Overbey, Evans E.
Army Private

Evans E. Overbey from Virginia, Wise county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Thursday, November 19, 1942
Death details: On June 1, 2016, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private Evans E. Overbey, missing from World War II. Private Overbey, who entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Virginia, served with the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group (Heavy), located at Clark Field on the island of Luzon when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine islands in 1942. With its aircraft destroyed, the unit joined forces with American and Filipino infantry units fighting in the Battle of Bataan. Following the Allied surrender to the Japanese on April 9, the surviving members of Private Overbey’s squadron were captured and began the Bataan Death March. Private Overbey was taken to Camp Cabanatuan, where he died of pellagra on November 19, 1942, and was buried in a camp cemetery. Following the war, American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed those buried at Cabanatuan cemeteries and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military cemetery near Manila for identification. In 1947, these remains were exhumed in an attempt to identify them; however, Private Overbey’s remains could not be identified and were reburied as “unknowns” in the Manila American Cemetery. In 2014, the U.S. Army exhumed ten graves associated with Cabanatuan Common Grave 717 where Private Overbey was believed to have been buried following his death. These remains were brought to the DPAA laboratory in Hawaii where U.S. analysts used modern forensic techniques to eventually identified Private Overbey from among the collective remains.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency