A number of local veterans will attend Friday’s funeral services for Staff Sgt. David Holeman, a LaHarpe native who died as a World War II prisoner of war in the Philippines.
Holeman is being buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Independence, next to his father, more than 80 years after his death.
Several LaHarpe veterans are traveling to Independence for the service, noted Iolan Jim Gilpin, who also is participating in the service as a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Members of the Fort Scott SAR chapter are planning to take part in the funeral. Members of the Fort Scott chapter come from across southeast Kansas, including Iola.
Holeman was born and raised in LaHarpe, and was stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded the day after they bombed Pearl Harbor.
He was among the prisoners forced to walk the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held in a concentration camp, where he died on July 19,1942, at age 39.
His remains were exhumed from a camp cemetery after the war and relocated to an American cemetery near Manila.
Then, in 2018, his and other service members’ remains were exhumed again for forensic analysis and identification.
Formal identification occurred in 2022.
Funeral services for Staff Sgt. Holeman will be at 2 p.m. Friday, June 2, 2023, at The First Church of the Nazarene, 3835 County Rd. 3900, Independence, with burial to follow in Mount Hope Cemetery in Independence.
Holeman’s story has one other local tie.
While serving in the Philippines, Holeman and other members of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group were under the command of Douglas MacArthur, who previously trained and served under Iola native Frederick Funston.
It was MacArthur who broke the news of Funston’s death of a heart attack to President Woodrow Wilson on Feb. 19, 1917.
