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News Release

Press Release | May 3, 2019

Soldier Accounted For From World War II (Shuey, C.)

WASHINGTON  –   The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Army Sgt. Cread E. Shuey, 23, of Norton, Kansas, killed during World War II, was accounted for on Feb. 26, 2019.

(This identification was initially announced on March 5, 2019.)

On Dec. 8, 1941, Shuey was a member of Battery G, 60th Coast Artillery Regiment, serving in the Philippines, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of the Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were taken prisoner and sent to prisoner of war camps. Shuey was among those reported captured after the surrender of Corregidor and held at the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the remaining years of the war.

According to prison and historical records, Shuey died on Sept. 27, 1942, and was buried along with fellow prisoners in the local Cabanatuan camp cemetery.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military cemetery near Manila. In late 1947, the AGRS again exhumed the remains at the Manila cemetery in an attempt to identify them. Due to the circumstances of the POW deaths and burials, the extensive commingling, and the limited identification technologies of the time, all of the remains could not be individually identified. The unidentified remains were reburied as unknowns in the present-day Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.

In May 2016, the Secretary of the Army granted permission to exhume six graves associated with the Cabanatuan Common Grave 439. On May 11, 2016, the remains were sent to DPAA for identification.

To identify Shuey’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

DPAA is grateful to the American Battle Monuments Commission for their partnership in this mission.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war. Currently there are 72,729 service members (approximately 26,000 are assessed as possibly-recoverable) still unaccounted for from World War II. Shuey’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site along with others missing from WWII. Although interred as an "unknown" in Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Shuey’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Shuey will be buried March 30, 2019, in Tucson, Arizona. His family does not wish to be contacted by media.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1169.

Shuey’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000Ll4TEAS