The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced today that U.S. Army Air Forces Cpl. Joseph A. L. Richer, 24, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for Dec. 5, 2025.

Richer was assigned to the Headquarters Squadron, Fifth Interceptor Command, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December 1941. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps. Richer was among those reported captured when U.S. forces on Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. They were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.

According to prison camp and other historical records, Richer died on June 30, 1942, at the Tayabas Road work detail in the present-day province of Camarines Norte on the Philippine Island of Luzon and was buried in the Tayabas Road camp cemetery.

This is an initial release. The complete accounting of Richer's case will be published once the family receives their full briefing.