BlairJ

Born: 14 October 1916 - Stone County, Missouri

Parents: Andrew J. Blair & Lennie L. Kirkendall-Blair

Siblings: 2 sisters, 7 brothers

Hometown: Washington Township, Stone County, Missouri

Education: left high school after three years

Occupation: worked on family farm

Inducted:

- U. S. Army

- 1941

Training:

- Fort Lewis, Washington

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

- started march at Mariveles on southern tip of Bataan

- POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing at Corregidor

- Corregidor returned fire

- San Fernando

- POWs packed into small wooden boxcars used to haul sugarcane

- each car could hold 40 men or eight horses

- Japanese pack 100 POWs into each car

- those who died remained standing

- Capas - living leave boxcars

- dead fall to floor of cars

- POWs walk the last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell

POW Camps:

- Philippine Islands:

- 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

- Cabanatuan #1

- Las Pinas Detail

- POWs built runways with picks and shovels at Nichols Field

- housed in Pasay School

- Bilibid Prison

- Japan

- Fukuoka #3B

- POWs worked Yawata Steel Mills

Hell Ship:

- Clyde Maru

- Sailed: Manila - 23 July 1943

- Arrived: Moji, Japan - 9 August 1943

- POWs taken by train to Omuta, Kyushu

Liberated: 13 September 1945

Discharged: 10 April 1946

Died: 15 July 1979 - Reeds Spring, Missouri