Minnesota veteran to be buried in New Ulm after 80 years

Willibald C. Bianchi was finally brought home to New Ulm and buried with full military honors, ending an 80-year wait for a Minnesota family that never stopped looking for him. The U.S. Army captain’s return marked a delayed reckoning for a World War II death that began far from Brown County and ended with a hometown burial on Saturday, May 2, 2026.

Bianchi served as commander of Company D, 1st Battalion, 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts, and fought on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. Military records and later reporting say he survived the Bataan Death March, was killed by friendly fire in 1945, and was one of only three members of the Philippine Scouts to receive the Medal of Honor. His burial came after DNA identification made the homecoming possible, turning a missing-in-action story into a local act of remembrance.

For Bianchi’s family, the wait stretched across generations. CBS Minnesota reported that his nephew, Scott Torpey, said it had been 85 years that month since Uncle Bill left U.S. soil. That distance, measured in decades and in silence, is part of what gives the burial such weight now. It is not only a military ceremony, but also a final answer for relatives who carried his name long after the war ended.

The broader system behind that answer remains the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is responsible for providing the fullest possible accounting of missing U.S. personnel from past conflicts. The U.S. Department of Defense says military funeral honors are a tribute veterans and their families deserve. Behind ceremonies like Bianchi’s is a long Army tradition of graves registration, identification, and burial for the dead of overseas wars.

In Brown County, the Brown County Historical Society is marking the moment with an exhibit dedicated to Bianchi’s life and service. For New Ulm, the burial restores a name to a hometown story of World War II sacrifice. For Minnesota, it closes one more chapter in the state’s memory of Bataan, the Pacific war, and the men who never made it home until now.