2nd Lt. Marshall Howard Kennady Jr. was born on February 22, 1919, in Bexar County, Texas, and grew up with his sister and brother in Fort Worth, Texas.  He was the son of Marshall H. Kennady Sr. & Helen Kennady.  His father was a colonel in the Texas State Guard. 

    Marshall graduated from Texas A&M College in 1940 and commissioned into the U. S. Army as an officer.  It is not known if he was a member of the 753rd Tank Battalion or assigned directly to the 192nd Tank Battalion.  

    Marshall was assigned to the Headquarters Company.  He was the tank platoon commander of the three tanks assigned to HQ Company.  It is known that his tanks were involved in the first tank victory of World War II involviing American tanks. 

    The evening of April 8, 1942, Marshall and the other members of  HQ Company learned of the American surrender from Capt. Fred Bruni.  The tankers destroyed their tanks at this time.  The next morning when the surrender became official, he and the other members of the company became Prisoners of War.  

    After remaining in their bivouac for two days, Marshall and the other members of HQ Company, were ordered out to the road that ran by their encampment.  The Prisoners of War were ordered to kneel along the sides of the road.  As they knelt, the passing Japanese soldiers took what they wanted from the Americans.  The men then their way to Mariveles to the southern tip of Bataan.

    At Mariveles, the POWs were searched and personal possessions were confiscated by the Japanese.  It was also from there that Marshall started what became known as the death march.  During the march he received almost no food and little water.

    At San Fernando, Marshall and the other POWs were boarded into small wooden boxcars.  Each car could hold forty men or eight horses.  The Japanese packed 100 men into the cars.  Men died in the cars from the heat and lack of air.  At Capas, the prisoners disembarked; the bodies of the dead fell from the cars as they climbed out.  Marshall walked the last few miles to Camp O'Donnell.

    Marshall was held as a prisoner at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan.  On October 26, 1942, the Japanese selected Marshall, and other POWs, for a work detail to the Island of Mindanao.  He and the other POWs were loaded onto the Erie Maru and taken to Davao, Mindanao arriving there on October 28th.  A smaller group of POWs remained at Davao, at the penal colony, and worked on a farm, while the rest of the POWs were sent to Lasang, on November 7th, and spent the next twenty months building runways.

    The Japanese ended the detail at the farm and sent the POWs to Lasang on March 2, 1944.  The POWs thought that it would not be as bad as the farm; they were wrong.  The barracks of the POWs were only 400 yards from the airfield.  The POWs believed this was done so if American planes attacked, they would kill their own countrymen.

    The POWs either built runways or were sent to a quarry to mine coral for runways.  The POWs dug out the coral, broke it up, and loaded it onto trucks which were driven to the airfield.  When the POWs slowed the pace of their work down, the Japanese resorted to torture to get them to work.

    One night, the POWs heard the sound of a plane.  From the sound of its engine, they knew it was an American plane.  This was the first American plane they had seen in over two years.  The plane dove on the runway and dropped four bombs at the far end of the runway.  The POWs could not openly show their joy, so they cheered silently.  Not too long later, on June 6, 1944, Marshall was one of the POWs selected to be sent to Manila.  From there, he was taken to Bilibid Prison.

    In the fall of 1944, Marshall was selected to be sent to Japan.  On December 12, 1944, roll call was taken and the names of the men selected for transport to Japan were called.  At 4:00 a.m. the morning of December 13th, Marshall and the other POWs were awakened and marched to Pier 7 in Manila.  The POWs were boarded onto the Oryoku Maru.  

    The ship left Manila as part of the MATA-37 convoy bound for Takao, Formosa.  Meals on the ship consisted of a little rice, fish and water.  The morning of December 14th, mess was being given to the prisoners when the sound of planes was heard.  The POWs heard the change in the planes' engines sound as they began their dive toward the ships in the convoy.  Explosions were taking place all around the POWs.  

    In the hold the POWs crowded together.  Chips of rust fell on them from the ceiling.  After the raid, they took care of the wounded before the next attack started.  A Catholic priest, Fr. Duffy, began praying, "Father forgive them.  They know not what they do."  

    When the attack resumed, the ship bounced in the water from the explosions.  The POWs in the holds lived through seventeen attacks from American planes before sunset.  Overall, six bombs hit the ship.  During the night, the medics in the ship's hold were ordered out by a Japanese officer to tend to the Japanese wounded.  One of the medics recalled that the dead, dying and wounded were everywhere.

    In the ship's holds, the POWs could hear the sound of the Japanese passengers being loaded into lifeboats.  By the next morning, all the Japanese passengers were off the ship.

    The morning of December 15th, U.S. Navy planes resumed the attack.  Again, the attacks came in waves.  A guard shouted into the holds that the prisoners were going ashore.  The wounded would be the first evacuated.  As the POWs were abandoning ship. the planes returned.  The pilots of the planes had no idea that the ship was carrying prisoners.  It was not until the pilots saw the POWs climbing out of the ship's holds that they realized it was a prison ship and stopped the attack.

    The POWs swam to shore.  As they swam, the Japanese fired on them with machineguns.  Once on shore,  the POWs were herded onto tennis courts at a country club.  There, they spent several days until they were taken to San Fernando, Pampanga on December 20, 1944.  They were housed in a jail until they were sent by train to San Fernando, La Union.

    Next, Marshall was boarded onto the Enoura Maru.  On January 8, 1945, this ship also came under attack, by five American fighters, while it sat in Takao Harbor, Formosa.  The ship was not marked with "red crosses" to indicate it was carrying POWs.  Three bombs from the planes hit the ship killing over 400 POWs.  The ship was sunk while docked at Takao.  Those who survived this attack were boarded onto a third ship.

    The final ship that Marshall boarded was the Brazil Maru.  It was on this ship that he finally made it to Japan.  He was held as a POW at Fukuoka #1-D where he died on February 19, 1945, of dysentery and malnutrition.  After his death, his remains were cremated and placed into an urn with those of 98 other POWs who died in the camp.

    After the war, on September 27, 1949, the remains of 2nd Lt. Marshall H. Kennady Jr. were reburied in a mass grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.  He shares his grave with Capt. Donald Hanes of HQ Company, and 2nd Lt. Everett Preston of D Company.

    The photo below is of part of the headstone on the grave.