Tec 4 Henry M. McCullough


Born: 1904 - Beat 5, Chickasaw County, Mississippi
Parents: Ed & Mattie McCullough
Siblings: 2 sisters

Home: 134 Catalpa Street, Clarksdale, Mississippi

Nickname: Harry

Enlisted: 19 February 1941 - Camp Shelby, Mississippi

Unit:

    - 19th Ordnance Battalion

    - 17th Ordnance Company

        - Duties: Tank mechanic

Training:

    - Ft. Knox, Kentucky

    - Ft. Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands

Overseas Duty:

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements:

    - Battle of Luzon

        - 8 December 1942 - 6 January 1942

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March

            - started march at Mariveles on the southern tip of Bataan
            - POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing on Corregidor
                - American Artillery returned fire
                    - knocked out three Japanese guns
            - San Fernando - POWs put into small wooden boxcars
                - each car could hold eight horses or forty men
                - Japanese packed 100 POWs into each boxcar
                - POWs who died remained standing
            - Capas - POWs leave boxcars - dead fall out of cars
                - walked last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell

POW Camps:

    - Philippine Islands:

        - Camp O'Donnell

            - unfinished Filipino Army training base
            - Japanese use camp for POWs
            - one water spigot for entire camp
            - as many as 50 POWs died each day
            - Japanese opened new camp at Cabanatuan to lower death rate

        - Cabanatuan

        - Las Pinas Detail - POWs built runways with picks and shovels

Hell Ship:

    - Oryoku Maru

        Sailed: Manila - 13 December 1944

        Sunk: 15 December 1944 - Subic Bay, Philippine Islands

            Note: POWs held on tennis court. Taken to San Fernando, La Union

    - Enoura Maru

        Sailed: San Fernando, La Union - 27 December 1944

        Arrived: Takao, Formosa - 31 December 1944

Sunk:

   - 9 January 1942 - while moored at dock, ship hit by bombs from American planes 

    - bombs land in holds killing many POWs 

    - POWs transferred to Brazil Maru 

Died:

    - 12 January 1945 of wounds from Enoura Maru

    - POWs buried in mass grave on a Formosa beach 

Memorial:

     - Tablets of the Missing

        - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands


 

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