Bio: Schade, Captain Lester A. #4 (Identification of Remains - 2018)

Transcriber: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Darcy, O’Brien, Schade

----Source: The Tribune-Phonograph (Abbotsford, WI) 3/27/2019

By: Kevin O’Brien

A town of Holton native killed during World War II has been officially listed a accounted for - over 70 years after he died as a prisoner of war in the Pacific and four years after a non-profit group positively identified his remains.

The Defense POW/MIAQ Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Monday the Marine Corps Capt. Lester A. Schade, 27, was accounted for as of July 26, 2018. His remains had been exhumed, and the DPAA used dental records, “anthropological analysis,” and historical records to confirm his identity.

In 2015, a Virginia based nonprofit organization reported that it has positively identified Schade’s remains as among those buried at the national Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, also known as the “Punchbowl.”

Officially though, the headstone remained listed as “Unknown,” with grave number 423 chiseled into the corner.

Ted Darcy, founder of the WFI Research Group, said his group’s findings were presented to the DPAA, which is in charge of returning the remains of fallen soldiers who died abroad. Darcy said it’s now up to Schade’s next of kin to decide if they want to have his remains reburied in another national cemetery.

Schade’s surviving relatives include his two nieces, Elaine Gosse of Abbotsford and Patty Bowen of Wausau, and a nephew, Wayne Schade of Austin Texas.

According to Darcy, Shade’s parents Richard and Margaret Schade, could have brought their son home for a proper burial shortly after the war ended if it weren’t for the military’s reluctance to thoroughly sort through the POW’s who died on the Enoura Mrau, a Japanese ship bombed by American planes.

Note: For previously printed information of Captain Lester A. Schade, see below:
http://www.wiclarkcountyhistory.org/3data/78/78029.htm 
http://www.wiclarkcountyhistory.org/3data/66/66270.htm 
http://www.wiclarkcountyhistory.org/5data/119/119980.htm