Trempealeau airman, subjected to Bataan Death March, accounted for almost 82 years after death

TREMPEALEAU, Wis. -- A Trempealeau airman who was captured by Japanese forces during World War II and subjected to the Bataan Death March was accounted for in May, almost 82 years after his death, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said Thursday.

U.S. Army Air Forces Sgt. Jack H. Hohlfeld, 29, was part of Headquarters Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, which fought against Japanese forces that invaded the Phillippines in December 1941.

Following the Allied surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, Sgt. Hohlfeld was one of thousands of American and Filipino troops that were forced into the 65-mile Bataan Death March. He was then held at Cabanatuan POW Camp #1, where over 2,500 POWs died during the war.

According to the DPAA, records show Hohlfeld died on Dec. 26, 1942, and was buried in Common Grave 811 at the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery alongside other deceased prisoners.

The American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) exhumed the bodies of prisoners buried in Cabanatuan following the war and and moved their remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila.

In 1947, AGRS personnel examined the remains to try and identify them. They were able to identify three people from Common Grave 811 but declared the remaining three bodies unidentifiable. Those remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as unknowns.

The DPAA exhumed the unidentified remains from Common Grave 811 in 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, and sent them to a lab for analysis. Scientists were able to use dental and circumstantial evidence as well as mitochondrial DNA analysis to successfully identify Hohlfeld.

Sgt. Hohlfeld is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines and a rosette will soon be placed next to his name, marking him as accounted for.

He will be buried in La Crosse at a later date.

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