Pfc. William Julian Sheppard

Hometown: Route 2, Lyman, Indiana

Parents: William Z. Sheppard & Celina F. Gaddis-Sheppard

Siblings: 4 sisters, 3 brothers

Inducted: 10 January 1941 - Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana

Unit:

    - 17th Ordnance Company

Training:

    - Ft. Knox, Kentucky

        - Training: Machinist

    - Ft. Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands

Overseas Duty:

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements:

    - Battle of the Philippines

        - 8 December 1942 - 6 January 1942

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1941

        - 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

    - Manchuria

        - Mukden 

            - POWs worked in machine shop or lunber mill 

                - Website: mukdenpow.org

                    - direct link goes to a default page 

    - Hell Ship:

         - Tottori Maru

             - Sailed: Manila - 8 October 1942

             - Arrived: Takao, Formosa - 16 October 1942

             - Sailed: Takao, Formosa - 19 October 1942

                   Note: Ship went to other side of Formosa to avoid a typhoon. Returned to Takao on

                             October 29th before sailing for Pusan.

             - Arrived: Pusan, Korea - November 1942

                   Note: POWs took train to Manchuria

Liberated: September 1945

Married: 19 April 1946

Died: 2 April 1958

Buried:

   - Huntsville Cemetery - Modoc, Indiana 

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