In June 1943, Bottcher returned to the 32nd Division and was assigned to Company "A" of the 127th Regiment and participated in the Saidor invasion and Aitape campaigns in New Guinea as part of the greater Operation Cartwheel. In June 1944, Bottcher was assigned as commanding officer to the new 32nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized). Bottcher's men had spent more than 40 days behind enemy lines during the Battle of Leyte when, on December 31, 1944, a group of Japanese soldiers encountered Bottcher's men and attacked them with small arms fire and mortar rounds, one of which fell directly into Bottcher's position. The next day, Bottcher's men sent the following radio message: "Bottcher dead. Recon troop withdrawing west ..." Captain (later Major) Dick Tucker, sent the following message to the news wires: "Captain Herman Bottcher, veteran soldier in the fight against Fascism, hero of the battle of Buna and reconnaissance-troop commander, whose exploits had become legend among the men who were fighting the Pacific war, lay dead on a hill overlooking Silad Bay." Bottcher is buried in the Manila American Cemetery, Manila in Plot L Row 4 Grave 134.