Johnnie comes home
Jenkins native, MIA WWII veteran, interred in Arlington 80 years after death
Above, a 1942 clipping from The Bakersfield Californian reports Sgt. John V. Phillips missing in action during World War II.
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Above, the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) rendered full military honors during the funeral service for John V. Phillips at Arlington National Cemetery on September 13, 2021. Color photos courtesy of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
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September 15, 2021
Sheila Harris
Johnnie is no longer missing.
On The Tablets of The Missing in the Manila American Cemetery & Memorial in the Philippines, a rosette now adorns the name of Barry County native, U.S. Army Sergeant John V. Phillips, known as “Johnnie” by his family. Johnnie’s body is no longer in a grave in that cemetery, though.
After 80 years of uncertainty, Sgt. Phillips’s body is home in the United States. Through the search and recovery efforts of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the body of the World War II veteran was positively identified from among the remains of some 2,500 troops once buried in Common Grave 225 in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. Positive identification through the use of DNA analysis was made in December 2019.
After identification, Sgt. Phillips’s remains were transferred to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, where they were interred in a special funeral service on September 13, 2021.
Prior to being moved to Arlington, his remains lay unidentified in the Manila cemetery, which - with 16, 859 - contains the largest number of U.S. WWII military dead, plus the 36,286 names of those who are, or were, missing.
Sergeant Phillips, a Barry County native from the Jenkins area, lived and played along Flat Creek as a boy, attended whatever rural one-room school his father (John E. Phillips) was teaching in, and graduated from Jenkins High School with the nine-member Class of 1933 when he was 16 years old.
Shortly afterward, his family moved to Wasco, California, in search of better economic opportunities. There, Johnnie and his younger brother, Zane, joined the U.S. Army a few years prior to its involvement in World War II.
John Phillips was a radio operator for General McArthur’s 31st Infantry, when Japanese forces invaded the Bataan Peninsula in December of 1941. Intense fighting continued, until the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island were surrendered by U.S. and Philippine forces on April 9, 1942, and May 6, 1942, respectively. Thousands of service members, including John Phillips, were captured and interned at POW camps after the surrender.
Phillips was officially reported missing in action in June of 1942. He was 25 years old. The date marked the beginning of years of uncertainty for his family.
“It was a terrible time,” Bonnie Ragain, Phillips’s closest living relative in Barry County, recalled. “I was just a little girl, but I remember how worried Uncle John and Aunt Vada were. ‘I wonder what happened to Johnnie,’ they’d always say.”
According to Ragain, the last letter his mother (Vada Phillips) had received from him was in November of 1941.
Bonnie Ragain, a self-confessed family historian and genealogist, saved a clipping from a 1942 issue of The Bakersfield Californian announcing that Johnnie was Missing in Action.
She also saved a 1945 clipping from The Wasco News announcing his death.
“The war was over,” Ragain said, “before Uncle John and Aunt Vada found out that he was dead."
After the war ended, historical data revealed that Phillips died July 27, 1942, after enduring the forced Bataan Death March to a Japanese prison camp, almost 70 miles beyond the point where he and some 60,000 or more U.S. troops were initially taken captive.
According to a March 15, 1945, clipping from The Cassville Republican, Johnnie’s parents learned of his death from a young woman to whom he was engaged. Other sources report that he was married to the young woman, Claire Snyder Fuentes Phillips, for a short time prior to his death, a marriage which took place in the jungles of the Philippines.
Because John Phillips was buried in a common grave with other prisoners of war, authorities were unable to identify individual remains interred in Common Grave 225 when the grave containing more than 2,500 prisoners of war was exhumed after war’s end. The unidentified were simply interred as “unknowns” in the present-day Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, and their names - including the name of John V. Phillips - were recorded on the Walls of the Missing in the 152-acre cemetery and memorial site commissioned by the American Battle Monuments Commission (AMBC).
On December 11, 2019, Phillips’ status was no longer unknown.
Because of the development of advanced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis capabilities, the bodies of the previously unidentified soldiers began to be exhumed in 2018 for the purpose of using DNA matches for positive identification, according to a January 21, 2020, press release from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
With cooperation from John Phillips’s brother Zane and his daughters, a sampling of Zane’s DNA was taken which proved to match that of John Phillips.
With positive identification made, almost 80 years after his death, a final interment and funeral service took place at Arlington National Cemetery on September 13, 2021.
A final resting place, while sad in its connotation, can also bring closure for those still living, closure which John Phillips’s parents had longed for.
Judy Eaton, of Jenkins - Johnnie’s cousin-once-removed - attended the military service in Arlington, along with her sister Jane Howe, of Exeter.
“It’s what Uncle John and Aunt Vada would have wanted,” said Eaton. “We loved them, and we know how much they missed Johnnie.”
Eaton says the Arlington funeral was both an amazing and an emotional experience.
“There were 28 funerals scheduled in the cemetery that day,” she said, “but each funeral took place separately, in different parts of the cemetery. Each service was made special for the family members and friends who attended.”
During the service, the family was presented with a collage containing memorabilia from John Phillips’s life and military career.
Barry County residents, Steve and Deanna Blankenship, of Jenkins, also attended, as did Barry County native Dawn Cope, of South Carolina. A 1978 Cassville High School graduate, Robert Gay, of Virginia, was present, as were several of John Phillips’s nieces and nephews from California.
“We were able to meet some of our California relatives face to face for the very first time,” Eaton said.
In addition to the military funeral for John Phillips in Arlington, the rosette placed beside his name on the Walls of The Missing in the Manila American Cemetery & Memorial represents another act of closure. The placement of a rosette traditionally signifies that a soldier has been recovered or his body identified.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues its efforts to identify additional services members - over 80,000, according to its Facebook page - who are still missing in action from all U.S. wars. Its mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for missing personnel to their families and the nation.
Sheila Harris
Johnnie is no longer missing.
On The Tablets of The Missing in the Manila American Cemetery & Memorial in the Philippines, a rosette now adorns the name of Barry County native, U.S. Army Sergeant John V. Phillips, known as “Johnnie” by his family. Johnnie’s body is no longer in a grave in that cemetery, though.
After 80 years of uncertainty, Sgt. Phillips’s body is home in the United States. Through the search and recovery efforts of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the body of the World War II veteran was positively identified from among the remains of some 2,500 troops once buried in Common Grave 225 in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. Positive identification through the use of DNA analysis was made in December 2019.
After identification, Sgt. Phillips’s remains were transferred to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, where they were interred in a special funeral service on September 13, 2021.
Prior to being moved to Arlington, his remains lay unidentified in the Manila cemetery, which - with 16, 859 - contains the largest number of U.S. WWII military dead, plus the 36,286 names of those who are, or were, missing.
Sergeant Phillips, a Barry County native from the Jenkins area, lived and played along Flat Creek as a boy, attended whatever rural one-room school his father (John E. Phillips) was teaching in, and graduated from Jenkins High School with the nine-member Class of 1933 when he was 16 years old.
Shortly afterward, his family moved to Wasco, California, in search of better economic opportunities. There, Johnnie and his younger brother, Zane, joined the U.S. Army a few years prior to its involvement in World War II.
John Phillips was a radio operator for General McArthur’s 31st Infantry, when Japanese forces invaded the Bataan Peninsula in December of 1941. Intense fighting continued, until the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island were surrendered by U.S. and Philippine forces on April 9, 1942, and May 6, 1942, respectively. Thousands of service members, including John Phillips, were captured and interned at POW camps after the surrender.
Phillips was officially reported missing in action in June of 1942. He was 25 years old. The date marked the beginning of years of uncertainty for his family.
“It was a terrible time,” Bonnie Ragain, Phillips’s closest living relative in Barry County, recalled. “I was just a little girl, but I remember how worried Uncle John and Aunt Vada were. ‘I wonder what happened to Johnnie,’ they’d always say.”
According to Ragain, the last letter his mother (Vada Phillips) had received from him was in November of 1941.
Bonnie Ragain, a self-confessed family historian and genealogist, saved a clipping from a 1942 issue of The Bakersfield Californian announcing that Johnnie was Missing in Action.
She also saved a 1945 clipping from The Wasco News announcing his death.
“The war was over,” Ragain said, “before Uncle John and Aunt Vada found out that he was dead."
After the war ended, historical data revealed that Phillips died July 27, 1942, after enduring the forced Bataan Death March to a Japanese prison camp, almost 70 miles beyond the point where he and some 60,000 or more U.S. troops were initially taken captive.
According to a March 15, 1945, clipping from The Cassville Republican, Johnnie’s parents learned of his death from a young woman to whom he was engaged. Other sources report that he was married to the young woman, Claire Snyder Fuentes Phillips, for a short time prior to his death, a marriage which took place in the jungles of the Philippines.
Because John Phillips was buried in a common grave with other prisoners of war, authorities were unable to identify individual remains interred in Common Grave 225 when the grave containing more than 2,500 prisoners of war was exhumed after war’s end. The unidentified were simply interred as “unknowns” in the present-day Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, and their names - including the name of John V. Phillips - were recorded on the Walls of the Missing in the 152-acre cemetery and memorial site commissioned by the American Battle Monuments Commission (AMBC).
On December 11, 2019, Phillips’ status was no longer unknown.
Because of the development of advanced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis capabilities, the bodies of the previously unidentified soldiers began to be exhumed in 2018 for the purpose of using DNA matches for positive identification, according to a January 21, 2020, press release from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
With cooperation from John Phillips’s brother Zane and his daughters, a sampling of Zane’s DNA was taken which proved to match that of John Phillips.
With positive identification made, almost 80 years after his death, a final interment and funeral service took place at Arlington National Cemetery on September 13, 2021.
A final resting place, while sad in its connotation, can also bring closure for those still living, closure which John Phillips’s parents had longed for.
Judy Eaton, of Jenkins - Johnnie’s cousin-once-removed - attended the military service in Arlington, along with her sister Jane Howe, of Exeter.
“It’s what Uncle John and Aunt Vada would have wanted,” said Eaton. “We loved them, and we know how much they missed Johnnie.”
Eaton says the Arlington funeral was both an amazing and an emotional experience.
“There were 28 funerals scheduled in the cemetery that day,” she said, “but each funeral took place separately, in different parts of the cemetery. Each service was made special for the family members and friends who attended.”
During the service, the family was presented with a collage containing memorabilia from John Phillips’s life and military career.
Barry County residents, Steve and Deanna Blankenship, of Jenkins, also attended, as did Barry County native Dawn Cope, of South Carolina. A 1978 Cassville High School graduate, Robert Gay, of Virginia, was present, as were several of John Phillips’s nieces and nephews from California.
“We were able to meet some of our California relatives face to face for the very first time,” Eaton said.
In addition to the military funeral for John Phillips in Arlington, the rosette placed beside his name on the Walls of The Missing in the Manila American Cemetery & Memorial represents another act of closure. The placement of a rosette traditionally signifies that a soldier has been recovered or his body identified.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues its efforts to identify additional services members - over 80,000, according to its Facebook page - who are still missing in action from all U.S. wars. Its mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for missing personnel to their families and the nation.
Sgt. John V. Phillips, in military uniform
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Above, top, a 1945 clipping from The Wasco News announces the 1942 death of Sgt. John Phillips.
Above, John Phillips is shown in the front row, right, with the Jenkins High School Class of 1933. According to his cousin, Bonnie Ragain, Jenkins offered only two years of high school. |
Top left, above, Above, Col. Jon Lust, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency European Mediterranean Operations Director, presented a collage to the Phillips family during John Phillips’s funeral service Monday at Arlington National Cemetery. Photo from Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Facebook page.
Above, Sgt. John Phillips's death certificate, shows his date of death from malaria as July 27, 1942.
Above, Sgt. John Phillips's death certificate, shows his date of death from malaria as July 27, 1942.