The remains of Army Pvt. Leroy M. Slenker will be interred July 12 at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon, Calif., more than 80 years after his death in Japanese custody during World War II, according to an Army news release.

Slenker, 28, of El Segundo, Calif., was a member of the 75th Ordnance Depot Company in December 1941, when Japanese forces invaded the American-controlled Philippines, according to the release. Combat lasted until April 1942, when Gen. Edward King surrendered the Bataan Peninsula. Regarded as the largest surrender in U.S. history, it began the five-day, 65-mile journey of thousands of American and Filipino service members known as the Bataan Death March.

The march — during which Slenker and the other famished prisoners were not permitted to stop for water, according to the Army — led them to the Cabanatuan POW camp. One of more than 2,500 prisoners to perish there, Slenker died Nov. 15, 1942, according to historical records.

American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery after the war and relocated the remains to a temporary military mausoleum near Manila, according to the release. Aside from six identifications in 1947, the rest were declared unidentifiable and buried as unknowns at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. American Battle Monuments Commission personnel cared for Slenker’s and other unknown soldiers’ graves for more than 70 years.

In June 2018, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began analyzing the remains at a laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. DPAA personnel deemed Slenker accounted for Feb. 3, using dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis, according to the release.