[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 144 (Wednesday, September 3, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





           HONORING WORLD WAR II VETERAN HARLAND J. HENNESSEY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ELISE M. STEFANIK

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 3, 2025

  Ms. STEFANIK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and 
posthumous return of United States Army Veteran Harland J. Hennessey.
  Harland J. Hennessey was born on September 1, 1918. He attended 
Boonville High School where he was president of his eighth-grade class, 
played soccer, and appeared in school musicals and plays.
  Hennessey left Boonville on May 27, 1941 to join the United States 
Army. He trained at Fort Jay on Governors Island and later at Fort 
Belvoir in Virginia. By December 1941 he was stationed at Fort 
Stotsenburg in the Philippines.
  In 1942, he was serving with the 803rd Engineer Battalion when 
Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands. Heavy fighting led to 
the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor 
Island on May 6, 1942. Hennessey was captured when U.S. forces in 
Bataan surrendered.
  He and other POWs were forced to march 65 miles in the Bataan Death 
March and were later held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1. Hennessey 
died on November 1, 1942, at the age of 24. He was one of the first 
servicemen from the Boonville area to die in World War II. He was 
buried with other deceased prisoners in Common Grave 704 at the camp 
cemetery.
  After the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) 
exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and moved the remains 
to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, AGRS 
examined the remains, identifying two sets from Common Grave 704 and 
declaring the other eight unidentifiable. These were buried as Unknowns 
at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM).
  In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, the Defense POW/MIA 
Accounting Agency exhumed the remains from Common Grave 704 for 
laboratory analysis. Using dental and anthropological evidence, 
circumstantial data, and mitochondrial DNA testing, scientists 
identified Hennessey's remains.
  Though interred as an Unknown for more than 70 years, his grave was 
cared for by the American Battle Monuments Commission. He is honored on 
the Cabanatuan Memorial, built by survivors of the Bataan Death March 
and the Cabanatuan POW camp, and on the Walls of the Missing at MACM 
where a rosette will now mark that he has been accounted for.
  VFW Post 5538 in Boonville bears Hennessey's name in honor of his 
incredible service to our country. After 84 years, his remains are set 
to return to his hometown where he will be buried in Boonville 
Cemetery.
  On behalf of New York's 21st Congressional District, I am honored to 
recognize the incredible service and heroism of World War II Veteran 
Harland J. Hennessey and welcome him home.

                          ____________________