Nearly 84 years after he died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, Pvt. Wallace Goodrich finally came home. On Friday, September 18, 2026, he was laid to rest with full military honors at the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery north of Little Falls.
Goodrich died at age 25 at a Philippine POW camp in 1942, according to the Morrison County Record. Prisoners from the 194th Tank Battalion endured the brutal 60-mile Bataan Death March. His death in captivity and eventual burial near Little Falls mark the final chapter of a journey that took more than eight decades to complete.
At the September 18 homecoming ceremony, military officials presented Goodrich's 88-year-old nephew, Dale “Duke” Bourgeois, with the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to veterans of the Battle of Bataan, according to CBS News. Bourgeois was an infant when his uncle held him before shipping out to war. The medal made Goodrich one of five Bataan veterans from Brainerd, Minnesota, to receive the honor.
A Local Guard Unit Thrown Into America's First Pacific Battle
Goodrich served in Company A of the 194th Tank Battalion, a unit that traces its roots to the 34th Tank Company of the Minnesota National Guard in Brainerd, according to the Minnesota National Guard. Federalized in February 1941, the company became the first U.S. armored unit deployed overseas ahead of World War II when it was sent to the Philippines that September. Company A and the rest of the 194th went on to fight in the Battle of Bataan, America's first major land battle of the Pacific war, holding off invading forces for four months until they were ordered to surrender on April 9, 1942, per CBS News.
The toll on Brainerd's own soldiers was staggering. The Minnesota National Guard history says 64 members of the original 34th Tank Company accompanied the 194th overseas. It also records that 29 died as POWs, 29 survived captivity, and 32 survived to return to Brainerd. Brainerd still holds an annual memorial ceremony at its armory every April 9 to mark the anniversary of the surrender.
Decades in a Mass Grave Before DNA Brought Him Home
Cabanatuan, where Goodrich died, was a Philippine POW camp. About 2,800 American service members died there. Goodrich's remains were identified decades later.
That effort fits into a much larger national accounting. In fiscal year 2025 alone, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified 231 missing U.S. service members from past conflicts, marking its highest single-year total since 2019. Hoodline has covered similar recoveries in recent weeks, including Jacksonville's Pfc. Robert Tyner, buried 58 years after his death in Vietnam.
For Brainerd, Goodrich's burial closes a loop that has stretched across generations, from a hometown National Guard company thrown into the opening battles of the Pacific war to eventually putting a name to remains that spent decades in the ground on the other side of the world. His nephew's presence at the ceremony, holding a medal for an uncle he barely knew as an infant, underscored just how long that wait had been.
