When the remains of WWII soldier Pvt. William Gruber are finally laid to rest back in Montana Saturday, it will complete a journey that was stalled for years until science, public pressure, and the intervention of a U.S. Senator mixed.
After surviving the Bataan Death March in the Philippines, Gruber died in September 1942 in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He was buried along with other prisoners in a common grave. Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed the remains and moved them to a U.S. military installation near Manila. There attempts were made in 1947 to identify the remains.
“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,” said a Department of Defense press release issued Monday. Gruber’s remains were reburied in Manila.
