EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — The remains of a missing World War II soldier from East St. Louis will head home to their final resting place after they were recently identified.
U.S. Army Cpl. James A. Hurt, 25, was accounted for on Aug. 21, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday.
Hurt was a member of the 27th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group in the Philippines. He was captured as a prisoner of war after the American surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942. He was then taken to the Cabanatuan Prison Camp, where he died of malaria and dysentery on July 19, 1942, according to the DPAA.
Hurt was one of around 2,888 soldiers who died at the camp before it was liberated in early 1945.
He and several other American prisoners of war were buried at a camp cemetery known as Common Grave 312. After the war, the American Graves Registration Service exhumed everyone buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated their remains to a temporary military mausoleum near Manila.
The AGRS examined the remains in 1947, and Hurt and others who couldn't be identified were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as unknown soldiers.
Hurt would remain there until 2018, when unidentified remains from Common Grave 312 were sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. Scientists identified him using a combination of dental, anthropological and DNA analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.
His burial is scheduled for Oct. 28, 2023.
More information about Hurt can be viewed on his DPAA personnel profile.
