HISTORICAL NARRATIVE EXHIBIT 5 PLAINTIFF'S OBJECTION TO REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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1 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 1 of 10 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE EXHIBIT 5 PLAINTIFF'S OBJECTION TO REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE EAKIN v. AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION, et al CIV. A. NO. SA-12-CA-1002-FB(HJB)

2 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 2 of 10 JOINT POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND 310 WORCHESTER AVENUE JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HI MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD, UNKNOWNS X-812, X-814, X-815, X-816, X-818, X-820, X-821, X-822, X-823, AND X-824 MANILA #2, COMMON GRAVE 717, CABANATUAN CAMP #3 CEMETERY, LUZON, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (P.I.) (CIL to CIL ): ADDENDUM JPAC CENTRAL IDENTIFICATION LABORATORY 12 January Summary HISTORICAL NARRATIVE The War Department considered Private Arthur H. KELDER, Medical Corps, 2nd General Hospital, in a beleaguered status from 8 December 1941 [the day Japanese forces attacked the Philippines] to and including 6 May 1942, when Corregidor Island fell and American and Filipino forces in the islands surrendered. 1 Private KELDER was listed as Missing/Prisoner Of War (POW) on and subsequent to 7 May On 14 July 1943, the War Department received information from the Japanese government via the International Red Cross that claimed Pvt KELDER had died in captivity. 3 Evidence indicated that he succumbed to pellagra, malaria, and diphtheria on 19 November 1942 while interned at POW Camp Cabanatuan. 4 On 11 January 1950, Headquarters, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS), Philippines Command (PHILCOM) Zone, recommended that Pvt KELDER be considered non-recoverable. The report explained, It has not been possible to definitely associate [Pvt KELDER] with any other remains recovered from Cabanatuan POW Camp Cemetery... Findings and recommendations are based on all information presently available. 5 On 13 February 1950, the Office of the Quartermaster General approved the finding of nonrecoverability Capture At 2:30 AM local time on the morning of 8 December 1941, United States forces in the Philippines learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. American units in the islands immediately went on full alert and anticipated a strike within the coming hours and days. At 12:20 PM, enemy planes appeared in the skies above Clark Field in central Luzon and caught the majority of the American B-17s and P-40s on the ground. The destruction was almost total. 7 These air raids continued for the next two weeks while the Japanese military prepared to invade the island. The main Japanese landings occurred on 22 December at Lingayen Gulf, on Luzon s west coast. The poorly-equipped Americans and Filipinos soon began a fighting withdrawal southward into the Bataan Peninsula. They held out until 9 April 1942, when the survivors began the torturous 65-mile Bataan Death March northward to prison camps in central Luzon. The first portion of the trek concluded at San Fernando. Japanese soldiers next forced the Until They Are Home

3 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 3 of 10 American and Filipino POWs into crowded, stiflingly hot box cars for a 25-mile train journey to Capas. The captives then walked nine additional miles to Camp O Donnell, where the Japanese imprisoned them (Figure 1). On 6 May, when the island fortress of Corregidor off the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula capitulated, the Philippines were firmly in Japanese control. 8 Figure 1. Map of the Bataan Death March, indicating the 65-mile trek from Marvieles to San Fernando and the train journey to Capas and Camp O Donnell Life and Death in Captivity On 11 April 1942, the first POWs to survive the Death March entered Camp O Donnell. The last of roughly 9,000 POWs arrived at the installation by the end of the month. The prisoners usually surrendered any personal items, which could include dog tags, upon capture or entrance into the camp. In June, as a result of overcrowding and an excessive death rate at Camp O Donnell, the Japanese Army began transferring POWs to Camp Cabanatuan. The latter facility, which was approximately 60 miles north of Manila, consisted of three different camps. Japanese forces moved POWs to various permanent and temporary camps throughout the Philippines; they also shipped thousands of them to the Asiatic mainland and Japan later in the war. 10 The constant movement of POWs, as well as an incomplete and, at times, inaccurate documentary record, complicates present efforts to reconstruct reliable camp rosters and death lists. Initially, burial details at Camp Cabanatuan interred all POWs who died on a given day in one mass grave. Between 3 June 1942 and 25 September 1942, one burial day was defined as occurring from noon until the following noon. Between 26 September and 19 October 1942, a burial day lasted from 5:00 PM one day until 5:00 PM the next. Thereafter, a burial day occurred from 12:00 AM until midnight. 11 Private KELDER reportedly died on 19 November Page 2 of 9

4 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 4 of , and he and 13 other individuals were allegedly buried on 20 November 1942 in Grave 717, Section VII, Cabanatuan Camp #3 Cemetery (Figure 2). 12 Japanese guards at Camp Cabanatuan did not initially allow burial details to erect grave markers, nor did the captive Americans inter remains in any organized plot structure or particular order. Many of the graves were shallow as well. According to Lisa Beckenbaugh and Heather Harris, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) analysts, Because of the disorder in the camp and the high death rate, it is also very likely that many graves went unregistered, particularly during the first few weeks at Cabanatuan. 13 Figure 2. Map of Camp Cabanatuan Cemetery, with Common Grave 717 circled in the upper right corner. 14 Major Robert E. Conn, who served as Graves Registration Officer at Camp Cabanatuan, created The Cabanatuan Death Report. The Death Report merely listed date, time, and cause of death, as well as some basic biographical information for the deceased individual. It did not indicate the grave number in which an individual was buried. Thus, date of death would become the means by which to associate deceased POWs and burial locations. 15 Both POWs during the war and the AGRS after the Japanese surrender had a difficult time locating and delineating the boundaries of specific burial plots. After August 1942, Japanese guards allowed the Americans to inter their dead in a systematic order; they also permitted them to erect grave Page 3 of 9

5 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 5 of 10 markers. Major Conn observed that very few men in Camp Cabanatuan possessed identification tags or personal items. Many dying prisoners gave their tags to their friends in the hopes that they would return them to their families. Consequently, some deceased POWs had several sets of tags on their person; in other cases, they possessed only one tag, wallet, or paybook albeit a tag, wallet, or paybook that did not belong to them. Most commonly, though, men perished with no distinguishing form of identification. This phenomenon increased the likelihood of misidentification or prevented surviving POWs and subsequently the AGRS from positively identifying some of the deceased. If an individual lacked a tag, prisoner burial details placed a slip of paper with information on it into the man s mouth or between his fingers. But most pieces of paper had disintegrated by the time AGRS disinterred the sites several years later. 16 In June 1943, burial details at Camp Cabanatuan began interring remains individually. Any POW buried before this time, however, was likely interred in a mass grave. Major Conn and his men attempted to identify previous gravesites and recall those dates of interment, but they met with limited success. They had trouble locating graves because the overgrowth of vegetation obscured many portions of the cemetery. 17 When the AGRS exhumed Camp Cabanatuan interments between December 1945 and March 1946, it discovered that the camp cemetery was situated in an area with a high water table. The condition of the remains, consequently, was extremely poor. Graves Registration personnel reviewed camp death reports and determined that, after the first round of disinterments, they could not account for 56 sets of remains out of the estimated 2,763 American POWs who perished in Camp Cabanatuan. The AGRS reinterred the remains 12 miles north of Manila in the temporary collection facility known as Manila No By February 1946, most of the deceased from Camps O Donnell and Cabanatuan were located in this temporary cemetery. From there they would move to the Manila Mausoleum for analysis and storage. 19 The Chronological Listing of Cabanatuan Graves noted that the following 14 individuals died on 19 November 1942 and were interred in Common Grave 717 (Table 1): Table 1. POW casualties associated with Common Grave Name Service # Rank Unit Status Bain, Daniel C Pfc 803d Engr Bn (Aviation) Resolved Collins, Frederick G Cpl 263d Qm Co Dead, BNR Gutierrez, Juan F Pfc 200th CAC Resolved Hanscom, Lawrence K Sgt 31st Inf Resolved Hirschi, Harold S Pvt HQ, 19th BG Dead, BNR KELDER, Arthur H Pvt 2d Gen Hosp Dead, BNR Kovach, John, Jr Pfc 192d Tank Bn Dead, BNR Lobdell, Lloyd J Pfc 192d Tank Bn Dead, BNR Nichols, Harvey A Pfc 33d Qm Co Resolved Overbey, Evans E Pvt HQ, 19th BG Dead, BNR Ruark, John W Corp USMC Dead, BNR Simmons, George G Cpl 60th CAC Dead, BNR Waid, Charlie M Pvt 31st Inf Dead, BNR York, George S. NA CIV NA Dead, BNR Page 4 of 9

6 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 6 of Disinterment and Processing According to the files for the unidentified remains associated with Common Grave 717 (also referred to as x-files), Records indicate fourteen (14) bodies [were] found in common grave. There were thirteen (13) Unknowns and one (1) of which [Pfc Bain] was identified by an Identification Tag. 21 The documents further explained, These bodies were buried in this grave but individual identification is impossible. 22 Thus, AGRS personnel disinterred Common Grave 717 in the 1940s. As a result of this effort, they confirmed the identify of Pfc Bain and identified three other sets of remains associated with the grave. That left ten individuals listed in Table 1 in an unresolved status. There are ten unknown sets of remains associated with Common Grave 717. The ten x-files have a Manila No. 2 designation: Unknowns X-812, X-814, X-815, X-816, X-818, X-820, X-821, X-822, X-823, and X-824. The AGRS disinterred these ten sets of unknown remains, along with the four resolved individuals, from Camp Cabanatuan Cemetery, Plot 7, Row O, Grave 717. It reinterred the unknowns in Manila No. 2 on 12 January On 15 December 1947, the AGRS disinterred them from Manila No. 2 and moved them to the Manila Mausoleum at Nichols Field. On 12 August 1948, analysts at the Mausoleum s Central Identification Point (CIP) examined the remains and compiled skeletal and dental charts. The AGRS stored them in one of the Mausoleum s hangars later that day. The analysts unsuccessfully attempted to associate these ten sets of remains with the ten unresolved individuals believed to have been buried in Grave 717. On 21 December 1949, CIP analysts re-examined the ten sets of remains, and HQ, AGRS, PHILCOM Zone, recommended that the Quartermaster, Memorial Division, classify them as unidentifiable. On 26 January 1950, the Memorial Division approved this finding. The AGRS then interred these unknowns in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) on the following dates (Table 2): Table 2. Burial Dates and Locations in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial of Unknown Sets of Remains Associated with Common Grave Designation Burial Date Location Unknown X-812 Manila No February 1950 N, 2, 69 Unknown X-814 Manila No February 1950 N, 14, 78 Unknown X-815 Manila No February 1952 L, 14, 49 Unknown X-816 Manila No February 1952 A, 12, 195 Unknown X-818 Manila No February 1950 C, 5, 78 Unknown X-820 Manila No February 1950 N, 5, 187 Unknown X-821 Manila No February 1950* C, 9, 78 Unknown X-822 Manila No February 1950* N, 14, 93 Unknown X-823 Manila No February 1950 N, 11, 97 Unknown X-824 Manila No February 1950 N, 11, 190 *The month on the original report of interment was punched through with a hole punch and is illegible. However, given the other 1950 burial dates, it seems likely that Unknowns X-821 and X-822 were also interred in February. Page 5 of 9

7 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 7 of Concerns with Identification Activities The AGRS encountered unique challenges when attempting to identify remains it recovered from Camps O Donnell and Cabanatuan. Record keeping at these two camps was incomplete at best. Moreover, a prisoner s postmortem dental record might differ significantly from his last available dental chart, especially if subsequent dental work went uncharted. Camp dentists, for instance, could have performed work on POWs during their interment. Prisoners Of War might have lost teeth as a result of malnutrition or violence. Between December 1946 and April 1947, AGRS identified nearly 300 sets of remains based on dental comparisons performed by nondentists. 24 In 1951, the AGRS reviewed earlier POW camp identifications as part of the Cabanatuan Project. An additional recovery team visited the former camp site, but the land there had changed dramatically since AGRS s first investigation in late The 1951 field team reported that it was unable to excavate at Camp Cabanatuan because the area had been flooded to create a rice paddy. According to Ms. Beckenbaugh and Ms. Harris, Capt John Shypula returned to Camp Cabanatuan on 26 September 1951 and determined that the former landmarks within the cemetery had been obliterated and could not be reestablished.... No test digging could be conducted nor anything further determined. 25 Consequently, the Memorial Division, Quartermaster Corps, decided instead to re-evaluate unidentified remains that AGRS had previously recovered from Camp Cabanatuan. These remains were held both at the Manila Mausoleum and at the Schofield Central Identification Laboratory (CIL), Hawaii. Anthropologist Dr. Mildred Trotter found that these remains were in very poor condition. Analysts had disinterred and processed the remains several times, which often led to further commingling. This present case, Common Grave 717, reveals the extent of commingling in one single grave at Camp Cabanatuan. Ms. Beckenbaugh and Ms. Harris commented that Lt Col Stuart Abel and Dr. Trotter found that the identifications being put forward to the Memorial Division could not be further substantiated by studying the remains and the accompanying paperwork at the same time. 26 Dr. Trotter considered the project a failure, and the Memorial Division terminated it as a result. Ms. Beckenbaugh and Ms. Harris explained, however, Those families who had already been notified that the remains of their loved one had been recovered received remains for burial. 27 The AGRS interred the unidentified Camp Cabanatuan remains as unknowns in the Manila American Cemetery Conclusion In response to a family request, JPAC coordinated a disinterment for this present investigation. Considering the high probability of commingling of Camp Cabanatuan remains, JPAC decided to treat Common Grave 717 as one group set of remains. On 15 August 2014, Mr. Albert McFarland, Director, United States Forces, Korea (USFK), Casualty and Mortuary Affairs, U.S. Eighth Army, oversaw the disinterment of the ten graves containing unknown remains from the Manila American Cemetery associated with Common Grave 717. On 28 August 2014, they were accessioned into the JPAC-CIL, Hawaii. Page 6 of 9

8 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 8 of 10 By utilizing state-of-the-art forensic techniques and DNA analysis, the CIL staff determined that all ten sets of remains demonstrated evidence of commingling. In an effort to facilitate individual identifications, CIL anthropologists consolidated remains from several of the caskets into distinct assemblages based on forensic testing and DNA analysis. As a result of this effort, JP AC staff concluded that Pvt KELDER' s remains were spread amongst several of these caskets. The degree of commingling accords with the historical record, as the individuals associated with this grave were interred in a common group burial. Further commingling may have occurred following exhumation and identification processing at the AGRS Manila Mausoleum in the years immediately following World War II. Testing and analysis continues for the other remains associated with Common Grave 717; however, at this time there are DNA sequences present in this group of remains that do not correspond to reference samples on file for individuals associated with this Common Grave. JA~pµ- \=h~eric W. KLINEK, PhD Historian ;/A~p~ MICHAEL R. DOLSKI, PhD Historian Page 7 of9

9 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 9 of 10 Endnotes 1 War Department, The Adjutant General s Office, Washington, Report of Death, 22 July 1943, in Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) for Kelder, Arthur H., Pvt, Record Group (RG) 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General (OQMG), Washington National Records Center (WNRC), Suitland, MD. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 War Department, The Adjutant General s Office, Washington 25, D.C., Report of Death, *corrected report org fwd 22 July 43, 18 June 1945, in IDPF for Kelder. 5 Headquarters, American Graves Registration Service, PHILCOM Zone, APO 900, Case History for Remains Considered Non-Recoverable, 11 January 1950, in IDPF for Kelder. 6 Office of Quartermaster General (OQMG) Form 1916, Non-Recoverable Case Record of Review and Approval, 13 February 1950, in IDPF for Kelder. 7 Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), Eric Klinek, Memorandum for the Record, Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, 10 March 2014, p Lisa Beckenbaugh and Heather Harris, Archival Research Memo, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), Casualties of Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp #1 and the history of their burials, 13 October 2005 (Revised 20 February 2014), Ibid., The Chronological Listing of Cabanatuan Graves indicates that Maj Evert S. Thomas, O , also died on 19 November. However, he was interred in Grave 604, a single grave. Major Thomas is a resolved casualty. Chronological Listing of Cabanatuan Graves, Folder Title: 293 GRS Pacific, (Cabanatuan) Chronological Listing of Graves (A). RG 92: Entry 1894A, Box 619, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA II) College Park, Maryland. 13 Lisa Beckenbaugh and Heather Harris, Archival Research Memo, Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), Casualties of the Philippines POW Camps O Donnell and Cabanatuan and the history of their burials, 13 October 2005 (Revised 2 March 2010), Beckenbaugh and Harris, Casualties of Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp #1, Beckenbaugh and Harris, Casualties of the Philippines POW Camps O Donnell and Cabanatuan,, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 6-8; Heather Harris, DPMO WWII Division Memo, Historical research concerning Grave 717, Cabanatuan Camp # 3 Cemetery (Philippines JPAC Incident 425), 7 September 2010, 2-4. Page 8 of 9

10 Case 5:12-cv FB Document Filed 02/15/15 Page 10 of Edward Steere and Thayer M. Boardman, Final Disposition of World War II Dead, , Q.M.C. Historical Studies, Series II, No. 4 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1957), Heather Harris, DPMO WWII Division Memo, TO: JPAC CIL, Mr. Speelhoffer, CC: Dr. Chambers, Mr. Rosenau, File, Re: Historical research concerning Grave 717, Cabanatuan Camp #3 Cemetery (Philippines JPAC Incident 425), WD QMC Form 1042, Report of Interment, 7 February 1946, Unknown X-821 Manila No. 2 file. RG 92: Records of OQMG, WNRC. 22 Ibid. 23 The burial locations are derived from the individual x-files. 24 Beckenbaugh and Harris, Casualties of the Philippines POW Camps O Donnell and Cabanatuan, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid. 28 Ibid. Page 9 of 9