Charles "Eddie" Edward Thomas

Charles was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to Edward Coley Thomas and Mary Matilda "Tildy" Admire. His father Edward died in the same year that Charles was born. Now with two young sons, Mary then moved to Southern California to be with her family, where she met and married Albert Lexington Ramey in Ontario.

Charles Thomas grew up in Ontario with his mother and stepfather, along with brother Cecil H. Thomas, half-sisters Grace M. Ramey and Laura Fay Ramey, and stepbrother Floyd V. Ramey, who all mourned his loss during World War II, even though the circumstances of his loss were unknown at the time.

On May 19, 2026, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of Pvt. Charles E. Thomas, missing from World War II.

Charles entered the U.S. Army Air Forces in California and served with the 7th Chemical Company, 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured following the American surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and forced on the Bataan Death March. He was ultimately interned in the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province, where he died on July 5, 1942. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war who were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Charles was buried in a communal grave at the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery along with other deceased American POWs.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. The AGRS team designated the grave used for service members who died on July 4-5, 1942, like Charles, as Common Grave 409. From that grave, they recovered what they believed were 34 sets of remains. Those sets of remains which could not be identified at the time were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as Unknowns.

In November 2019 and January 2020, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, the unidentified remains associated with Common Grave 409 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for scientific analysis. There, the laboratory analysis and total circumstantial evidence available identified one set of remains as those of Charles.

He is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

After Charles' remains were recovered and identified in 2026, he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Prisoner of War Medal, and several other awards and citations

Charles is survived by 5 nieces and nephews: David A. Hensley of Ontario, Ca, Carol Gray of Chino, Ca, Janet Lewis of Oak View, Ca, Nancy Gill of Bend, OR, Gary Yawman of Sour Lake, TX and numerous grand-nieces and grand-nephews.