After 80 years, Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. Joseph L. Burke received honorable burial at Saratoga National Cemetery

Thanks to the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. Joseph L. Burke finally received the honorable burial he earned. His remains were identified on June 10, 2025, more than 80 years after his death aboard a World War II “hell ship.” Last Thursday, he was interred at Saratoga National Cemetery.

Burke was assigned to the 3rd Pursuit Squadron in the Philippines. After Japanese forces destroyed the squadron’s aircraft on the ground, he was sent to Corregidor with the 60th Coast Artillery Regiment.

Burke was captured on May 6, 1942, alongside the remaining Allied troops. He survived the Bataan Death March and endured nearly three years as a prisoner at Cabanatuan POW Camp.

As U.S. forces advanced in late 1944, Japan began transferring POWs to its home islands for slave labor. Prisoners were packed aboard overcrowded “hell ships” that carried no POW markings, causing many to be unknowingly attacked by Allied forces.

Burke was among 1,618 POWs crammed into the cargo holds of the Oryoku Maru. During the voyage from Manila to Subic Bay, hundreds died from disease, dehydration and heat. As the ship was about to pull into Subic Bay, it was bombed by planes from the USS Hornet (CV-12).

Still afloat, about 1,500 feet from shore, it was not until it was hit again the next morning by planes from the USS Hancock (CV 12) and USS Cabot (CVL 28) that the ship was abandoned. Prisoners had to swim to shore and were held on the tennis court aboard the base.

Burke and many of the survivors were eventually put aboard the Enouru Maru, while others were put aboard the Brazil Maru. Both ships had previously hauled cattle and were still full of manure. The two ships departed for Formosa on Dec. 27, 1944.

On arrival, the POWs were again bombed in their unmarked ship, this time by the Army Air Forces. The Enouru Maru was hit, killing 300 troops. Burke was among them.

About two weeks later, the remaining POWs would be put aboard the Brazil Maru for shipment to Japan. At the end of the war, only 400 of the original 1,618 crammed aboard the Oryuku Maru remained.

In 1946, the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the POWs in the mass grave in Formosa and reinterred them at the Nation Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific as unknowns.

In 2022, the DOD’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency began disinterring and identifying the remains of the POWs from the Enoura Maru and Oryoku Maru. In May 2025, 2nd Lt. Joseph Burke was identified.

Last Thursday, Burke was buried at Saratoga National Cemetery, with full military honors.

You can leave a tribute to him, or 10 million other fallen Veterans, at VA’s online memorial, https://www.vlm.cem.va.gov/JOSEPHLEROYBURKE/ac4712.