fc ARTHUR -- BARRETT 6903568 Unit 31 INFANTRY REGIMENT Historical Country of Loss Philippine Islands Current Country of Loss PHILIPPINES ConflictServiceStatus WORLD WAR II UNITED STATES ARMY Unaccounted For Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, which sits at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp, which at its peak held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor and supplies of food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves that were often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan proved exceedingly difficult in the years after the war. Private First Class Arthur Barrett joined the U.S. Army in New York and served with Company A of the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured in Bataan following the American surrender and died of malaria on July 19, 1942, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Private First Class Barrett is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.