- 81 years after he died, Staff Sergeant Alvin R. Scarborough's remains were identified on 21 September 2023. A "Rosette" was placed beside his name on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery to signify that his remains were recovered and mark that the person now rests in a known gravesite.
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Alvin R. Scarborough
Service #: 7009322
Rank: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit: 454th Ordnance Company, Aviation, 27th Bombardment Group (Light), V Bomber Command
Entered Service From: Mississippi
Date of Death: 28 July 1942, from malaria and dysentery in the Japanese POW Camp 1, Cabanatuan, Nueva Province, Luzon, Philippines 15-121.
Status: Missing In Action. Buried as a 'Unknown" in the Manila American Cemetery.
Memorialized: Tablets of the Missing United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Update: The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on 09 August 2024 that U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Alvin R. Scarborough, 22, of Dossville, Mississippi, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for 21 September 2023.
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1930 United States Federal Census (10 April 1930): Beat 1, Attala County, Mississippi (sheet 7A, family 133, 131 McAdams Road) Alvin R. Scarborough (9 Mississippi).
1940 United States Federal Census (22 April 1940): Beat 2, Leake County, Mississippi (sheet 11A, household 175, Sanders Crossing Road) Robert A. Scarborough (19 Mississippi). His family had lived in the same house in 1945. Alvin had completed four years of high school.
Alvin R. Scarborough, (1920 Mississippi) a resident of Leake County, Mississippi enlisted as a Private (S/N 7009322) in the U.S. Army on 21 May of 1940 in Jackson, Mississippi.
48 JOIN ARMY AT JACKSON OFFICE
Forty-eight young Mississippians during the past week enlisted in the United States army at the Jackson office, Lieutenant Colonel Charles C. Clifford, Calvary, U.S. Army recruiting officer for Mississippi and Louisiana, announced yesterday...Young men who enlisted in the army here this week with their home address and stations to which they were sent are as follows:
For Barksdale Field, Louisiana: ... Alvin R. Scarborough, Dossville; ... Source: Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi) Saturday, 25 May 1940, page 10.
After completing his basic training, he was assigned to the 454th Ordnance Company, Aviation, 27th Bombardment Group (Light), U.S. Army Air Corps, based at the Savannah Air Base in Savannah, Georgia.
Alvin Robert Scarborough married Gladys Pearl Turner on 23 December 1940 in Madison, Mississippi.
Less than a year later, with the dark clouds of war looming on the horizon, they were sent to the Philippine Islands. The 454 Ordnance Company left San Francisco, California on 01 November 1941 aboard the S.S. President Coolidge (passenger ship turned troop transport). On board with the 454 Ordnance were the squadrons of the 27th Bombardment Group; the 16th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Squadron, Headquarters Squadron and the 48th Material Squadron, plus a chemical detachment. Also on board were the following units: 5th Air Base Group and the 1st and 34th Pursuit Squadrons. The Coolidge arrived in Manila on a clear sunny Thanksgiving Thursday, 20 November (via Hawaii and Guam). "The men were disembarked off the Coolidge as a Philippine military band played patriotic music. Trucks were lined up waiting to transport the men to Fort McKinley. The Coolidge was the last desperately needed reinforcement for General McArthur."
The 454 Ordnance Company numbered six officers and 180 enlisted men. Just three weeks later war came to the Philippines on 08 December 1941. Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered their withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force.
The 454th assisted in the evacuation of Clark Field to Bataan Field and then were stationed at Mariveles Field on the western tip of Bataan. With no planes, they took care of artillery ordnance, 155 projectiles and propellants, and 75mm and 37mm and machine gun ammunition and spare parts for all the guns. They loaded bombs and ammunition and send it to the front line. The men were also issued .45's pistols and .30 caliber M1 rifles and given responsibility for part of the beach defenses on Bataan. They were never in the actual fighting.
On 06 January the battle for Bataan began.
From the very beginning, Bataan men were cut to 1/2 rations, and very soon, to 1/4 rations. About four weeks later, they were living on 1/8 rations, that is, when food was available to them. Towards the end, it was changed to 1/16th of their rations...Quite often, they would go several days with no food, unless they could catch something in the jungle." Source: Federico Baldassarre letter
In the wake of starvation came diseases, such as malaria, dengue, scurvy, beriberi and amebic dysentery. The average American soldier lost 15-25 pounds and malaria was as high as 35 percent among front line units.
On Good Friday, 03 April 1942, General Homma, with the addition of fresh troops, began an all-out offensive on Bataan. By the evening of April 8, the situation was clearly hopeless. With ammunition, rations and supplies practically exhausted and most of his best units destroyed, Major General Edward P. King, commander of the forces on Bataan, was convinced his troops could not physically resist any more and decided to surrender to prevent further loss of life. On 09 April 1942, Maj. Gen. King surrendered the Luzon Force to the Japanese. Before the surrender the men of the 454th were ordered to destroy their guns and disable their trucks so that the Japanese couldn't use them.
Sgt. Alvin R. Scarborough along with 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, were subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March. When the Fil-American soldiers began the Death March they were in terrible physical condition. For 6 to 9 days (depending on their starting point) they were forced to walk the roughly sixty-five miles to San Fernando, enduring abuse by Japanese guards and seeing the deaths of thousands of fellow soldiers. At San Fernando, the Japanese stuffed about 100 men into steel-sided boxcars for the twenty-five-mile trip to Capas. The scorching hot boxcars were packed so tight that the men could not even sit down. When the train arrived at Capas the POW's were offloaded and marched the final nine miles to Camp O'Donnell.
Surviving the brutal treatment by the Japanese at Camp O'Donnell (about 1500 American and 22,000 Filipino prisoners of war died in just three months) Sgt. Scarborough was transferred to the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, approximately 8 kilometers east of the town by the same name.
In early June of 1942, prisoners from Camp O'Donnell began to stream into Camp No. 1, joining the men captured on Corregidor. Most of the POWs were assigned to work details and farm labor. Because of the poor health of the men from O'Donnell, the death rate at Camp #1 soared.
His brother, Corporal Carlton Eugene "Gene" Scarborough, was with Company "B", First Battalion, Fourth Marines on Corregidor. He was wounded in action on 24 April 1942 and recuperating in hospital when the island surrendered. Also taken to Cabanatuan Prison, Gene was able to see Alvin a few days before he died.
Sergeant Alvin R. Scarborough died on 28 July 1942, of malaria and dysentery, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp #1 in Nueva Ecija Province, Luzon, Philippines 15-121. He was one of 22 men to die that day. In all 786 men died in Cabanatuan during the month of July, 1942. By the time the camp was liberated on 30 January 1945, 2,764 Americans had died at Cabanatuan in 2½ years. 90% of the POW deaths in Cabanatuan were men who were captured on Bataan. He was buried in a communal grave (No. 215) in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs who died that day.
Initially, Cabanatuan burial details interred all POWs who died within a given twenty-four-hour period in one mass grave. Between 03 June 1942 and 25 September 1942, one burial day was defined as occurring from noon on one day until the following noon.
After the war, all the remains in the Cabanatuan Prison cemetery that could be found were disinterred (between December 1945 - February 1946) and brought to 7747 USAF Cemetery, Manila #2, Philippine Islands. The deceased in Manila #2 (over 11,000 American soldiers) rested there until their removal to the American Graves Registration Service Manila Mausoleum in the summer of 1948 for positive identification. Five sets of remains from Common Grave 215 were identified, but the rest were declared unidentifiable. Unfortunately, no clothing, personal effects nor any other means of identification were found for Alvin and his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan. He was one of four "unknowns" from Grave 215.
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HEADQUARTERS
AMERICAN GRAVES REGISTRATION SERVICE
PHILCOM ZONE. APO 900 11 August 1949
CASE HISTORY FOR REMAINS CONSIDERED NON-RECOVERABLE
BISHOP, George F. Sgt. 6 567 320
HINSON, Cecil T. Pvt. 14 037 802
ROPP, John W. Pvt. 19 056 758
SCARBOROUGH, Alvin R. S/Sgt. 7 009 322
BASIS FOR DECLARING REMAINS NON-RECOVERABLE
1. According to available information on the attached extract copy of the "Cabanatuan POW Camp Death Report", death occurred while the above named personnel were prisoners of war at Cabanatuan POW Camp, Province of Nueva Ecija, Luzon Island, Philippine Islands.
2. Investigation of the case reveals only four (4) unknowns, which were disinterred from Grave 215, Row 0, Plot 2, Cabanatuan POW Cemetery, could possibly be associated with the above named personnel. However, after a thorough analysis of the case, the incomplete dental data available for the above listed men and the absence of any positive information which may definitely associate them with subject remains precluded either individual or group identification of said remains to be those of the subject personnel.
3. Findings and recommendations are based on all presently available information.
4. It is recommended that the remains of the subject personnel be considered non-recoverable and that all records pertaining to search and recovery of their remains be closed.
RECOMMEND APPROVAL:
Signed by these three men
WILBUR G. HOBBS JOHN SHYPULA HAROLD B. McNEMAR
1st Lt., Infantry 1st Lt., Infantry Captain, QMC
O-887 555 O-1 307 091 O-507 074
Member Member Member
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Alvin was buried in the Manila American Cemetery as a "Known but to God". There were 953 men like S/Sgt. Scarborough who were not identified after the war, "unknowns", permanently interred in the Manila American Cemetery from Cabanatuan.
"HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO GOD"
Staff Sergeant Alvin Robert Scarborough is memorialized at Tablets of the Missing United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery, Manila in the Philippines.
He also has a cenotaph in the Corinth Baptist Church Cemetery, Carthage, Leake County, Mississippi.
IN MEMORY OF
ALVIN R.
SCARBOROUGH
1920 1942
THO HIS BODY LIES IN AN
ALIEN GRAVE, HE GAVE HIS
LIFE OUR LAND TO SAVE.
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Press Release | Aug. 9, 2024
Airman Accounted for from WWII (Scarborough, A.)
Washington
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Alvin R. Scarborough, 22, of Dossville, Mississippi, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for Sept. 21, 2023.
In late 1942, Scarborough was a member of 454th Ordnance 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.
Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. Scarborough 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, Scarborough died July 28, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 215.
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. Five sets of remains from Common Grave 215 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 215 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify Scarborough's remains, scientists from DPAA used 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, Scarborough's grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
Scarborough will be buried in Carthage, Mississippi, on a date to be determined.
DPAA is grateful to the ABMC and the United States Army for their partnership in this
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1920 - 1942 (22 years)
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