This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: SelveyDG Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.arkansas.counties.perry/782.3.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Personnel File Details Name: Walter St John... Serial Number 279902... Grade: Private First Class... Service: Marine... Arm: United States Marine Corps... First Report: 05/06/1942... Last Report: 10/15/1945... Residence: Arkansas... Area: Southwest Pacific Theatre Philippine Islands... Source: Official Sources... Status: Liberated or Repatriated... Detaining Power: Japan, Tokyo Pow Camp Shinjuku, Tokyo Bay.. ** 2,358 POWs Held at Same Camp ... Note: War was declared on Japan on 8 Dec 1941, their surrender was 15 August 1945. The records indicate Walter St. John was released 15 Oct 1845, and was in a Naval Hospital for the following six months. http://www.ww2pow.info/index.php?page=directory&rec=140655. April 1946 Marines muster roll: Sergeant Walter St. John. US Naval Hospital, Norman, Oklahoma. --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bataan Peninsula: Shortly after the Japanese Army invaded the country in December 1941, the combined US and Filipino forces were being gradually overrun and General Douglas MacArthur moved his troops to the Bataan Peninsula in an attempt to hold out until a relief force could be sent from the US. Japanese forces started a siege of the peninsula on January 7, 1942, and launched an all-out assault on April 3, a few months after the Battle of the Points. The majority of the American and Filipino forces surrendered on April 9 and were forced to march more than a 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Bataan to Tarlac, which became known as the Bataan Death March. The Bataan Death March, which began on April 9, 1942, was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000-80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. All told, approximately 2,500-10,000 Filipino and 100-650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach their destination at Camp O'Donnell. The reported death tolls vary, especially amongst Filipino POWs. The march went from Mariveles, Bataan, to San Fernando, Pampanga. From San Fernando, survivors were loaded to a box train and they were brought to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. The 128 km (80 mi) march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army, and was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Fall of the Philippines, Bataan (April 1942) and Corregidor (May 1942) http://www.worldwar2history.info/Bataan/ The Battle of Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armament, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, were the remaining obstacle to the 14th Japanese Imperial Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. In April 1942, one Battalion of the Fourth Marines was sent to reinforce the island's beach defenses. The American and Filipino soldiers on Corregidor and the neighboring islets held out against the Japanese to deny the use of Manila Bay, but the Japanese Army brought heavy artillery to the southern end of Bataan, and proceeded to block Corregidor from any sources of food and fresh water. Japanese troops forced the surrender of the remaining American and Filipino forces on May 6, 1942, under the command of Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corregidor ------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------- There were more than 140,000 white prisoners in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Of these, one in three died from starvation, work, punishments or from diseases for which there were no medicines to treat.. Prisoners of the Japanese found themselves in camps in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and other Japanese-occupied countries.. Prisoner of war camps in Japan housed both captured military personnel and civilians who had been in the East before the outbreak of war.. The terms of the Geneva Convention were ignored by the Japanese who made up rules and inflicted punishments at the whim of the Camp Commandant.. Camps were encircled with barbed wire or high wooden fencing and those who attempted escape would be executed in front of other prisoners. In some camps the Japanese also executed ten other prisoners as well. Escape attempts from Japanese camps were rare.. http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/pow_camps_japan.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Google Books- Captured on Corregidor: Diary of an American P.O.W. in World War II by John M Wright Jr. On the first page of this book- A surrender was arranged for noon on May 6. The US command ordered all equipment and weapons to be destroyed before that time. The white flag went up at noon, and Japanese warplanes began bombing the defenseless island... Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. <br>