S/Sgt. Manuel J. Bernard Jr.

Parents: Manuel J. Bernard Sr. & Mary Florence Flores-Bernard

Siblings: 3 sisters, 2 brothers

Home: Ricco Street - Castroville, California

Education:

    - Salinas High School

    - Salinas Junior College 

Married - before he went overseas

Occupation: Bay Farms Corporation - accountant

Enlisted: California National Guard

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 10 February 1941 - Salinas Army Air Base, Salinas, California

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

      - trained in tank maintenance

Units: 

    - 194th Tank Battalion

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

   - Battle of Luzon

        - 8 December 1941 - 6 January 1942

   - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942

Prisoner of War: 

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March

            - Mariveles - POWs start march at southern tip of Bataan
            - POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing at Corregidor
                - Americans on Corregidor returned fire
            - San Fernando - POWs put into small wooden boxcars
                - each boxcar could hold eight horses or forty men
                - 100 POWs packed into each car
                - POWs who died remained standing
            - Capas - dead fell to floor as living left boxcars
            - POWs walked last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell    

POW Camps:

    - Philippines: 

        - Camp O'Donnell

           - unfinished Filipino training base
           - Japanese put camp into use as POW Camp
           - only one water spigot for entire camp
           - as many as 50 POWs died each day
           - Japanese opened new POW camp to lower death rate

           - Bernard left behind because he was too ill to be moved 

Died:

    - 11 June 1942 - malaria

Buried:

    - Camp O'Donnell Cemetery

Reburied:

    - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands

        - Plot:  L  Row:  12   Grave:  60

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