
Remains of Mississippi airman identified 81 years after he died as POW
CBSN
A 22-year-old airman has been accounted for 81 years after he died as a prisoner of war, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said on Friday.
U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Alvin R. Scarborough, 22, of Dossville, Mississippi was serving in the 454th Ordnance Company when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December 1942 - sparking months of intense fighting. American and Filipino service members continued fighting until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.
After the troops surrendered, thousands of U.S. and Filipino soldiers - including Scarborough - were captured and interred at prisoner-of-war camps. Scarborough was one of the troops subjected to a 65-mile Bataan death march. The Japanese assembled about 78,000 prisoners; there were 12,000 U.S. and 66,000 Filipino service members, according to Army archives, to march up the East Coast of Bataan. Only 54,000 prisoners reached the camp, though the exact numbers are unknown.