Monday, November 08, 2021

Remembering Dan Crowley - November 12, 2021


MEMORIAL FOR SGT DANIEL W. CROWLEY
US ARMY AIR CORPS, INFANTRY & MARINES

Nichols Field, Bataan, Corregidor, Palawan, Japan
Nippon Mining and Furukawa Mining copper mines

NOVEMBER 12, 2021, 2:00 PM followed by a reception
Simsbury, Connecticut (outside Hartford)

Service: Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, 22 Iron Horse Blvd, Simsbury, CT 06070. 

Reception: Maple Tree Cafe, 781 Hopmeadow Street, Simsbury, CT 06070
All welcome! Hope to see you there.  Have an IP on Dan.


All are invited Friday, November 12th at 2:00PM in Simsbury, Connecticut for the Celebration of Life for WWII vet and former POW of Japan Sgt. Daniel Crowley. The program will feature U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Pentagon, and White House officials as well as a color guard from the USS Bataan (LHD-5).

A lifelong Connecticut resident, Dan fought as an airman, infantryman, and Marine in the historic 1941-42 battle for Bataan and siege of Corregidor. He was a POW of Japan for over three years where he was forced to construct by hand with 300 other POWs the airfield on Palawan Island for the Imperial Japanese Army that is today the Antonio Bautista Air Base, which is instrumental in the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

This airfield was the site of the infamous Palawan massacre. Dan had been shipped to Japan in 1944 to work in copper mines owned by companies known today as JX Nippon Mining & Metals and Furukawa Company before his fellow POWs on the island were set afire and murdered. In 2003, he helped fund and dedicate a new new marker on the mass grave of 123 men massacred on Palawan who he had worked alongside building the airfield. Their remains were returned to the United States after the war and buried in a common grave at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.

 

The program will be livestreamed HERE.

A video of the event will be found HERE.

Learn more about Dan's extraordinary life HERE.


Tax-deductible Donations to the ADBC-MS HERE.

Honoring the Unknown Soldier

TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER - UNIQUE PUBLIC ACCESS

For the first time in nearly 100 years, and as part of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Centennial Commemoration, the public will be able to walk on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Plaza and lay flowers in front of the Tomb on Nov. 9 and 10, 2021, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

On Veterans Day the public is invited to observe a joint full honors procession, meant to replicate elements of the World War I Unknown Soldier’s 1921 funeral procession followed by a flyover with aircraft from all the armed services branches.

Event Participation: What to Know.       Army Commemoration Website.

Registration is required at Eventbrite.com: https://anctomb100.eventbrite.com/

Of the more than 72,000 American service men and women are still missing from World War II, 65 percent or more than 47,000 are missing in the Indo-Pacific. Most are presumed lost at sea, many dying as POWs in Japanese hellships.