WILLIAMSTON TWP. — Members of the family and others gathered Saturday, Might 3, to inter the stays of a Webberville man who survived the notorious Bataan Death March throughout World Battle II, solely to die in a Japanese prisoner of warfare camp months later.
U.S. Army Air Corps Sgt. James Swartz’s stays have been recognized 80 years after the warfare, in August 2024, and returned to Michigan for burial in Williamston Township.
The Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company made the announcement of Swartz’s identification in November 2024.
Swartz was laid to relaxation at Summit Cemetery, with about 40 individuals representing 5 generations of his household, based on Lori Byrnes.
The service embrace a honor guard.
How Swartz ended up buried within the Philippines
Swartz was a member of seventeenth Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands throughout World Battle II.
The unit, activated in the Philippines on Oct. 1, 1941, with two connected squadrons geared up with P-35 and P-40 plane. By late in December the bottom personnel have been absorbed by infantry models and a few pilots have been evacuated to Australia. The remaining pilots continued operations within the Philippines with the few planes that have been left, based on the Military Air Corps Museum.
U.S. Military Air Power Sgt. James W. Swartz, who died as a prisoner of warfare throughout World Battle II, can be buried in Williamstown Township in April 2025.
Intense preventing led to Allied troops’ give up of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor Island on Might 6, 1942, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency mentioned.
He was reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese.
The captured service members have been subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Demise March, after which held on the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, the place greater than 2,500 POWs perished in the course of the warfare, Swartz amongst them, the accounting company mentioned.
When did Swartz die?
In line with jail camp and different data, Swartz died Sept. 23, 1942, and was buried within the native Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Widespread Grave 434. He was 21.
“Although interred as an Unknown in (Manilla American Cemetery and Memorial), Swartz’s grave was meticulously cared for over the previous 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Fee,” the accounting agency said in a news release. “At present, Sgt. Swartz is memorialized on the Partitions of the Lacking on the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial within the Philippines. A rosette can be positioned subsequent to his identify to point he has been accounted for.”
How have been Swartz’s stays recognized
In April 2019, as a part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the stays related to Widespread Grave 434 and despatched them to the DPAA laboratory for evaluation.
“Systematically working by means of the data of Unknowns that had initially been buried in over 300 widespread graves, the undertaking proposes disinterring teams of Unknowns based mostly on the proof surrounding their unique widespread grave associations. Due to intensive commingling, the Division of Protection is amassing DNA Household Reference Samples for over 2,700 casualties from the camp, each resolved and unresolved,” the accounting company mentioned.
Scientists used dental and anthropological evaluation, in addition to circumstantial proof, to determine Swartz’s stays. The Armed Forced Medical Examiner System additionally used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evaluation.
This text initially appeared on Lansing State Journal: James Swartz died in the Philippines during WWII. Now he rests in Summit Cemetery
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