Bataan Death March, POW camp claimed Williamston man. His remains finally rest in US soil
U.S. Army Air Corps Sgt. James Swartz's remains were identified 80 years after the war, in August 2024, and returned to Michigan for burial in Williamston Township.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency made the announcement of Swartz's identification in November 2024.
Swartz was laid to rest at Summit Cemetery, with about 40 people representing five generations of his family, according to Lori Byrnes.
The service include a honor guard.
Swartz was a member of 17th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands during World War II.
The unit, activated in the Philippines on Oct. 1, 1941, with two attached squadrons equipped with P-35 and P-40 aircraft. By late in December the ground personnel were absorbed by infantry units and some pilots were evacuated to Australia. The remaining pilots continued operations in the Philippines with the few planes that were left, according to the Army Air Corps Museum.
Intense fighting led to Allied troops' surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said.
He was reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese.
The captured service members were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March, and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, where more than 2,500 POWs perished during the war, Swartz among them, the accounting agency said.
According to prison camp and other records, Swartz died Sept. 23, 1942, and was buried in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 434. He was 21.
"Though interred as an Unknown in (Manilla American Cemetery and Memorial), Swartz's grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission," the accounting agency said in a news release. "Today, Sgt. Swartz is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for."
In April 2019, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains associated with Common Grave 434 and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
"Systematically working through the records of Unknowns that had originally been buried in over 300 common graves, the project proposes disinterring groups of Unknowns based on the evidence surrounding their original common grave associations. Because of extensive commingling, the Department of Defense is collecting DNA Family Reference Samples for over 2,700 casualties from the camp, both resolved and unresolved," the accounting agency said.
Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence, to identify Swartz's remains. The Armed Forced Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: James Swartz died in the Philippines during WWII. Now he rests in Summit Cemetery
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