Lest We Forget - Corregidor Surrenders May 6, 1942

05/06/2018 | self

[Oatka]

Irving Stroberg made it, dying of cancer in 1977.

[Oatka]

Corregidor surrenders this day.

We're the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!
Frank Hewlett, 1942

[Nifster]

My junior high math and home room teacher was on Corregidor. Spent his war years on a pow camp in Manchuria

Here’s to you Bruce Mulholland

[VR-21]

My father, a 20 yr. old Sergeant with the 60th Coastal AA Battery B served Battery Cheney, Topside, Corregidor. He was “Guest of The Emporer” No. 428 at Hoten Camp, Mukden Manchuria.

[mass55th]

Thanks for sharing. God Bless our WWII armed forces...those who came home, and those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” for our beloved country.

[oldbrowser]

One of my old bosses was POW who survived Bataan & prison until wars end. He firmly believed that the only reason he survived was that he and his group held prayer sessions every night after lights out and entrusted their life to the lord.

[wjcsux]

I heard that most of the Bataan POW’s were from New Mexico.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

When MacArthur returned to the Philippines, my uncle went with him.

Uncle Max had an 8th grade education but was damned good with a cook stove, fresh meat and anything vegetarian. He was the cook for a couple dozen MacArthur men who “returned.”

He retired as a Master Sergeant in ‘47, came home and started farming a small spread in S. Iowa. Later, he aquired a grocery store along the cobblestone mainstreet of his home town.

I will visit his grave when I visit my mom and dad in a couple of weeks at Mystic Highland Cemetery.

[Badboo]

Of the 12,000 Americans, 1,800 were from New Mexico from the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery. But for as small as a state in population at the time, that had a huge impact on New Mexico. My dad was in the 200th and did the march and 4 years in a Prison Camp.

His story here

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/francis-hall-van-buskirk-—after-bataan-survivor-embraced/article_15892118-9625-5989-9c74-701c1dc99809.html

More on the march here

http://www.bataanmuseum.com/bataanhistory/

[doorgunner69]

They do not teach history earlier than the MLK days, as far as I can tell. Maybe a touch about those horrible Confederates.

[wjcsux]

Thank you very much for sharing your fathers wonderful life story. I met a Bataan survivor named Ward Redshaw who was from Albuquerque. He was a slave laborer in a Japanese coal mine during his captivity.

[Badboo]

As was my Dad. I am sure they must have known each other, the mine was owned by Mitsubishi. Dad would never buy a Japanese automobile.

The New Mexico outfits were very tight knit. He was going to the annual reunions up until he died. My mother’s first husband and high school sweetheart died in the European theater. She never told me that. I had to learn it from my older sister.

Different and tough Depression generation, who despite the worst kinds of treatment and circumstances, could still find love to give and share in their families.