More than eight decades after his death in captivity during World War II, a Michigan soldier’s final sacrifice has been formally recognized. Sgt. James W. Swartz of Webberville, Michigan, was accounted for on August 2, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced. Captured following the invasion of the Philippines by Japanese forces in December 1941, Swartz was forced to endure the harrowing Bataan Death March and later perished in a prisoner of war camp,CBS News Detroitreports.
Swartz, a member of the U.S. Army Air Force s 17th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, was among the thousands of American and Filipino POWs who, subjected to the march, succumbed to grueling conditions at the Cabanatuan POW camp where, according to prison camp records, he died on Sept. 23, 1942. The POWs, who were in the clutches of suffering held by Japanese forces after U.S. troops surrendered in Bataan, faced dilapidated health and often death, notesWLNS.
In the post-war era’s wake, efforts to identify the fallen proved challenging. Swartz was initially interred in a common grave, designated 434 at the cemetery in Cabanatuan. Exhumation attempts in 1947 by the American Graves Registration Service led to the identification of only four sets of remains from the grave, with the rest, including Swartz, deemed unidentifiable and thus interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns. Swartz s remains were identified through modern scientific methods including dental and anthropological analysis, with mitochondrial DNA playing a pivotal role, as9and10news.comdetailed.
The long arc bending toward a final homecoming for Swartz has culminated with the plan for his remains to return to Michigan, with a burial set for April 2025 in Williamstown Township. As it stands, a rosette will mark his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, a testimony to a legacy once unknown but now fully recognized. Holding the meticulous care over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission, Swartz s grave at the Manila cemetery has stood as a testament to the ongoing commitment to honor those who gave everything, as reported by9and10news.com.
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