2nd Lt. Albert H. Hook

Parents: Henry & Beatrice Hook

Home: 1327 Alma Street - Salinas, California

    - 1940  lodger - 321½ Hawthorne Street - Alisal, California 

Education: Salinas High School - Class of 1936

Enlisted: California National Guard

Occupation: bank clerk

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 10 February 1941 -Salinas Army Air Base, California

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

        - went as staff sergeant

        - attended Officer Candidate School

        - commissioned a second lieutenant

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:

    - 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

Hell Ship:

 - Oryoku Maru

              - 13 December 1944 - POWs boarded

        - Sailed: 14 December 1944

        - Sunk: 15 December 1944

                      - Lingayen Gulf, Philippine Islands

            - POWs taken to tennis courts and held for several days.

            - Note:  

                - 24 December 1944 - POWs taken by train to San Fernando, La Union

                - 25 December 1944 - train arrives at San Fernando, La Union

                    - POWs were marched to beach later the same day

                        - remained on beach for two days

                - 27 December 1944 - POWs forced to jump into barges 20 feet below

                       them

                       - taken to Enoura Maru

                - 3 January 1945 - arrived Takao, Formosa

                - 12 January 1945 - ship attacked and heavily damaged by American

                       planes

                     - dead stacked up in holds - sunk

                     - wounded transferred to Brazil Maru

- Brazil Maru

     - Sailed: Takao, Formosa - 13 January 1945

Died:

    - 23 January 1945

         - died of wounds from attack on Enoura Maru

         - Brazil Maru - body thrown overboard

             - only 271 of the 1619 POWs who boarded the Oryoku Maru reached Japan

 Memorial:

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

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