Saint Joseph County Michigan

Laverne L. Smart, age 22, from Michigan, Saint Joseph county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Saturday, July 25, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. 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. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves, often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Private Laverne L. Smart joined the U.S. Army from Michigan and served with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured in Bataan following the American surrender on April 9, 1942, and died of malaria on July 25, 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; however, his remains could not be associated with any of those recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Private Smart is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency