Ginzl, John J.
Army Corporal

John J. Ginzl, age 27, from Oneida County Rhinelander, Wisconsin .

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Tuesday, January 9, 1945
Death details: On June 11, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of U.S. Army Air Forces Cpl. John J. Ginzl, missing from World War II.

Ginzl entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Wisconsin and served in the 17th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group. He was captured by enemy forces during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and interned in a prison camp until he was placed aboard the ship Oryoku Maru for transport to Japan. Unaware that Allied POWs were on board, a U.S. carrier-borne aircraft attacked the Oryoku Maru, which eventually sank in Subic Bay. Ginzl was then transported to Takao, Formosa, known today as Taiwan, aboard the Enoura Maru. The Japanese reported that Ginzl was killed on Jan. 9, 1945, when U.S. forces sank the Enoura Maru. After the war, U.S. personnel exhumed a mass grave on a beach at Takao that contained the remains of U.S. service members. The remains could not be identified at the time and were interred as Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Between October 2022 and July 2023, DPAA disinterred Unknowns linked to the Enoura Maru and transferred the remains to the DPAA laboratory. There, scientists used modern forensic techniques to individually identify Ginzl.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Chippewa Herald Telegram (1945)