A Monmouth man who died during World War II after the Imperial Japanese Army captured the Philippines will finally return home next spring.
U.S. Army Cpl. Delmont Johnston, 21, was serving with the 16th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group, in late 1941 when the Japanese army invaded the Philippines, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Johnston was among the U.S. and Filipino soldiers captured after the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942.
Johnston endured the Bataan Death March, which began on April 10, 1942. Seventy-eight thousand prisoners marched 65 miles, during which they endured abuse and executions. By some estimates, around 3,000 prisoners died before reaching their final destination.
He was held at the Cabanatuan POW camp, where Johnston died on Dec. 30, 1942, and was buried in a common grave, the DPAA said. Another Maine soldier, 21-year-old U.S. Army Pvt. Willard D. Merrill of Dover-Foxcroft, also was captured after the surrender of Bataan and died at Cabanatuan a few weeks before Johnston.
After the war, the grave was exhumed and all remains were relocated to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. But on Aug. 25, 1949, Johnston was declared not recoverable and his remains went unidentified for decades, buried with all other unidentified remains at Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as an unknown.
Those remains were exhumed again in December 2018.
To identify Johnston’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental, anthropological and radio isotope analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA analysis and mitochondrial genome sequencing data.
He was finally identified on March 18, 2025.
Johnston will be buried in Augusta next spring.