The name Esperidion C. Bernido appears on the War Department List of Dead and Missing World War II Casualties for the County of Santa Cruz.

Esperidion was born in 1905 in the Philippine Islands; however, information regarding his parents and siblings is not available. His movements to and within California have been similarly difficult to establish.

Bernido's enlistment records state that he had only completed grammar school. Since his name appears with former students on Watsonville High School's World War II memorial stone, his attendance there must have been brief.

US census records indicate that in 1930 Bernido was living in San Luis Obispo County.

His 1943 enlistment records reveal that at that time he was single, without dependents and working as a farm laborer in Solano County.

Esperidion Bernido was inducted, or enlisted into the US Army at San Francisco as a private on July 29, 1943. Local reference to his military experience and death appears for the first time in 1945. On May 25, 1945, the Watsonville Evening Pajaronian included Bernido's name among those Pajaro Valley servicemen killed in action during World War II.

The exact date of his death and location of the remains of Esperidion Bernido has not been identified. The absence of his name among the ABMC foreign casualties and DVA national burials, suggest that his remains may have been returned to the US or the Philippines for private burial.

(ACGEN; NARA2; 1930 US Census, CA, San Luis Obispo; http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gsfn=Manuel&gsln=Bernido&gss=seo&ghc=20; [May 16, 2009])