Sgt. Russell E. Cunningham

Parents: Grant E. Cunningham & Ruth Bence-Cunnigham

Siblings: 2 brothers

Home: 325 Hawthorne Street - Alisal, California

Occupation: delivered flowers for a florist

Education:

    - Salinas High School

    - Salinas Junior College 

Married: Betty Loraine Scoville

   - got married before going overseas 

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 21 February 1941 - San Francisco, California

Stationed:  Fort Lewis, Washington

Unit: 

    - 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

Died:

- 25 May 1942 - cerebral malaria

Buried:

    - Camp O'Donnell Cemetery

        - remains could not be positively identified

        - buried as an "Unknown" at the new American cemetery

Memorial:

    - Tablets of the Missing - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands

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