Pvt. P. Z. Eldridge

Parents: Elton & Gennie Eldridge

Siblings: 3 sisters, 2 brothers

Hometown: Slocomb, Alabama

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 6 August 1940 - Fort Benning, Georgia

Training: 

    - Ft. Benning, Georgia

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Units:

    - 753rd Tank Battalion

    - 192nd Tank Battalion

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War: 9 April 1942

    - Death March

            - Mariveles - POWs start march at southern tip of Bataan
            - POWs ran past Japanesee 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: 

    Philippine Islands: 

        - Camp O'Donnell

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

        - Cabanatuan

Died: 

    - 21 July 1942 - dysentery & malaria

        - Approximate time of death - 1:15 PM

    - Headstone Date off Death: 24 July 1942 

Buried: 

    - Burns Assembly of God Church Cemetery - Slocomb, Alabama

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