James Edgar Macklin was born on September 8, 1900, in San Juan, San Juan Municipality, Puerto Rico. He was the son of Edward A. Macklin and Mary Elizabeth Macklin. He was married to Margaret Anthony Eulass. Growing up as an Army brat, he lived in the Philippines, Texas, Arizona, and Washington before moving with his mother to Kansas City, where he graduated high school in 1918 and enlisted in the Tank Corps. He entered West Point in 1920 with the Thundering Herd, Class of 1924. Commissioned into the Tanks, he served at Camp Meade and Fort Benning before transferring to the Quartermaster Corps, with postings in Hawaii, Texas, Illinois, and Massachusetts.

Macklin was declared "Missing in Action” in 1942 and “Missing in Action-Presumed Dead" in 1944. Later, it was determined that he had been captured after the Japanese occupation of and held at PW Camp #1 in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. Macklin survived the Death March but died in the camp on June 22, 1942, from dysentery and starvation, and was reportedly buried in a communal grave. Postwar recovery efforts were unable to identify his remains, and he remains unaccounted for.

His name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines.

Source of information: dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil, West Point Association of Graduates