WWII American soldier killed in PH finally accounted for

US Army Private Charlie Waid of Chico, California, was killed in the Philippines in 1942.

WASHINGTON – United States Army Private Charlie Waid of Chico, California, killed during World War II in the Philippines, was accounted for July 24, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, on Thursday.

Waid was serving in the Medical Detachment of the 31st Infantry Regiment when Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in 1942. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were taken prisoner and sent to a prisoner of war camps.

Waid was among those reported captured after the surrender of Corregidor and held at the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war, according to the DPAA.

According to the prison camp and other historical records, Waid died Nov. 19, 1942, and was buried along with fellow prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in grave number 717.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila, the DPAA said.

In late 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Due to the circumstances of the POW deaths and burials, the extensive commingling, and the limited identification technologies of the time, all of the remains could not be individually identified, DPAA said.

In 2014, the “unknown” remains associated with Common Grave 717 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory, including one set, designated X-4852 Manila Mausoleum.

To identify Waid’s remains, scientists from DPAA said they used dental and anthropological analysis as well as material evidence.

Waid’s name is on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and memorial, a site along with others missing from World War II.

Although interred as an “unknown” in Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Waid’s grave was cared for over the past 70 years by the ABMC. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for, the DPAA said.

Waid will be buried in Hollywood Hills, California. The DPAA said the date has not yet been determined.