John H. Mann

The remains of the first Chautauqua County casualty in the Pacific Theater of World War II have been accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

The agency said U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. John H. Mann, 22, of Stow, killed during World War II, was accounted for on Dec. 19, 2024. Mann’s family recently received a full briefing on his identification, and the agency released information on his identification this week.

During World War II, Mann was assigned to 22nd Material Squadron at Hickam Airfield on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. On. Dec. 7, 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft expanded to Hickam Field, targeting U.S. aircrafts and ships, barracks, supply buildings, and the base chapel. The attack lasted four hours. Mann was reportedly killed during this time.

Mann was the first Chautauqua County casualty in the Far East during World War II, according to Post-Journal archives. Mann had enlisted in 1939 and recently been promoted to the rank of staff sergeant and had been in Hawaii roughly a year before the Pearl Harbor attack.

Mann’s mother, Emma, had just received a letter from Mann asking what she wanted for Christmas, with Mrs. Mann replying immediately and sending along a Christmas present for her son.

Two sisters – Ruth, a nurse at WCA Hospital, and Joane Beaver, who lived in Los Angeles – survived in addition to Mann’s mother. A brother, Fred, was killed in an automobile crash while another brother, Alfred, died following an operation.

In the days following the attack, Navy personnel recovered the remains of U.S. Army and U.S. Army Air Forces casualties, which were subsequently interred in the Schofield Barracks Cemetery.

In August 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel from World War II, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the Schofield Cemetery and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. The laboratory staff was unable to confirm the identifications of 12 men from the Hickam Field attack at that time, including “Unknown Case 195”, later redesignated X-195. The American Graves Registration Service subsequently buried the unidentified remains in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. On Dec. 27, 1948, a military board classified Mann as non-recoverable.

In June 2019, DPAA personnel began exhuming the 12 Schofield Barracks Unknowns from the Punchbowl for analysis. X-195 was disinterred in 2020 and taken to a DPAA Laboratory.

To identify Mann’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and dental analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis.

Mann had been awarded the Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Army Good Conduct Medal and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal.

Mann’s name is recorded in the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Mann will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on a date yet to be determined.