Franco, Porfirio
Army Private

Porfirio Franco, age 22, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bernalillo county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Saturday, July 18, 1942
Death details: On September 10, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private Porfirio C. Franco Jr., missing from World War II. Private Franco entered the U.S. Army from New Mexico and served with Battery G of the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment in the Philippines. He was captured following the American surrender on April 9, 1942, and forced into the Bataan Death March. He ultimately interned at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp where he died of dysentery and malaria on July 18, 1942. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, he could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. In 2018, 23 sets of unknown remains initially associated with a common grave from the Cabanatuan camp cemetery were disinterred from the Manila American Cemetery and accessioned into the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Delaware. DPAA laboratory analysts were able to identify Private Franco from among these remains.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency