Tag: Allen County Kansas

David E. Holeman, age 39, from Kansas, Allen county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, July 19, 1942
Death details: On August 23, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Staff Sergeant David E. Holeman, missing from World War II. Staff Sergeant Holeman entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Kansas and served in the 17th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group. After Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in December 1941, intense fighting continued until the surrender of U.S. forces on the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor Island on May 6. SSG Holeman was among the U.S. personnel who surrendered in Bataan. These prisoners were then subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and held in inhumane conditions at the Cabanatuan POW camp. According to prison camp and other historical records, SSG Holeman died July 19, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 312. 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. Twelve sets of remains from Common Grave 312 were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns. In early 2018, the remains associated with Common Grave 312 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these unknown remains and SSG Holeman.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency