Lengthy lacking, WWII POW buried 82 years after his dying at Cape Canaveral Nationwide Cemetery
Grace Recor by no means received the prospect to fulfill her uncle, U.S. Military Cpl. Leo J. Barlosky — “my mom solely instructed us that he went to conflict and did not come residence.”
As a captured young soldier during World War II, Barlosky was compelled to endure the horrors of the Bataan Demise March within the Philippines, mere months after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He was solely 24 when he died of diphtheria at an enemy jail camp on July 27, 1942, and he was buried in a typical grave.
Barlosky’s physique was not recognized after WWII ended. And he remained unaccounted for on the opposite facet of the planet for generations. However in a September 2022 breakthrough, Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company laboratory evaluation recognized the Pennsylvania native’s stays.
Tuesday — greater than 82 years after his dying — Barlosky was lastly laid to relaxation with army honors throughout a funeral service at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Mims.
Honoring veterans: ‘Of solemnity’: Mims couple guides mule-drawn caisson at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery
Recor was not born till 1947, 5 years after her misplaced uncle’s dying. However the Apopka resident felt a rush of emotion final week whereas watching a airplane carrying his casket taxi as much as the passenger terminal at Orlando Worldwide Airport.
“They’d the colour guard, and the hearth division got here they usually did the arches over the airplane with the water cannon. It was actually, actually one thing to see,” Recor recalled.
“And I did not assume I used to be going to get so emotional, however I did. I do not … you realize, it similar to overcame me, I assume,” she mentioned.
Demise at age 24 in a Philippines jail camp
Born in February 1918 in Audenried, a village in east-central Pennsylvania, Barlosky had served within the Military for six years in Maryland; Savannah, Georgia; and Manila earlier than he was assigned to the Philippines with the seventh Chemical Firm, Aviation, The Hazelton (Pennsylvania) Plain Speaker newspaper reported.
Invading Japanese forces began pouring into the Philippines instantly after the Pearl Harbor assault, and U.S. and Filipino troops had been compelled to give up in April 1942 after months of intense combating. That is when 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino POWs on the Bataan peninsula had been compelled to march about 65 miles — and subjected to ghastly conflict crimes, the Nationwide WWII Museum reported.
“The Bataan Demise March is remembered as an absolute tragedy. The prisoners of conflict had been compelled to march via tropical circumstances, enduring warmth, humidity, and rain with out sufficient medical care. They suffered from hunger, having to sleep within the harsh circumstances of the Philippines,” the museum web site mentioned.
“The prisoners unable to make it via the march had been overwhelmed, killed, and generally beheaded,” the web site mentioned.
Barlosky was imprisoned in inhumane circumstances on the Cabanatuan POW camp within the Philippines, the place the American dying march survivors had been confined. He was first reported lacking in motion on Might 7, 1942, The Plain Speaker reported.
“An estimated 3,000 prisoners died or had been killed through the march. And as many as 26,000 prisoners who made it to camp later died of hunger and illness, like Cpl. Leo J. Barlosky,” Rev. J.B. Kump, a retired U.S. Air Power lieutenant colonel and minister at Nice Outdoor Neighborhood Church in Titusville, mentioned throughout Barlosky’s eulogy.
Recognized by Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company
A timeline of occasions after Barlosky’s dying, in line with his Military personnel file:
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1942: Barlosky is buried in Widespread Grave 225 on the Cabanatuan jail camp cemetery.
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After WWII: American Graves Registration Service personnel exhume the cemetery and transfer stays to a brief U.S. army mausoleum close to Manila.
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1947: AGRS personnel try and establish stays from Widespread Grave 225. Barlosky and others are buried on the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as “unknowns.”
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2018: Stays related to Widespread Grave 225 are disinterred and despatched to the Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company laboratory for research at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.
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2022: DPAA officers establish Barlosky’s stays.
“I thank the federal government for remembering the heroes. And nonetheless in search of them, to get better them to deliver them residence,” mentioned Gail Utitus. Her husband, Martin, is Barlosky’s nephew. The couple traveled from Milford, Connecticut, to attend Tuesday’s memorial service.
Barlosky is memorialized on the Partitions of the Lacking on the Manila American Cemetery within the Philippines. He had married his spouse, Martha, whereas he was serving in Savannah, the Plain Speaker reported.
‘They answered the decision to avoid wasting the world’
Tuesday afternoon, Barlosky’s memorial procession led from North Brevard Funeral Residence alongside U.S. 1 to Cape Canaveral Nationwide Cemetery. Dozens of well-wishers waved and held American flags alongside the route, together with a big continent outdoors American Publish Legion 1.
On the nationwide cemetery, a black powder-coated caisson pulled by a pair of mules delivered Barlosky’s stays to Committal Shelter 2, the place greater than 60 mourners gathered for his funeral service. The mules had been pushed by Mims residents Tom and Denise Fitzgerald, who’ve escorted greater than 700 veterans and first responders since 2018.
Throughout his remarks, Kump hailed Barlosky as a hero of America’s Best Era.
“These women and men got here of age within the Nice Despair, when financial despair hovered over the land like a plague. They’d watched their dad and mom lose their companies, their farms, their jobs and their hopes. They’d discovered to just accept a future that performed out in the future at a time. Then — simply as there was a glimmer of financial restoration — conflict exploded throughout Europe and Asia,” he mentioned.
Kump counted Barlosky amongst numerous younger males who left ranches in South Dakota, “major road” jobs in Georgia, meeting traces in Detroit and the ranks of Wall Avenue to serve their nation. Quoting Tom Brokaw’s e-book “The Best Era,” Kump mentioned, “they answered the decision to assist save the world from the 2 strongest and ruthless army machines ever assembled — devices of conquest within the arms of fascist maniacs.”
“We’re lucky that the untiring efforts of the U.S. army over all of these years to establish and return the stays of this American warrior permit us now to offer him remaining honors, and to exhibit our gratitude for his service on behalf of the household and the American individuals,” Kump instructed the viewers, concluding his remarks.
“For now, Cpl. Barlosky is residence finally.”
Rick Neale is a Area Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This text initially appeared on Florida At present: ‘He went to war and didn’t come home’: Lost WWII POW buried in Florida
