Delaware Soldier accounted for from World War II

DELAWARE – More than 80 years after his death, a Delaware World War II officer has been officially accounted for, U.S. defense officials announced.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Louis E. Roemer, 43, of Wilmington was identified in July 2025 after decades of uncertainty surrounding his fate as a prisoner of war in the Pacific.

Roemer was assigned to the Chemical Warfare Service on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines in early 1942, where he was captured by Japanese forces and held as a POW until late in the war. In December 1944, he was among Allied prisoners transported toward Japan aboard multiple Japanese ships that were attacked by U.S. forces unaware POWs were on board.

Historical records indicate Roemer may have died at some point during the transport between December 1944 and January 1945, possibly during an attack that sank the Enoura Maru off what is now Taiwan. Japanese records later reported he died of acute colitis on Jan. 22, 1945, though officials say those records contain errors.

After the war, U.S. recovery teams exhumed a mass grave in 1946 in Takao, Formosa, recovering hundreds of remains that could not be identified at the time. The remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Between 2022 and 2023, the agency disinterred unidentified remains linked to the Enoura Maru for advanced forensic analysis. Scientists used dental, anthropological and DNA testing to identify Roemer’s remains.

Roemer’s name is listed on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Burial plans have not yet been announced.