Fallen WWII soldier from Avenal identified 82 years later

AVENAL, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – A soldier who fought and died in World War II was finally identified earlier this year as U.S. Army Private 1st Class Joseph C. MacDonald of Avenal.

According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), Private Macdonald was only 20 years old when he was captured as a prisoner of war during WWII.

The DPAA says Macdonald was a member of the 60th Coast Artillery Regiment, U.S. Army, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands. Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps after U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese on May 6, 1942.

Officials say MacDonald died December 28, 1942, and was buried along with approximately 2,800 other American soldiers in Nueva Ecija Province’s Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 721.

After the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed the buried soldiers and relocated their remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS identified various sets of remains, but MacDonald and others were considered unidentifiable at the time.

The DPAA says the unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns. It was in June 2018, when the remains were disinterred and sent to the DPAA for analysis as part of the Cabanatuan Project.

Scientists say they were able to identify MacDonald after using anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis and looking at dental and circumstantial evidence. According to the DPAA, MacDonald will be buried at sea.

The DPAA adds that Private First Class MacDonald is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

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