Description
Rest In Peace U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Carl F. Abbott.
On Jan. 5, 2026, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Carl F. Abbott, missing from World War II.
Abbott entered the Army from California and served with Company C of the 194th Tank Battalion, which was stationed in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured following the American surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and forced on the Bataan Death March. He was ultimately interned in the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province, where he died on Oct. 3, 1942.
At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war who were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Conditions at the camp were poor, with 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. Abbott was buried at the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery along with other deceased American POWs. The American Graves Registration Service designated the grave used for service members who died on Oct. 3, 1942, as Common Grave 504.
From that grave, they recovered seven sets of remains and made field identifications of four individuals based on the presence of identification tags. The remaining three sets of remains which could not be identified at the time, were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns. In 2019, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, the unidentified remains associated with Common Grave 504 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for scientific analysis. The laboratory analysis and total circumstantial evidence available identified one set of these unknown remains as those of Abbott.