WASHINGTON D.C., DC — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Thursday that U.S. Army Cpl. Leo J. Barlosky, 24, from Audenried, Pennsylvania was accounted for on Sept. 27, 2022.
In late 1941, Barlosky was a member of the 7th Chemical Company, Aviation, 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.
Barlosky, along with thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. He was reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese.
The prisoners were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,500 POWs died in this camp during the war.
According to the prison camp and other historical records, Barlosky died July 27, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 225.
Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried in the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila.
In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Three sets of remains were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable. The remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.
In early 2018, the remains associated with Common Grave 225 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis.
To identify Barlosky's remains, scientists from the DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.
Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Barlosky's grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
He will be given a proper burial in Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.
Barlosky’s personnel profile can be viewed here.
