Cpl. Lee Donald MacDonald

Parents: John R. & Matilda MacDonald

Siblings: 2 sisters, 1 brother

Home: 514 Quice Street, Brainerd, Minnesota

Inducted: 

    - U.S. Army

        - 6 February 1941 - Brainerd, Minnesota

Training:

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

        - motorcycle messenger

Overseas Duty:

    - Fort Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands

Engagements:

    - Battle of Luzon

        - 8 December 1941 - 6 January 1942 

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942 

POW:

    - 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

            - took MacDonald between eight and ten days to complete march

                - POWs stole food 

                - those POWs who faltered were hit with rifle butts or bayoneted

POW Camps:

    - Philippine Islands

        - Camp O'Donnell

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

        - Cabanatuan

            - MacDonald believed it was easier to die then live.  All a POW had to do was stop eating and dysentery

               would kill the man.  As for himself, "I made up my mind that they would have to kill me."

    - Japan

        - Hirohata #12-B

            - POWs worked at Seitetsu Steel Mill

                - Stevedores

                - cleaned ovens of slag

            - MacDonald recalled the POWs worked from dawn to dusk.  In his own words, "We stopped working

              when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima." 

Hell Ship:

    - Coral Maru

        - Sailed: Manila - 20 September 1943

        - Arrived: Moji, Japan - 5 October 1943

            - POWs arrived at camp on 6 October 1943

Librated: September 1945

    - weighed 85 pounds when liberated 

Promoted: Staff Sergeant

Discharged: 11 May 1946

Occupation: mail carrier

Died: 19 March 1968 - Crow Wing County, Minnesota

Buried:

   - Evergreen Cemetery - Brainerd, Minnesota

       - Block:  44   Lot:  30

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