WILDER, Idaho — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recently announced that they have "accounted for" 2nd Lieutenant Charles S. Atteberry of Wilder, Idaho.
Atteberry's fate was previously a topic of debate after the Empire of Japan took him as a prisoner of war in 1944 while deployed as a member of the 31st Infantry Regiment to the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
A news release indicates that after Atteberry was captured, he was transported to Manila, where he boarded the Oryoku Maru bound for mainland Japan. Unaware of the presence of POWs on board, U.S. aircraft bombed the ship, which sank in Subic Bay.
Although it's unclear how he survived the attack, Atteberry was then taken aboard the Enoura Maru bound for Takao, Formosa, now modern-day Taiwan. That ship was also hit by U.S. aircraft and ultimately sank.
From there, witness accounts vary, although at the time, Japanese authorities indicated that Atteberry later boarded the Brazil Maru headed for Moji, Japan. However, this account was later disputed by the American Graves Registration Command, which identified "discrepancies" regarding five individuals.
Following the war in 1946, a mass grave was exhumed by the American Graves Registration Command on a beach at Takao, Formosa, that included 311 bodies. Initially, those remains were deemed unidentifiable, and the bodies were later transported to Honolulu, Hawaii, where they were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punch Bowl.
In 2022, the DPAA utilized mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA analysis to identify the remains from the burial site in Takao, Formosa. After an investigation that included "circumstantial evidence" and "anthropological analysis," the DPAA identified remains disinterred from the Punch Bowl as belonging to Atteberry.
In the coming weeks, a rosette will be placed next to Atteberry's name at the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial to indicate that he has been accounted for.
Atteberry will be buried in Parma, Idaho, at a future date.
You can read the entire ID announcement here: Soldier Accounted For From World War II (Atteberry, C.)
