Press Release | Sept. 19, 2024

Airman Accounted for from WWII (Hansen, D.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Air Force Pvt. 1st Class David C. Hansen, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for August 23, 2024.

In late 1941, Hansen was a member of Headquarters Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group, 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.  Hansen 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 #1. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.