ELMORE, Ohio - After more than eight decades, a soldier from the Toledo area, who died as a prisoner of war during World War II, has been accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The DPAA announced that U.S. Army Sgt. Howard L. Hasselkus, 24, was identified on Sept. 23, 2024. His family recently received a full briefing on his identification.

Hasselkus will be buried in his hometown of Elmore in August 2025.

In late 1941, Hasselkus was serving with the 192nd Tank Battalion when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands.

He was among the thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members captured after the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942.

Hasselkus was subjected to the harrowing 65-mile Bataan Death March and subsequently held at Cabanatuan POW Camp #1,

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