New Mexico WW2 Veteran Laid to Rest Nearly 82 Yrs Later; D. 1942 As POW After Bataan Death March
New Mexico World War II veteran laid to rest, nearly 82 years later, KOB, Aug. 8, 2024. PHOTO
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Clovis, N.M.- Nearly 82 years after U.S. Army Sgt. Sam A. Prince died as a prisoner of war in World War II, he was finally laid to rest Thursday. Prince’s family paid their final respects to him at Lawn Haven Memorial Gardens in Clovis. It comes after Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency personnel accounted for him on April 25.
Prince died on Sept. 22, 1942, while being held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1 after being subjected to the Bataan Death March.
While American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed his remains and others from the camp’s cemetery in 1947, they still hadn’t identified him. He was interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as an unknown soldier for the next 72 years. In 2019, the DPAA sent his “unidentifiable” remains to a laboratory for advanced analysis. That led to his identification earlier this year. Clovis and Curry County first responders, and personnel from New Mexico State Police, the New Mexico National Guard and Cannon Air Force Base, attended the services Thursday. --
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/new-mexico-world-war-ii-veteran-laid-to-rest-nearly-82-years-later/
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🪖 The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war (POW) from the municipalities of Bagac and Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula to Camp O'Donnell via San Fernando. The transfer began on 9 April 1942 after the 3-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II.
The total distance marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to various camps was 65 miles (105 km). Sources also report widely differing prisoner of war casualties prior to reaching Camp O'Donnell: from 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths and 500 to 650 American deaths during the march. The march was characterized by severe physical abuse and wanton killings. POWs who fell or were caught on the ground were shot.
After the war, the Japanese commander, Gen. Masaharu Homma and 2 of his officers, Major Gen. Yoshitaka Kawane and Colonel Kurataro Hirano, were tried by U.S. military commissions for war crimes and sentenced to death on charges of failing to prevent their subordinates from committing atrocities. Homma was executed in 1946, while Kawane and Hirano were executed in 1949.
- New Mexico. The Baatan Death March had a large impact on New Mexico, given that many of the American soldiers in Bataan were from that state, specifically from the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery of the National Guard. The New Mexico National Guard Bataan Memorial Museum is located in the armory where the soldiers of the 200th and 515th were processed before their deployment to the Philippines in 1941...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March
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I can only imagine the relief of closure that the families experience, when loved ones' remains, who suffered in the service of their country, are returned to them 80 years later.
