Pfc. Charles D. McKenzie
Born: 10 February 1922 - Greenup, Kentucky
Parents: Ray & Kittie McKenzie
Siblings: 1 brother
Home: Stone Call Road - Johnson County, Kentucky
Occupation: worked on family's farm
Enlisted:
    - U.S. Army
        - 13 January 1941 - Fort Thomas, Newport, Kentucky
Training:
    - Fort Knox, Kentucky
Units:
    - 19th Ordnance Battalion
    - 17th Ordnance Company
        - company created from A Company of 19th Ordnance
        - trained alongside the 192nd Tank Battalion at Ft. Knox
Overseas Duty:
    - Philippine Islands
        - serviced tanks of Provisional Tank Group
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:
    - Philippines:
        - 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
    - Japan:
        - Narumi Camp
            - Work:
Hell Ship:
    - Nissyo Maru
        - Sailed: Manila - 14 July 1944
        - Arrived:Takao, Formosa - 17 July 1944
        - Sailed: 28 July 1944
        - Arrived: Moji, Japan - 3 August 1944
Liberated: 4 September 1945
Discharged: 28 May 1946
Residence: Kentucky
Died: 16 March 1977

 

 

 


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