Washington –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class Marcus A. Engesser, 21, of Vallejo, California, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for Sept. 27, 2023.
In late 1942, Engesser was a member of Company L, 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines during World War II, 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.
Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. Engesser was among those reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. They were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.
According to prison camp and other historical records, Engesser died Sept. 23, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 707.
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 mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Nine sets of remains from Common Grave 707 were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.
In early 2018, the remains associated with Common Grave 707 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify Engesser’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Engesser’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
Pfc Engesser will be buried in Vallejo, California, on a date to be determined.
For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.
DPAA is grateful to the ABMC and the United States Army for their partnership in this mission.
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 https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.
Engesser’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000Xho2EAC.