The body of a U.S. Army airman has been identified 81 years after he died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, authorities said Friday.
Staff Sergeant Alvin R. Scarborough, of Doddsville, Mississippi, was just 22 years old when he served with the 454th Ordnance Company in the Philippine Islands after the Japanese invasion in December 1942, beginning months of fierce fighting.
It is unclear when he was captured by the enemy, but Scarborough is recorded as being among several thousand American and Filipino servicemen captured when the Allied surrendered the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942. Corregidor Island was surrendered on May 6, 1942.
That day, the Japanese forced Scarborough and 78,000 POWs, including 12,000 Americans, on the Bataan Death March, a 65-mile journey along the mountainous coast to the Cabanatuan prison camp. Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
Only 54,000 prisoners arrived at the camp. According to Army records.
During the war, over 2,500 prisoners died at Cabanatuan POW camp.
According to POW camp records and other historical records, Scarborough died on July 28, 1942. He was buried with other POWs in Mass Grave 215 at the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery.
Scarborough’s body was exhumed by the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) in 1947, but like thousands of others, it remained unidentified for decades. At the time, only five of the 215 bodies were identified.
He remained buried unidentified at the Manila American Military Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) until 2018.
The unidentified remains from Common Grave 215 were sent to a DPAA laboratory where scientists used DNA analysis and circumstantial evidence to ultimately determine the POWs’ identities.
After 80 years, Scarborough’s remains were finally discovered on Sept. 21, 2023, according to the DPAA.
The hero’s body will be flown back to his home in Mississippi where he will be given a proper burial at a date yet to be determined.
