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Private Harland Hennessey will return to Boonville, N.Y. this summer 84 years he left the small Oneida County community.
He was 22 when he went to fight in World War II. He died in 1942 at a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. His remains have finally been identified.
Courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Johnathan Croyle | [email protected] After 84 years overseas, a Central New York soldier will finally get his long-deserved homecoming this summer. Private Harland Hennessey’s remains will return to his hometown of Boonville in July, after being identified in the Philippines where he died during World War II.
Until last year, Hennessey’s remains were buried among the “Unknowns” at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. On Tuesday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced he “had been accounted for” on Sept. 23, 2024, thanks to DNA testing, dental and anthropological analysis.
His family recently received a full briefing on his identification. Hennessey, 22, bade farewell to Central New York on May 27, 1941. He was among the first from Boonville to leave for the armed forces.
That evening, he was entertained by a group of friends at Lowville before having a party in his honor at a Black River camp. His pals gave him “a purse of money” when it was over, the Rome Sentinel reported. Two days later, he was off to Fort Jay at Governors Island and then Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
By December 1941, according to newspaper reports, he landed at Fort Stotsenburg in the Philippines. Hennessey was a member of the 803rd Engineer Battalion, Aviation, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December. After intense fighting, American and Filipino forces surrendered the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.
Hennessey was among the thousands who were reported captured. They were forced to do the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1. American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese are shown at the start of the Death March after the surrender of Bataan on April 9 near Mariveles in the Philippines in 1942 during World War II.
Starting on April 10 from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Penisula, 70,000 POWs were force-marched to Camp O'Donnell, a new prison camp 65 miles away. (AP Photo) ASSOCIATED PRESS The Cabanatuan Prison Camp was notorious for its poor conditions. Lack of food and water led to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery.
At its peak, it held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners. More than 2,500 POWs died in this camp, including Harland Hennessey. According to historical records, Hennessey died Nov.
1, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the camp cemetery in Common Grave 704. Private Harland Hennessey will return to Boonville, N.Y.
this summer 84 years he left the small Oneida County community. He was 22 when he went to fight in World War II. He died in 1942 at a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines.
His remains have finally been identified. Courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency After the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S.
military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains, trying to identify soldiers. Two sets of remains from Common Grave 704 were identified, while the remaining eight were declared unidentifiable.
The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns. Hennessey was among them. In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains of Common Grave 704 and sent them to their laboratory for analysis.
To identify Hennessey’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, and circumstantial evidence. Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA and mitochondrial genome sequence analysis. Although interred as an Unknown, Hennessey’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
Today, Hennessey is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Private Harland Hennessey will return to Boonville, NY this summer 84 years he left the small Oneida County community.
He was 22 when he went to fight in World War II. He died in 1942 at a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. His remains have finally been identified.
Newspaper shows the granite marker in Boonville's Erwin Park which bares his name. Courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Harland Hennessey was born on Sept. 1, 1918, one of two sons born to Howard and Dorothy Hennessey.
His parents operated a family farm on Hennessey Road in Boonville before moving into town. His father was a “well-known carpenter and builder in the area,” according to his wife’s obituary in 1985. Before the war, Hennessey attended Boonville High School, was president of his eighth-grade class, tried out for track, played soccer, and appeared in school musicals and plays.
He was employed at the Sears Gas Station in Rome when he was drafted into the service. Hennessey’s parents were notified he was missing in action and had been imprisoned. They didn’t learn his fate until July 10, 1943, more than six months after his death.
The July 19, 1943 Utica Observer and Dispatch reported: “The Baptist Church was crowded to capacity yesterday afternoon for the memorial service of Private Harland Hennessey when the town’s people joined with relatives and friends to pay tribute to Boonville’s first soldier in foreign service who had given his life for his country.” A few months after the war ended, a “largely attended and very enthusiastic gathering” met in Boonville on Dec. 10, 1945 to form a Veterans of Foreign Wars Post, according to the Rome Sentinel.
They unanimously voted to name it The Harland J. Hennessey VFW Post 5538 . The post is located on Park Avenue today in Boonville.
Hennessey will be buried in Boonville in July 2025. For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490. This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.
com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at [email protected] or call 315-416-3882.
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