Mussen, Alvan W.
Army Corporal

Alvan W. Mussen, age 25, from Burbank, California, Los Angeles county.

Spouse: Garnet Moede

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Tuesday, June 23, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves, often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Corporal Alvan W. Mussen joined the U.S. Army from California and was a member of the 31st Infantry Regiment. He was taken as a prisoner of war by Japanese forces following the U.S. surrender in the Philippines. CPL Mussen was held at the Cabanatuan camp, where he died of dysentery on June 23, 1942. He was reportedly buried at the camp cemetery; however, investigations of Cabanatuan after the war have failed to locate or identify his remains. Today, Corporal Mussen is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

Source: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, San Fernando Valley Times (1944)