Posted on 06/21/2012 11:26:56 AM PDT by PGR88
John S. Zale, a decorated Army veteran, former prisoner of war and retired carpenter, died unexpectedly Sunday in his North Tonawanda home. He was 90.
Born John Zubrzycki in Lackawanna and raised there, Mr. Zale went to Lackawanna schools until the eighth grade, when he took a job with a painter so his family had one less mouth to feed at home.
At 18, he enlisted in the Army and was stationed with the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines, where he was severely wounded during the early stages of World War II.
Following surgery at a field aid station, Mr. Zale returned to his unit and was promoted to the rank of sergeant in charge of 64 soldiers.
He was among the American forces to be captured by the Japanese, then survive the Bataan Death March. He spent more than three years as a POW until the end of the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at buffalonews.com ...
On the other hand I'm worried I've been coming across as a paranoid conspiratorialist to my family - I see leftwingers under the stairs.
Its not that they aren't there, either. Its that not everyone recognizes them:)
Just saw this. Incredibly, he was my scout master when I was a kid and I went to school with his son
RIP.
My late father, John Zale, told me the older-looking American POW pictured with what looks like a woven basket in his lap was a fellow infantryman from the 31st Inf. on Bataan. The man’s name escapes me now, but he was an older career soldier from New York City. He died in my father’s arms in the POW camp at Cabanatuan. The photo grips me every time i see it. Dad said they would have gone “all the way” and fought to the death, but the brass decided surrender on “humanitarian grounds” would be preferrable to wholesale, Alamo-style slaughter. Humanity wasn’t present there.
Thanks. I always wondered how they made out.
I read a lot of that fight and more than one survivor said that had they known what was in front of them, they would have gone out Alamo-style.
I always thought we got the crap beat out of us, but in reading one definitive, IMO, book about Bataan, we put up one Helluva fight, despite the lack of food and medicine.
Hi Oatka...thanks for looking into what the “Battling Bastards of Bataan” went through to continue protecting our country and “buying time” for recovery after Pearl Harbor in killing as many enemy troops as possible before giving their lives if they had to. My father said the defenders of Bataan “went for broke,” in that they knew they were laying their lives on the line every day.
My father was severely wounded (”gut shot” as they say)but somehow left that field hospital to rejoin his unit (Co. C/1st Battalion/31st Inf. Regiment)and fight while still stitched up. He also was one who said they would’ve rather gone down “Alamo style” if they had only known what subhuman and ungodly horrors lay ahead. How he survived it all to become the great father and caring person he was, i’ll never know. He’s been gone a year now and I just came back from visiting his humble grave...no monument or testimony there to what he survived and did.
Thank you from the very bottom of my heart...maybe I know who you are...your handle doesn’t give a clue, but THANKS!!
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