Death & Burial

In 1945, After the conclusion of the war, the soldiers buried at Cabanatuan were exhumed by the Graves Registration Service and moved to a temporary cemetery in Manila, called Manila Cemetery #2. Later they were again exhumed and relocated to a Mausoleum at Nichols Field for analysis and identification.

It was very challenging to confirm identities of remains that had been found in the Cabanatuan camp graveyard as they had been buried for 3 years in  shallow graves of moist ground. The remains were in poor condition and the state forensic identification was still crude. Many plots contained several men.  Of the nearly 2700 American soldiers buried at Cabanatuan, James was among the 800 or so of them that were unidentifiable and therefore buried as "Unknown".

In 1952, the remains which were associated with Major O'Donovan were buried in a grave marked "140" in row 10, Plot H of the Manila American Cemetery. All of the aforementioned details were classified, and not revealed to the public until 2010.

Sadly, his wife and their 5 young children were advised that his remains could not be identified,  his body was forever lost to them.  And that's how the story ended.. Or so we thought.