Return to California of Pvt. Mitchell

Burial of Pvt. Mitchell in Hamilton, California

On Saturday May 3, 2025, Pvt. James Stanley Mitchell of Chico, California was finally home. Eighty-two years after he died of starvation and disease in Cabanatuan, a Japanese prison camp, he was buried alongside his parents.

A memorial service for Pvt. Mitchell was held in Hamilton City, California on May 3 at 10:00 a.m., followed by a full military graveside service at the Los Molinos Cemetery at 1 p.m. The Brusie Funeral Home in Chico, California handled the arrangements.

He was a soldier with Company B, 31st Infantry Regiment who fought in 1941 and 1942 to defend the Philippine Commonwealth against the invading Japanese. It is unclear if he was able to escape from Bataan to Corregidor Island with remnants of the 31st where he would have been surrendered on May 6, 1942. Or he may have remained on the Bataan Peninsula to be surrendered on April 9th where he may have been forced on the infamous Bataan Death March or was recovering from wounds and disease  in a field hospital.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency that officially identified his remains on Sept. 30, 2024 believes he was surrendered on Bataan and suffered the Bataan Death March. Mitchell had died Jan. 7, 1943, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 816. In 1947, the  American Graves Registration ServiceAGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. One set of remains from Common Grave 816 was identified, while the remaining three were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns. In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains associated with Common Grave 816 and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

In 1946, the American Legion Auxiliary in Hamilton City, California was named for Pvt. Mitchell and his hometown friend and fellow member of the 31st, Pvt. Robert Clayton Zimmerman--"Zimmerman-Mitchell, Post 722." Pvt. Zimmerman also died as a POW of Japan in the Cabanatuan prison camp. He succumb to disease and starvation on June 19, 1942 (aged 25) just two months after surviving the Bataan Death March.

To honor and remember Pvts. Mitchell and Zimmeran you may want to do these three things:
1. Add a virtual memorial to Pvt. Mitchell's Find A Grave site: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56756838/james-%22stanley%22-mitchell
2. Add a virtual memorial to Pvt. Zimmerman's Find A Grave site: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/43396958/robert-clayton-zimmerman

3. Send a thank you to Congressman Doug LaMalfa's (R-CA-1) Veterans staffer Mr. Sam Dorsey, c/o Office of Representative Doug LaMalfa, 408 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC  20515 for writing, as you can see below, the most accurate and sensitive memorial to a POW of Japan I have ever read in the Congressional Record. Mr. Dorsey has earned our thanks.

            

               HONORING PRIVATE JAMES ``STANLEY'' MITCHELL

                               ______
                                 
                           HON. DOUG LaMALFA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 30, 2025

  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a great American 
hero, Private James ``Stanley'' Mitchell, who volunteered to serve our 
great Nation in World War II and died 82 years ago in a Japanese POW 
camp in Luzon, Philippines. Private Mitchell's remains were located and 
identified and have been returned to his family, a testament of his 
courage and sacrifice.

  Private Mitchell was born in Joplin, Missouri on October 2, 1917. The 
family would move frequently during his early life, eventually settling 
down in Hamilton City, California.

  On March 4, 1941, Private Mitchell enlisted in the United States Army 
and was deployed as part of the 31st Infantry Regiment on assignment to 
Clark Field in Luzon, Philippines. Ten months after his initial 
deployment to the Philippines, Imperial Japanese Forces would bomb 
Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States and all her territories into 
World War II. Japanese forces begin a full-scale invasion of Luzon, 
Philippines on December 22, 1941. The 31st Infantry Regiment stood 
defiant and courageous against overwhelming Japanese forces until their 
surrender on April 9, 1942.

  Private Mitchell joined approximately 72,000 American and Filipino 
prisoners of war (POW) on a 65-mile march known as the Bataan Death 
March. These brave souls endured torture, starvation, disease and 
ultimately death at the hands of the Japanese forces. By the end of the 
march, only approximately 52,000 American and Filipino POWs remained 
live.

  Private Mitchell and many surviving POWs would be held at the 
Cabanatuan POW Camp. Conditions would not improve for these courageous 
men. On January 7, 1943, Private Mitchell succumbed to starvation and 
disease, dying at a weight of only 70 pounds. Private Mitchell was 
buried in one of the many mass graves at the camp.

  The Cabanatuan POW Camp would be liberated on January 30, 1945, with 
only 489 POWs remaining alive. Unfortunately, 2,656 brave American POWs 
had lost their lives at the camp.

  Private Mitchell was the first World War II casualty from Hamilton 
City. His status as a POW brought great sadness and pain to his family. 
The news of his death brought devastation to his parents and family. 
His remains were exhumed and identified in September of 2024. Private 
Mitchell's remains were brought home to the United States on May 3, 
2025, and he will be laid to rest between his parents at the Los 
Molinos Cemetery, in Northern California.

  Private Mitchell's story and sacrifice will not be forgotten. His 
legacy and impact to our community will continue to be felt. His return 
will bring closure to his family. God bless Private Mitchell and 
welcome home.
                         ____________________

Notes

Company B, 31st Infantry Regiment

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-171/issue-72/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/E369-2 

https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/ID-Announcements/Article/3967557/soldier-accounted-for-from-wwii-mitchell-j 

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000000MvCQWEA3 

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/496447/remains-world-war-ii-soldier-buried-los-molinos-california

https://krcrtv.com/news/local/wwii-soldiers-remains-return-home-after-84-years 

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/hamilton-city-honors-fallen-wwii-heros-return-home-81-years-after-death/article_8489ee3d-628b-438e-91ad-300ee480ed1c.html 

BURIAL: Los Molinos Cemetery, Los Molinos, California

THE Coast Guard's POW of Japan

Lt James Crotty, USCG

August 4th is the birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard. On this day in 1790, the first Congress authorized the construction of 10 vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws, prevent smuggling, and protect the collection of federal revenue.

Thus, today, we pause to remember the Coast Guard's one POW of Japan. Records suggest there were two others, but Coast Guard historians believe they were actually sailors assigned to Coast Guard duties in the Philippines.

By all accounts, Lt. Thomas James "Jimmy" Crotty is a hero. He arrived in the Philippines on October 28, 1941 for what was supposed to be a six month deployment as a member of a Navy mine recovery unit near Manila.

A 1934 Coast Guard Academy graduate, Crotty had never before traveled outside North America. He served on board cutters based out of New York, Seattle, Alaska and Sault Ste. Marie. His career included duty on the cutter USCGC Tampa (WMEC-902) during its famous rescue of passengers from the burning liner SS Morro Castle, and a Justice Department appointment as special deputy on the Bering Sea Patrol.

Prior to his Philippines assignment he studied at the Navy’s Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia. With additional training at the Navy’s Mine Recovery Unit in Washington, DC, Lt. Crotty became the Coast Guard’s leading expert in mine operations, demolition and the use of explosives. He was first assigned to the In-Shore Patrol Headquarters at the American Navy yard at Cavite, located near Manila.

On December 10, Japanese aircraft bombed and damaged most of the facilities at the Cavite Navy Yard and advancing enemy ground forces necessitated the movement of American units behind fortified lines on the Bataan Peninsula and onto the island fortress of Corregidor. During this evacuation, Crotty supervised the demolition of strategic civilian and military facilities to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. This equipment and material included the Navy yard’s ammunition magazine and the fleet submarine USS Sea Lion, which the enemy damaged during the air attack. Crotty had the sub stripped of useful parts, filled it with depth charges and blew it up on Christmas Day.

Corregidor under attack

The Navy withdrew Crotty and its other personnel from Cavite to the Sixteenth Naval District Headquarters at Fort Mills, on Corregidor. The Navy reassigned Crotty to the local guard unit, but he also participated in night raids on the mainland to demolish more American equipment and facilities before the Japanese occupied Manila.

During February and March of 1942, Crotty served as executive officer of the Navy minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15), which shot down enemy aircraft and swept American mine fields so U.S. submarines could surface at night to deliver goods and remove critical personnel. During his time as executive officer, the Quail served as a command vessel and provided shore bombardment for an offensive against Japanese landings attempting to cut off supply lines to American forces trapped on the Bataan Peninsula.

click to order

After Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1942, Corregidor's defenders held out for another month. Crews on board Navy vessels, such as Quail, had cannibalized deck guns and moved them onto the island to mount a final stand against the encircling enemy forces. Crotty served up to the bitter end fighting alongside the island’s stubborn Army, Navy and Marine defenders. Eye witnesses reported last seeing him commanding a force of Marines and Army personnel manning 75-millimeter beach guns firing down on enemy forces landing on Corregidor’s beaches. When Japanese bombardment finally silenced Crotty’s guns, Corregidor’s defenders knew the island fortress would soon fall.

The Quail was scuttled May 5th to prevent her capture. After, Lt. Commander John H. Morrill gave his crew the choice of surrendering to the Japanese or striking out across open ocean the Quail's 36-foot diesel motor launch. Only 17 of his 24-member crew could join him on the desperate voyage. Lt. Crotty had been separated from the crew, as mentioned above, to command a mixed defensive unit on Corregidor and was not included. With a pistol recovered from a dead serviceman as their only armament (this may not be true), supplies and weapons scavenged from the beached tugboat Ranger on Caballo Island, and with a few charts and navigational aids from the Ranger, Morrill and his crew evaded the Japanese and transversed 2,060 miles of ocean, reaching Darwin, Australia on June 6 after 31 days.  See Morrill's account in his book: SOUTH FROM CORREGIDOR

motor launch to Darwin

With Corregidor’s capitulation on May 6, Crotty became the first Coast Guard prisoner of war since the War of 1812, when the British captured Revenue Cutter Service cuttermen. At the end of May, the Japanese loaded Crotty and his fellow prisoners into watercraft transferring POWs from Corregidor Island to Manila, where they were marched through the city to Bilibid Prison and eventually taken by railroad in box cars to the Cabanatuan prison camp in northern Luzon.

Crotty’s fellow prisoners at Cabanatuan knew him for his love of sports as well as his sense of humor and optimism. One of them wagered a bet with Crotty on the outcome of the 1942 World Series while another later recounted that: “The one striking thing that I remember was his continued optimism and cheerfulness under the most adverse circumstances. He was outstanding in this respect at a time when such an attitude was so necessary for general welfare.” But Crotty’s courage and optimism could not sustain him late in the summer of 1942 when a diphtheria epidemic swept through the camp killing forty prisoners per day. Crotty contracted the illness and, with the Camp's lack of necessary medications and proper health care, he passed away only days after getting sick joining the more than 2,500 American POWs who perished in this camp during the war.

It had been unclear if he died July 19th or September 30th. On September 10, 2019, the Defense Personnel Accounting Agency (DPAA) confirmed that Crotty had died July 19, 1942, and was buried along with fellow prisoners in the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery, in grave number 312. In January 2018, the “unknown” remains associated with Common Grave 312 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis, including one set, designated X-2858 Manila #2. These remains proved to be LT. Crotty's.

In a May 6, 2010 ceremony in Buffalo, New York, Crotty's descendants received his long-overdue Bronze Star, Purple Heart, the Prisoner of War Medal and the Philippines Defense Medal. It is possible for the family to now apply for the Congressional Gold Medal given to those who served with Filipino troops during WWII.

On November 2, 2019, a rosette will be placed beside his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial indicating that he has been found. His funeral will be that day in Buffalo, New York at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church  and he will be buried with full military honors next to his parents in Holy Cross Cemetery, 2900 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, Erie County, New York.

One of the 43 Battle Streamers on the Coast Guard flag--Philippines Defense--is entirely due to the actions of one man, LT Crotty from Buffalo, New York, who helped command a Navy vessel, scuttled a submarine, swept mines, served as adjutant, led Marines and soldiers defending Corregidor and held the line to the last.

Requiescat In Pace

Liberally borrowed from Compass and War History Online.
Updated October 20 and 21, 2019

Never undervalue a dandelion

When the dandelion went to war: An American prisoner of war's story

By Frank Blazich, April 9, 2019

National Museum of American History Blog

“We were picking dandelions on the lawn there and we would boil them up,” Henry T. Chamberlain remembered. During the Great Depression, Chamberlain’s mother lost her job and couldn’t pay rent. The family moved to the grounds of the Nebraska Territory capitol building (now Omaha Central High School). “There were a million people living on that lawn,” Chamberlain said. “They all were in the same boat.”

An illustration from Bibliothèque de poche du naturaliste, published in 1894. Courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library/Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (MBLWHOI Library).

With little money, he learned from his new neighbors about survival. After watching others rooting around in the lawn, the young man learned that dandelion flowers were free food. In addition to boiling them, “sometimes we went over to a park where the dandelions were prolific and we would pick the dandelions and wash them off and eat them green,” Chamberlain said.

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the nation’s economy slowly began to rebuild and Chamberlain’s dandelion-eating days seemed to be over. On his 18th birthday, in 1940, he enlisted in the army. Though he was a crack shot and his first sergeant wanted him on the rifle team, Chamberlain said he wanted to help people—not shoot them—and trained first as a medic, then later as a surgical technician.

U.S. Army medic Henry T. Chamberlain, around the 1940s. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Chamberlain.

After completing his training, Chamberlain was transferred to the Philippines. By December 1941, Japanese planes bombed points in Manila and Chamberlain found himself on the front lines of Bataan serving as a combat medic.

In late January 1942, as Chamberlain transported a group of wounded men south to a hospital behind the front lines, he ran into a colonel who knew him. “He asked me where’d I been so I told him, and he said ‘well, I’ll tell you what. I badly need surgical technicians here, so you aren’t going back,’" Chamberlain said, with great thanks.

Chamberlain stayed at the hospital after American and Filipino forces surrendered on Bataan on April 9, bearing witness to horrors that took a grisly toll on the Filipino and American troops. The movement of American and Filipino prisoners of war from the Bataan peninsula, which became legendary for its brutality, was forever known thereafter as the Bataan Death March.

Under Japanese control, Chamberlain found himself at Cabanatuan Prison Number 1 assigned as a medic in a hut adjacent to the camp hospital known as the Z, or “Zero” Ward. Here prisoners too weak to stand were sent to die. Without any medicines to treat the ill, often sheer kindness and willpower became the deciding factor between life and death.

Beginning in mid-June, cases of diphtheria appeared daily in the camp hospital. As a child, Chamberlain had contracted diphtheria and survived the illness. He volunteered to be a medic in the diphtheria ward because, as he explained, “first of all, I had had it and I thought I was immune from it, and secondly it was a way to get away from the Japanese and the labors they were putting us through.”

In the prisons there was no medicine to treat the sick, and the ill prisoners were missing key nutrients. Recalling the situation over 75 years later, Chamberlain observed how “there was a whole profusion of dandelions, so I told the guys ‘let the things blossom and we’ll pick the seeds, and don’t pull them up, just pull the leaves off them and eat them that way.’ And that’s what they did, they ate them green and I think that saved a lot of lives there because we were not getting any green stuff at all and we were not getting any protein.”

After considerable deaths from malaria, dysentery, and diphtheria, the Japanese guards at last began providing medicines to the prisoners at Cabanatuan in August 1942, albeit too little too late. From June through December 1942, 2,556 American prisoners of war had died at Cabanatuan.

Chamberlain’s humble dandelion garden adjacent to his diphtheria ward went unnoticed by the Japanese guards, who feared nearing the darkened building that housed the sick and dying. He continued to work in the diphtheria wards in the Cabanatuan prison camp throughout the remainder of 1942 and into 1944.

As for the dandelions, “What few dandelions there were we fed to the sick guys in the sick bay,” he said. “I think it may have kept them going, I’m not sure, but that’s the only vitamins they got. Whatever protein was in them, that’s what they got.”

Malnutrition was dangerous at Cabanatuan.“One of my friends died in my arms,” Chamberlain said, "He would not eat the rice. They were so full of maggots, rice maggots. I think for every grain of rice there was a rice maggot. One of our doctors said ‘you just as well eat them fellas because that’s all the protein you’re gonna get.’ That’s the way that was, but my friend would not eat those things. He said ‘people were not meant to eat worms,’ so he died in my arms, mostly from starvation.” Chamberlain’s friend remains interred at Cabanatuan, having asked that he be buried there, to “let these people know what we did for him,” with his grave marked “known but to god.”

In October 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army shipped Chamberlain and approximately 1,100 prisoners out of the Philippines to work as forced laborers. Before leaving Cabanatuan, Chamberlain made sure his dandelions came with him. Throughout his time at Cabanatuan, he “let the seeds grow and when I left there I had picked a whole bunch of seeds and put them in various places in what was left of my uniform, in pockets and things. The Japanese guards never suspected them.” After laboring in Formosa (present-day Taiwan), Chamberlain arrived in Moji, Japan, in January 1945 and was moved to Hosokura to a lead and zinc mine owned by the Mitsubishi Mining Corporation.

At Hosokura, Chamberlain served as a medic for his fellow prisoners in Sendai #3-B Prisoner of War Camp. Chamberlain worked with one doctor to take care of all the 284 American and British prisoners. “Taking care of them didn’t mean much because we were not given any medicine, we were given very little food. If you were sick they put you on half rations because you wouldn’t work, and so that’s the way it was,” he said.

“We never saw any dandelions up there so I planted the seeds and boy, I’m sure they got lots of dandelions up there now,” Chamberlain said with a chuckle. The dandelions again provided critical nourishment to the sick and dying, a humble weed turned heavenly manna.

As the war closed in on the Japanese home island, Chamberlain too found himself working in the zinc and lead mines. The grueling work of loading ore into carts and pushing them out of the mine strained all the prisoners, with food and water barely available on any occasion. At least 15 prisoners died at the camp, mostly from malnutrition. Relief for the Hosokura prisoners arrived on September 12, 1945, when American forces reached the camp and accepted the surrender of the Japanese guards.

In 2017 Chamberlain returned to Japan to visit the former Hosokura lead and zinc mine where he was held for almost a year as a forced laborer. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Chamberlain.

Thereafter, Chamberlain would not need to tend any dandelions. He chose to remain in the military, transferred to the new United States Air Force, and retired after 28 years as a Senior Master Sergeant and a trained paramedic. At 96, he continues to enjoy carving, and as he reminded me, “I get to sleep in every day.” As I stated in reply, “you’ve earned it.”

Frank Blazich Jr. is a curator in the Division of Political and Military History. He has previously written about the life and legacy of Corporal William T. Perkins Jr., a 20-year-old Marine deployed to Vietnam as a combat photographer, and Captain James K. Redding’s experience in the Battle of Hue. He was honored to meet Chamberlain at the annual meeting of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society and appreciative of the opportunity to learn about Chamberlain’s experiences.

Finally, a funeral for the Rabbi of Cabanatuan

On Friday, June 29, 2018 at Arlington National Cemetery the Kaddish--the Jewish prayer to remember the dead--was finally and officially chanted for Army Corps of Engineers Master Sgt. Aaron Kliatchko, the Rabbi of Cabanatuan.  Although there was no body to occupy his grave, a tombstone now stands to honor him. After the formal military funeral, which included a Rabbi, a Priest, and the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region U.S. Army Military District of Washington Command Chaplain Col. Terry Austin, a reception was held at the National Museum of Jewish Military History in Washington, DC,

䷕

Aaron Kliatchko died on December 31, 1944 aboard the Japanese hellship Brazil Maru as it arrived in Takao Harbor, Formosa from the Philippines bringing the last of the Allied POWs from the Philippines to Japan. His remains have never been accounted for.

Kliatchko was born in 1887 to an Orthodox Jewish family in Minsk, the capital of today’s Belarus. As a teenager he was forced to serve in the Russian Imperial Army during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). He was only 17 when he became a prisoner of war of Imperial Japan.

After the war, he studied to become a Cantor, a singer of Jewish liturgical music. Instead, in 1907, he emigrated to the United States. Finding work in the lower East Side of Manhattan must have been a challenge. Thus, in February 1910, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the Fort Slocum, New York recruiting depot. He was assigned to the Coastal Artillery Corps and stationed in New London, Connecticut and at Fort Terry, New York. 

During his enlistment and after his discharge in February 1913, Kliatchko studied for and completed an engineering correspondence course. This distinction allowed him to reenlist in the U.S. Army in December 1914 with Army Corps of Engineers. He had become a U.S. citizen in July 1913.

Kliatchko’s records show that he was assigned to the First Battalion, Company C at Washington Barracks, Washington, DC where he became a Corporal in May 1915. The First Battalion became the First Engineers with the U.S. entry into World War I.

It is unclear where he was stationed when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. He spoke of being sent to France in June 1917 with the first engineers to join the American Expeditionary Forces. While teaching math to young neighbors on the Philippines, Kliatchko retold many stories of battles in France, including the Battle of Argonne Forest, the final Allied offensive of the War, which ended November 11, 1918. His accounts were so vivid that many may have thought he was there.

There is a record, however, that he was aboard the troop transport USAT Thomas in November 1915 to the Philippine Islands. On December 7, 1917, he was promoted in the Philippines to Sergeant First Class of Company A, 3rd Engineers. This regiment was stationed there to help modernize the fortress island of Corregidor in Manila Bay and the infrastructure of the Philippine Islands, a territory of the United States since 1898.

On October 15, 1918, shortly before the end of WWI, he was promoted to Master Engineer, Junior Grade. Discharged in August 1919, Kliatchko remained in the Philippines where he worked with the then-American construction and engineering company Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Co (today’s AG&P). He was the project engineer for the Angat Dam that supplies water to Metro Manila and irrigation in Bulacan.

Kliatchko retired in the early 1930s to become a gentleman farmer. He married and raised a family of ten. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941, the former solider, now 55, reportedly volunteered as an American intelligence agent under the codename “K.V.” In March 1942, he left his family and joined American troops fighting the invading Japanese on the Bataan peninsula. There he re-enlisted with the U.S. Army and was designated the rank of Master Sergeant with the Army Corps of Engineers. Some records simply note he was a “surveyor,” to protect his identity.

He was on Bataan when U.S. forces were surrendered on April 9, 1942 and, at 55, for the second time he became a prisoner of Imperial Japan. Kliatchko then survived one of the most infamous war crimes of WWII, the Bataan Death March. He also survived the squalid, makeshift POW Camp O’Donnell where men died at the rate of 300 per day.

In June 1942, after the Japanese released the captured Filipino soldiers, the surviving American POWs were moved to the Cabanatuan Prison Camp. Conditions were better than at O’Donnell, but not by much. Food, clothing, water, and medicine remained scarce. There he remained until December 1944.

According to records, as of June 1943, Cabanatuan had 121 Jewish prisoners. Kliatchko, who had been trained as a Cantor, found a calling to help lead Jewish services and funerals. With his long white beard and impressive bass voice, he soon became known as the “Rabbi of Cabanatuan.” His singing of the Jewish prayers comforted Jew and Gentile alike.

At the camp, the Japanese assigned him to shepherd carabaos (water buffalo) that transported supplies from the town to the POW camp. The task gave him the opportunity to smuggle notes, money, and medicines for his fellow prisoners. Unfortunately, his Japanese captors eventually discovered his courier service and subjected him to months of solitary confinement with reduced rations.

On December 13, 1944, Kliatchko was among more than 1,600 prisoners, mostly officers and medical personnel, who were boarded in the holds of the hellship Oryoku Maru, destined for slave labor in Japan. It was the last hellship from the Philippines to Japan. Barely a day out of Manila, near Subic Bay, American bombers off the carrier USS Hornet sunk the ship. Dodging bullets from Japanese soldiers, the survivors made it to shore. There they were kept a week on an abandoned tennis court exposed to the tropical sun with little water and no food.

Finally moved inland and then to a new dock north of Subic Bay, the men were put aboard two other hellships to continue the voyage north. Kliatchko died from his wounds on December 31, 1944 aboard the Brazil Maru as it arrived in Takeo Harbor, Formosa. 

It is unknown where his body rests. Ordinarily, the Japanese, with no ceremony, would throw the dead into the sea. It is possible, however, his remains are among those buried on shore in Formosa after the American bombing of the Enoura Maru.

These men were disinterred after the war and reburied in graves marked “Unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. 

Less than 600 of the original shipment prisoners from the Oyroku Maru survived to voyage’s destination of Moji, Japan on January 30, 1945. Many died of wounds and exposure as the days became increasingly cold. At least 100 died the first few days on Japanese soil. Those remaining were soon put on new hellships to Korea and then taken by train to a POW camp at Mukden in northern China. 

Barely 400 of these men survived the war. Some believe the Americans were taken to China not to be slave laborers, but to be hostages. All the senior military officials from surrendered Allied forces were moved to or near Mukden by 1945. There is no extant documentation, however, of this theory.

In 1948, Master Sgt. Kliatchko was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. can give a civilian. 

Veterans Day - Lest we forget

Memorial at Cabanatuan

Support S Res 138 and H Res 261 to remember the 

75th Anniversary of the Bataan Death March

Call your Senator and Congressman

‘I didn’t think I would live this long

World War II veteran and Bataan Death March survivor Eddie Graham turns 100 on September 5th

The Wichita Eagle, September 2, 2017 5:47 PM

BY STAN FINGER

Eddie Graham never expected to see this day.

Not after trudging more than 60 miles through the jungles of the Philippines at gunpoint in what became known as the Bataan Death March in World War II.
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Or seeing fellow prisoners marched away, never to return. Or subsisting on a cup of rice a day, often less because he would sneak some of his portion to others in poor health.

Or digging a new trench every day to bury those who had died overnight, sometimes stacking the bodies four or five deep.

“No, I didn’t think I would live this long,” Graham said softly as he looked around at the large crowd gathered in north Wichita to celebrate his 100th birthday on Saturday. “But I’m still here. Somebody’s watching over me.”

Graham’s birthday is actually on Tuesday, but celebrating it on Saturday carried significance: it not only meant relatives could converge on Wichita from around the country, it was the same day Japan formally surrendered aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in 1945, ending World War II.

Barely more than 50 survivors of the Bataan Death March are still alive.

“When I was a kid, my aunt — Eddie’s wife — told us not to ask him questions because it would cause him to have nightmares at night,” said Wanda Graham, who lives in Portales, N.M. “So we never talked about it.”

Graham kept those horrific memories tucked away until he was into his 90s, when the brother of his caretaker talked him into speaking to a class at a Maize school. That brother is now the mayor of Wichita.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Graham voluntarily enlisted in the New Mexico National Guard and was assigned to the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment at an American base in the Philippines two months before the attacks on Pearl Harbor December 1941. He fought in the Battle of Bataan and then with nearly 75,000 American and Filipino troops forced on the 65 mile infamous Bataan Death March to Camp O'Donnell. When the camp closed he was transferred to Camp Cabanatuan to work in the fields. On 20 September 1943 with 850 prisoners he was taken aboard the Taga Maru in Manila, also known as the Coral Maru.Seventy men died during the 15 day voyage to Moji, Japan via Formosa. In Japan, he was taken to Osaka where he became a slave laborer at a steel mill for Nippon Steel in Hirohata Osaka 12-B POW Camp (also known as Harima "O" Camp or Hirohata Divisional Camp). Nippon Steel still exists today as Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation. This company has yet to issue an apology to the hundreds of Allied POW slave laborers it used against the Geneva Convention during the War. Interestingly, former Amb. Ichiro Fujisaki, who arranged for Japan's official apology to the POWs in 2009 and reconciliation trips, is on the company's board.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The memories have been trickling out since then, friends and relatives say.

He has never considered himself a hero. He credits his survival to faith and good fortune, friends and family say.

Mayor Jeff Longwell said he asked Graham where he found the strength to persevere during those dark days. Prayer, Graham told him.

One of the few personal items Graham was allowed to keep as a prisoner was his rosary. A devout Catholic, he prayed that rosary every day.

There are moments during his time as a prisoner of war for which there is no explanation, relatives said.

One was when the prisoners were separated into two long lines. Graham was in one line, but felt uneasy about it.

“He didn’t know why, but he felt like he needed to get into the other one,” said Janelle Longwell, the sister-in-law of his caretaker.

When the guards moved out of view, Graham slipped into the other line. The line of prisoners he had been in was marched into the jungle — and never returned.

One day in camp, Graham and a few other prisoners were given red ribbons, Wendy Graham said. Filled with another uneasy feeling, Graham hid the ribbon in the dirt when no one was looking.

He then darted over to the prisoners without ribbons. The prisoners with ribbons were never seen again.

After he was finally liberated, Graham returned to the U.S. and settled into civilian life. He married soon after the war and raised a family, working as a carpenter.

He has always laughed easily and forgiven quickly, relatives say. He harbored no bitterness toward his captors or the Japanese soldiers.

“They were just doing their job,” he told family.

He’s almost impossible to beat at cards and his mind is still sharp at 100, his sister-in-law Angie Graham said.

Graham is more than willing to go serve his country again if called, Longwell said, though he admits that at 100 he doesn’t move as fast as he once did.

“A few years ago, I asked him, ‘What’s the best thing that’s happened to you? What’s the best thing that you’ve experienced?’ ” Wendy Graham said. “And he said, ‘Life.’

“He realized that was the most valuable thing that he had.”

Library of Congress posts POW of Japan diaries

2 POWs, 2 World War II diaries tell a story of friendship, suffering and death

In a World War II prisoner diary acquired by the Library of Congress, George Washington Pearcy kept lists of the foods he ate and the things he wanted to do when he got back to the U.S. 

By Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post,  January 8,  2017

In September 1944, after two years of suffering in POW camps in the Philippines, U.S. Army Lt. George Washington Pearcy was being transferred to one of Japan’s “hell ships,” bound for captivity in the enemy’s home islands.

Before he left, he entrusted his diary to a fellow prisoner who was staying behind. Pearcy had written the diary on the backs of tin-can labels and other scraps of paper, and he wanted to make sure it survived him.

He gave it to Lt. Robert F. Augur, a friend who had lost a leg in the fighting at Corregidor in 1942 and who kept a small journal of his own.

Pearcy, 29, was killed a few weeks later when the prison [Hell ship] ship Arisan Maru was torpedoed by an American submarine. Augur, 34, survived the war, made his way home, and brought his friend’s diary with him.

Now, almost 75 years later, the Library of Congress has acquired both men’s writings and posted them online, along with family correspondence.

Photographs of Army Lt. Robert F. Augur, of Portland, Ore., top and bottom left, and Army Lt. George Washington Pearcy of St. Louis, a set of four at right, at the Library of Congress. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

See Here for Pearcy's WWII diary, papers, that recall POW suffering, death and survival.

The acquisitions tell a grim story of World War II prison life, the anguish of families back home and the determination of two men to preserve for history what they experienced.

Pearcy described fellow POWs, thin as skeletons, eating frogs and snails, and clad in rags, or in nothing at all. He noted the diseases he had — including malaria, chronic diarrhea, and beriberi, the debilitating result of vitamin B1 deficiency.

His life was filled with flies, lice, mosquitoes and death, as he was shuttled among prisoner-of-war camps and prison ships. He made toothpaste out of charcoal and powdered salt. He wore shoes that had no soles. He bathed in the rain and shaved with a knife.

Yet he tried to avoid foul language, read the Bible and made plans for the future.

To pass the time, he kept lists — of people he met, foods he ate, expressions he heard and things he wanted to do when he got home.

“Buy record player and start collection,” he wrote. “Buy complete set of pocket books to read in idle moments and going to and from work . . . Talk to Pop about buying farm . . . Write officers of Bataan Corregidor campaign and ask them to write back experiences — humorous, pathetic, realistic, and must be true.”

When George Washington Pearcy was a POW at a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines, he wrote his diary on the backs of can labels and other discarded paper. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Japan attacked U.S. forces in the Philippines at the same time it attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Most American and Filipino soldiers held out until the bastion of Corregidor fell in spring 1942 and its defenders, including Pearcy and Augur, were captured.

In June 1942, Pearcy recorded that he was in Cabanatuan Prison Camp No. 1, north of Manila, and stayed there until Oct. 25.

The detailed pages of his diary begin in October.

“I have run an intermittent fever for the last four days,” he wrote on the 17th. “And it has been coupled with [diarrhea] . . . My legs both of them are stiffening up again — my feet are swelling in the insteps.”

The next day, a Sunday, he wrote: “It is peculiar to walk right by the church area while the service [is underway] and go either to the urinal or the latrine box and . . . stand or sit and relieve yourself while you listen to the sermon.”

“The principal thing around here is the constant battle for weight,” he wrote. “You get sick for a few days and drop 10-15-20 pounds . . . that you can little afford to lose. It takes a long time to gain weight and only a short time to lose it.”

Pearcy was a diligent letter writer before the war broke out, and the acquisitions include numerous letters to his parents from the Philippines. The son of a prominent St. Louis attorney, he had a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, according to the Library of Congress.

The library’s Veterans History Project received the Pearcy papers in December 2015 from relatives, the project’s senior reference specialist, Megan Harris, said. It was then the library’s only original POW diary from the Pacific theater, she said.

“By itself, it’s an extraordinary artifact,” she said recently.

When the project produced a blog post about the gift last February and mentioned Augur’s role, Augur’s family heard about it, recognized the connection, and offered his papers, too.

Harris immediately accepted, and the papers of both men were posted this fall.

Before his capture, Augur had been decorated for heroism in the fighting that cost him his left leg. In captivity, he jotted down in a small black book the names and home addresses of comrades, and in some cases their fates.

Next to Pearcy’s name, he penciled “J-abt 9/44,” denoting when Pearcy was shipped out for Japan.

Pearcy, for his part, used a pencil and wrote in tiny script on material that included labels of cans that had contained pork and beans, chili con carne or mackerel.

“I have just come back from the [camp] hospital,” he wrote at one point. “It is still a depressing place. The whole area is so contaminated that it smells. And the smell of death is everywhere.”

“There are human skeletons and people you know are going to die,” he wrote. “There are little shower houses. . . . These are the ‘death houses’ or ‘St. Mary’s wards’ where people are put to die.”

Later in October, he was transferred to Bilibid prison, outside Manila, and from there began a harrowing, 11-day journey by ship to the Davao Penal Colony in the southern Philippines.

“All Americans getting filthy,” he wrote during the trip. “B.O. terrific. Can’t wash . . . Perspire . . . Men run around bare footed. Make themselves more prone to infection. Legs puff up. General infections and sores on body get worse.”

Aboard the boat on Halloween 1942, he noted:

“An officer (Lt. Fitzgerald) died in our lower bay today from heat exhaustion and general exhaustion . . . the men sat around and watched him die . . . Japs drop a small platform . . . through hatch and lift body out. All American troops stood at attention and saluted.”

He drew a picture of the ship, the Erie Maru, on the back of a letter he had received from his mother. “We have had no word from you since the war started,” she had written. “We are anxious to have you back and that day cannot come soon enough.”

Upon arrival at the penal colony, Pearcy worried about the delivery of his meager belongings: “I am afraid that some light handed person will get my musette bag which has my diaries in it, which I have spent so much time on.”

Pearcy did not report the kind of Japanese brutality that appears in other POW accounts. He found some guards to be reasonable, although a few were “regular sadists, and seem to get pleasure out of making the men as miserable as possible.”

He guessed the same kind of men could be found in the American army.

He remained at Davao through 1942 and 1943, and into 1944, much of the time hospitalized with malaria, bronchitis and dysentery. He appears to have returned to Bilibid prison in 1944.

In March 1945, after Augur was freed, he sent the diary to Pearcy’s parents, Frances and Claude Pearcy, in St. Louis.

He and Pearcy had been buddies, Augur wrote them. Before Pearcy was to board the ship to Japan, “George left a few of his papers with me and asked that I try to get them out for him.”

Augur warned Pearcy’s parents that, reading the diaries, they would see that “George has had a pretty rough time of it.”

He “was in poor condition at the time and should never have made the trip,” Augur wrote. But the enemy forced him, and many others, to go.

Augur thought Pearcy could make it.

“I do hope and pray that you have either already had word from him . . . or will soon have a message telling of his safe arrival,” Augur wrote.

Neither Augur nor Pearcy’s parents knew it, but Pearcy had been dead for five months.

The American submarine crew did not know that the Japanese vessel being targeted had 1,775 POWs, including Pearcy, on board when they sank the ship Oct. 24, 1944, in the South China Sea. Only a handful of men survived.

The Pearcys would not learn their son’s fate for seven months.

They continued to write to him via the authorities and send photos, hoping something might get through. They sent a snapshot of their house and a photo of his father smoking a pipe.

On May 25, 1945, Frances Pearcy filled out an official postcard to her son:

“We have heard of you from Augur [and others]. All assure us you have what it takes. Keep your chin up. Much love. Mother.”

Four weeks later, the War Department wrote the Pearcys that George had been killed “by submarine action” in the sinking of the ship.

“It is with deep regret that I must notify you of this unhappy culmination of the long period of anxiety and suffering you have experienced,” the Army’s adjutant general wrote.

George Pearcy’s body was never found.

But in October 1945, two months after World War II ended in the Pacific and a year after their son had perished, the Pearcys received a delayed “Imperial Japanese Army” postcard from a Philippine prison camp.

“Love to both of you,” it said. “Birthday greetings to ‘Pop.’ ”

It was signed, “George W. Pearcy.”

Does your DNA match? Find your missing POW

In 1946, nine remains were recovered from Cabanatuan Grave #110, Cabanatuan Cemetery #1 and moved to Manila Cemetery #2.  A year later, they were once again moved to the Manila Mausoleum at Nichols Field for the purpose of analyzing and identifying the remains.   

Of the nine men listed only Pfc Kokitas was identified.  The analysts unsuccessfully attempted to associate these eight remains with the eight unresolved individuals believed to have been buried in Grave 110. 

After a second attempt to identify the remains in 1949, the CIP analysts from HQ, AGRS PHILCOM ZONE recommended that these remains be classified as unidentifiable.  In 1950, the AGRS interred these eight unknowns in the Manila American Cemetery.

Researchers at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) have collected documents and assessed historical evidence concerning Cabanatuan POW Camp cases for many years.  DPAA is engaged in a long-term project to fully account for the Cabanatuan missing.  This will involve a comprehensive review of all files associated with Cabanatuan, including the collection of genealogical data and DNA reference samples from the prisoners’ next of kin. 

Currently, DPAA must have DNA samples of 60% or Family Reference Samples (FRS) on file for each grave before the U.S. government will consider approving a disinterment for the purpose of identification.  As of 31 October 2016, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) has no FRSs on file for Grave 110. 

If you are a next of kin of one of the men listed below and you wish for the DPAA to try to identify their remains, please contact Fred Baldassarre.

Individuals Recorded as Buried in Grave 110, Cabanatuan Cemetery #1
Name	Service Number	Rank	Unit	Branch of Service	Status
SUTPHIN, IRVIN R.	O-890391	2d Lt	31st Infantry	U.S. Army	BNR
Bernardy, Donald L.	00280239	Pfc	4th Marine Regiment	U.S. Marine Corps	BNR
Gunn, John G.	06978029	Cpl	31st Infantry	U.S. Army	BNR
Bailey, Gerald J.	19018331	Cpl	19th Bomb Group	U.S. Army Air Corps	BNR
Ramirez, Juan	38030019	Pvt	515th Coast Artillery	U.S. Army	BNR
Grier, Joe R.	06926136	S Sgt	27th Bomb Group	U.S. Army Air Corps	BNR
Wilson, Woodrow	06832712	S Sgt	24th Pursuit Group	U.S. Army Air Corps	BNR
Hueston ,Joe I.	06573215	Pvt	24th Pursuit Group	U.S. Army Air Corps	BNR
Kokitas, Albert J.	13004748	Pfc	31st Infantry	U.S. Army	Resolved