Causey, Truman G.
Army Staff sergeant

Truman G. Causey, age 32, from Bossier County Bossier City, Louisiana .

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Thursday, April 9, 1942
Death details: On April 4, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Tech. Sgt. Truman G. Causey, missing from World War II. Causey entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Kentucky and served in the 17th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured following the American surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and forced on the Bataan Death March. He was ultimately interned in the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province, where he died on November 15, 1942. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Causey was buried in Common Grave 271 at the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery along with other deceased American POWs. Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Five of the sets of remains from Common Grave 271 were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable and were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns. In June 2018, the remains associated with Common Grave 271 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these unknown remains and Causey.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Daily World (1943)