Rowland, Ralph L.
Army Captain

Ralph L. Rowland, age 43, from San Francisco County San Franciso, California .

Spouse: Married

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Tuesday, January 9, 1945
Death details: On March 18, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Capt. Ralph L. Rowland, missing from World War II. Rowland entered the U.S. Army from California and was assigned to Station Hospital, Fort Mills, Corregidor. 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. Rowland was then transported to Takao, Formosa, known today as Taiwan, aboard the Enoura Maru. The Japanese reported that Rowland 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 Rowland.

Source: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Oakland Post Enquirer (1943)