Slenker, Leroy M.
Army Private

Leroy M. Slenker, age 28, from Oregon, Umatilla county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, November 15, 1942
Death details: On February 3, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private Leroy M. Slenker, missing from World War II. Private Slenker entered the U.S. Army from Oregon and served in the 75th Ordnance Depot Company in the Philippines. He was captured on Corregidor Island following the American surrender on May 6, 1942, and died of dysentery on November 15, 1942, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs. After the war, U.S. personnel recovered remains from the camp cemeteries, but most could not be identified with the technology available at the time and were buried as Unknowns at the Manila American Cemetery. In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, the DPAA exhumed Unknown remains associated with Communal Grave 271, one of the grave sites at Cabanatuan. Laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established one set of remains as those of Private Slenker.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency