MILWAUKEE, Wis. — A Milwaukee man who was captured and died in the Philippines during World War II was accounted for earlier this year, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Friday.
U.S. Army Air Force Pvt. 1st Class David C. Hansen, 25, of Milwaukee. He was part of Headquarters Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group and was taken prisoner after Japanese forces took the Bataan peninsula and Corregidor Island in 1942.
Hansen was one of the thousands of soldiers subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March. According to the DPAA, records show Hansen died on June 28, 1942 and was buried in the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in a common grave.
His remains, along with others, were exhumed after the war and eventually buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns.
The DPAA exhumed remains associated with the common grave in November 2019 and sent them to a laboratory. Using dental and anthropological analysis, as well as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and mitochondrial genome sequence (mtG) analysis, scientists were able to identify Hansen.