Army Pvt. Robert Cash, died in World War II as a POW, accounted for

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced this month that U.S. Army Air Forces Private Robert W. Cash, 20, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for Apr. 3, 2024.

In summer 1942, Cash was a member of the 28th Materiel Squadron, 20th Air Base Group, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps.  Cash was among those reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. They were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.

According to prison camp and other historical records, Cash died July 16, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 316.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Eleven of the sets of remains from Common Grave 316 were identified, while the remaining 17 were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.

In April 2019, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains associated with Common Grave 316 and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

To identify Cash’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Cash’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). Today, Pvt. Cash is 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.

Cash will be buried in Pittsford, New York, on a date to be determined.