Ohio WWII POW from Japanese camp accounted for after 82 years

After more than eight decades, a soldier from the Toledo area, who died as a prisoner of war during World War II, has been accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The DPAA announced that U.S. Army Sgt. Howard L. Hasselkus, 24, was identified on Sept. 23, 2024. His family recently received a full briefing on his identification.

Hasselkus will be buried in his hometown of Elmore in August 2025.

In late 1941, Hasselkus was serving with the 192nd Tank Battalion when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands.

He was among the thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members captured after the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942.

Hasselkus was subjected to the harrowing 65-mile Bataan Death March and subsequently held at Cabanatuan POW Camp #1, where more than 2,500 prisoners perished during the war.

Sgt. Howard Hasselkus  

According to historical records, Hasselkus died Nov. 22, 1942, and was buried with other deceased prisoners in a common grave at the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed remains from the Cabanatuan cemetery. While some remains from Common Grave 807 were identified in 1947, nine sets, including Hasselkus', were declared unidentifiable and buried as "Unknowns" at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM).

In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains associated with Common Grave 807 for further analysis. Scientists utilized dental and anthropological analysis, circumstantial evidence, and advanced DNA testing to identify Hasselkus.

Although interred as an Unknown for decades, Hasselkus' grave at MACM was cared for by the American Battle Monuments Commission. His name is also memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, where a rosette will now be placed to signify he has been accounted for.