Sweetwater Tennessee

Connie Cagle, age 23, from Monroe County Sweetwater, Tennessee .

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, November 22, 1942
Death details: On July 8, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified Private Connie Cagle, missing from World War II. Private Cagle, who entered the U.S. Army from Michigan, served in Company K, 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division. On November 22, 1942, he was with his unit during a joint operation that comprised Australian units and the 126th Infantry Regiment in an attack on Japanese positions on the Soputa-Sanananda Track, near Buna, Papua New Guinea. Private Cable was killed in this action and was reportedly buried near Buna, but he was not identified among the remains disinterred from Buna following the war. On January 16, 1943, Army personnel recovered Private Cagle’s remains from a burial site near the Sanananda Track; however, they could not be individually identified at the time, and he was buried as an unknown. In 2019, DPAA disinterred and accessioned the remains into their laboratory, and analysts were able to use DNA evidence and historical and geographic findings to identify the remains as those of Private Cagle.
Cemetery: Manila American Cemetery

Source: National Archives, American Battle Monuments Commission, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency