Photo By Michael Shipman | As the sun sets Feb. 24, 2025, a team at Manila American Cemetery works to disinter...... read more read more
“Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms known but to God.”
A number of white marble headstones for unknown service members at American Battle Monuments Commission sites now sit over empty graves thanks to efforts by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to identify those formerly interred there.
So far in 2025, 70 disinterments have been conducted at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines, which has more than 3,600 unknown graves. More are scheduled for this year at ABMC sites in Europe. An unknown burial may contain a single bone or fragment, or a set of remains belonging to one or more individuals due to the conditions of their loss and recovery.
A recent identification, U.S. Army Maj. James J. O’Donovan, a native of Cohoes, New York, was 34 at the time of his death as a prisoner of war in Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1. Records indicated he was buried in Grave 649 at the camp’s cemetery; however, the remains could not be positively identified, and he was declared unrecoverable in 1952. The remains were then buried as an unknown at Manila American Cemetery. In 2019, the remains were disinterred as a part of the Cabanatuan Identification Project and positively identified as O’Donovan in February 2024. O’Donovan will be buried in San Diego, California.
After WWII, battle casualties were buried across the war’s theaters in hundreds of temporary cemeteries. From 1945 through 1951, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps’ American Graves Registration Service in the Pacific, and the American Graves Registration Command in Europe, began to recover, process and identify WWII remains. Some service members were repatriated to the U.S. at their families’ wishes. Other family members chose to leave their loved ones overseas to permanently rest with their comrades in arms. Unknown service members were buried at ABMC cemeteries overseas or U.S. National Cemeteries in the states.
After 1951, responsibility for recovering and identifying remains transitioned through multiple Department of Defense organizations. Since 2015, this mission has been assigned to DPAA.
Since the first disinterment at ABMC in 2004 at the Manila American Cemetery, almost 1,200 have been completed in partnership with the military services, DPAA and its preceding organizations. A majority of the disinterments are at Manila and at Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium because they have the most unknown burials with more than 3,600 at Manila and almost 800 at Ardennes. Just over 900 disinterments have happened at those sites, with the other approximately 300 spread across 13 cemeteries in France, Italy, Tunisia, Belgium, the U.K., Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Considerations are taken to ensure disinterments are done safely and with dignity, said Dan Hicks, ABMC Director of Cemetery Operations and disinterment manager.
They are always conducted after the site’s opening hours and can take one hour or several depending on the placement and condition of the gravesite. Headstones around the disinterment are temporarily removed or covered to ensure they aren’t damaged. After the disinterment, ABMC’s gardening staff ensure the grounds are returned to their trademark pristine condition.
Headstones aren’t removed after disinterments to preserve the original aesthetics of the sites. However, if disinterred remains are identified, or other remains from WWI or WWII are found outside of unknown graves, they may be interred in one of the empty graves depending on the wishes of the next of kin.
Later this year, a new ABMC policy will see the headstones of those unknowns who have been recovered engraved with an “R” on the back to signify they were identified. When a service member is identified a bronze rosette is placed next to their name on the walls of the missing at the ABMC site where they were memorialized as missing in action.
Hicks, who participated in his first disinterment in 2019 while he was the superintendent at North Africa American Cemetery in Tunisia, took over the role of disinterment manager in 2023.
Being able to bring closure to next of kin after so many years may be the most important part of the disinterment program, Hicks said.
“I think DPAA may be the only government organization that has a better mission than ABMC,” Hicks said. “So, to be a part of both of them is actually really, really rewarding, and I enjoy working with them.”
Certain thresholds of probability for identification must be met for a disinterment to be authorized, but new information, evidence and technologies continue to help identify those who sacrificed their all for service to the nation. Until they can be identified, it is ABMC’s privilege to provide their final resting place and to honor them as they await identification, and closure is afforded to their families. According to its Year in Review, in 2024, DPAA identified 172 service members.
View this story, with links, on ABMC's website at: https://www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/identifying-unknown-service-members-continuing-the-mission/
| Date Taken: | 04.01.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.01.2025 10:54 |
| Story ID: | 494225 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 38 |
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