Jim Erwin spent years collecting letters, military information and stories about his uncle, never knowing if his remains would ever be identified.
After 84 years of the family not having answers, Jim Erwin on Friday got to welcome home Cpl. Delmor W. Erwin of Newport, who died July 30, 1942, in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines.
An honor guard from Camp Joseph T. Robinson in North Little Rock handled the dignified transfer of Cpl. Erwin's remains at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, where a Delta Air Lines plane brought the flag-draped casket. A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday at Geyer Springs First Baptist Church in Little Rock.
For Jim Erwin, the flight ended eight decades of wondering if his uncle would come home. Cpl. Erwin's remains were found decades ago in a mass grave entangled with at least 11 other soldiers, Jim Erwin said, but because of the technology of the time, there was no way to determine which remains were his.
"His mom wanted to bring him home, but my dad said we don't know which one (he was)," Jim Erwin told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency publicly announced Erwin's identification in April, three weeks after the family was told. The military said he'd been found in a common grave holding the remains of about 2,700 other prisoners of war at the Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp No. 1 in the Philippines.
Delmor Erwin enlisted at age 18 in the Army in April 1941 after graduating from Oil Trough High School. After being trained at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, Calif., he deployed to the Philippines, where his family last heard from him.
He was assigned to the 31st Infantry Regiment, known as the Polar Bears, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December 1941. Allied forces surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and on Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942, where Erwin was captured.
The Japanese Army pushed the captive soldiers on the Bataan Death March, a 65-mile forced walk to Camp O'Donnell in Tarlac Province.
Cpl. Erwin's death at age 20 was noted by The Associated Press in a news story in the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record on Oct. 31, 1943, along with Cpl. Sigmon F. Massey of Newport. Both died "of disease" at Japanese prison camps, the story noted.
Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. Erwin was among those reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese.
Erwin's parents, James M. Erwin and Betty T. Erwin, were notified of his capture on April 24, 1943, according to a story in the Arkansas Gazette. Erwin had been listed as missing in action.
His brother, Staff Sgt. James C. Erwin, also served in the Pacific in World War II. He died in 2008, never knowing exactly what happened to his brother. Jim Erwin said his thoughts turned to his father as he awaited the casket's arrival.
"I wish my dad was here, because it really hurt him when he died," Jim Erwin said.
The Army notified the family via video conference and kept in touch, Jim Erwin's wife, Carolyn Erwin, said Friday.
"We got all the letters she sent and he sent ... The Army has bent over backwards," said Jim Erwin, the slain soldier's closest living relative.
Six honor guard members, dressed in blue Class A military uniforms, marched in sync and removed the casket, draped in an American flag, from the jet in Little Rock.
Jim and Carolyn Erwin of Bryant walked over to the casket, said a few quiet words, then stepped away as the honor guard placed the casket in a hearse for transportation to Roller Funeral Home in west Little Rock.
Jim Erwin, using a cane after postponing knee surgery to be at the airport, didn't cry as the casket was taken off the plane, but his face bore 84 years of grief, sadness and the stress of the unknown his family endured.
Cpl. Erwin's father, James M. Erwin, died June 3, 1943, five months before the U.S. Army notified the family of what became of his son. His mother, Betty Tyler Erwin, died in 1988 at age 99.
As the hearse prepared to leave the airport, members of the Patriot Guard Riders, a group that rides motorcycles to escort the remains of fallen soldiers, lined the exit from the tarmac at the airport, holding flags and saluting as the hearse rolled by.
When three Arkansas State Police cruisers lined up to escort Cpl. Erwin's remains to the funeral home, the Patriot Guard Riders, many wearing leather vests with patches noting military service, revved up motorcycles festooned with American flags and POW/MIA banners and rode with the hearse down Interstate 30.
Cpl. Erwin, awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart, is listed on the Tablet of the Missing, a catalog of MIA soldiers, in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, in Taguig, Philippines.
DPAA lists 947 soldiers from Arkansas as unaccounted for. That figure includes soldiers from World War II to the present.
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