The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)* announced on September 7, 2023 that US Army Air Forces Private First Class (Pfc) Glenn A Harris, 26, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for July 7, 2023. Glenn was born and raised in a home situated at the corner of Hesperia Rd and [now] Interlake Rd in Monterey County, California, just two miles from where he’ll be laid to rest.
Glenn’s parents Ray & Myrtle Harris, along with his siblings Cliff, Forrest, Dorothy and Wayne, are buried there as well (youngest brother Dale is buried in British Columbia). Glenn joins also his grandparents (Jeff & Callie Harris; Absalom & Mary Ford) and great grandparents (Ethaelbirt & Jane Harris; Ezekiel & Lavina Ray) at Pleyto Cemetery. Glenn never married nor had children, so he leaves no survivors. The only living member of his generation is his brother Dale’s wife Luella Harris (now … Jeffrey) in British Columbia. Nieces and nephews, and their children, are too numerous to list.
In late 1941, Harris was a member of the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.
Thousands of US and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. Harris was among those reported captured when US forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. They were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.
According to prison camp and other historical records, Harris died July 26, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 225.
An extensive Army history narrative of the Cabanatuan camp written by Heather Harris and Lisa Beckinbaugh in October 2005 (updated March 2014; supplied to us by Shorty Williams) contains this excerpt: “Because so many men were dying, burial parties worked every day. Each morning, the men would gather at the morgue and organize into teams to begin the march to the cemetery. The camp adopted a mass internment system, burying all that died in one day in one common grave.”
Shortly following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary US military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Three of the sets of remains from Common Grave 225 were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.
In March 2018, the remains associated with Common Grave 225 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify Harris’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome DNA (Y-STR), and autosomal DNA (auSTR) analysis.
Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Harris’ grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
Harris was awarded eleven medals and/or citations, including the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Details about his awards are found here.
Harris will be buried in the Pleyto Cemetery on the shores of Lake San Antonio in California, on September 30, 2023 following a public viewing and memorial service held at Kuehl-Nicolay Funeral Home in Paso Robles (obituary; see also the Burial page on this site).
This link is to the YouTube video in which the US Army representatives described how they confirmed the identity of Glenn’s remains, and provided guidance on how he will finally be laid to rest among generations of family in the public cemetery in Monterey County CA. A [raw] transcript of the discussion was generated (using Google Captions) by Sarah March Gibson, granddaughter of Glenn’s brother Dale, and formatted by Troy Harris, son of Glenn’s brother Wayne.
For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490 or use the Contact page.
The Harris family, along with DPAA, is grateful to the ABMC and the United States Army for their partnership in this mission.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.
Harris’ personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000ccfPEAQ.
*- Most of this article was lifted from the Army’s press release dated 9/7/23.