowling Alleys, is a prisoner of war.”

Calkins was buried with other prisoners in what was known as Common Grave 704.

After the war, his remains were exhumed from the camp and transferred to the Philippine capital, where they were buried as “unknowns” at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, the agency said. Their identities remained unknown until this year.

In 2018, the agency re-exhumed the unknown remains from Grave 704 and sent them to a lab for identification. There, scientists used DNA analysis and other techniques to identify Calkins' remains.

A rosette will be placed next to his name on the Wall of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery to indicate that he has been found, the agency said.

Calkins' remains are scheduled to be returned to Oregon in September and buried in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro.

According to the DPAA, prisoners at the Cabanatuan No. 1 POW camp endured horrific conditions and the death rate skyrocketed due to a lack of medicine and food.

“Because so many men died, burial squads were deployed every day. Every morning, the men gathered in the morgue and divided into teams to begin the march to the cemetery. The camp introduced a system of mass internment, whereby all those who died in one day were buried in a common grave,” the agency said. “The burial squad took the dead to the cemetery and then dug the mass grave for the next day.”