Pvt. Vendel Trinka Jr.

Parents: Vendelin Trinka Sr. & Elizabeth Kriston-Trinka

    - Parents: Hungarian Immigrants

Siblings: 1 brother, 3 sisters

Hometown: Hewitt Township, Marathon County, Wisconsin

    - lived in Wausau, Wisconsin, when inducted 

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army 

        - 7 April 1941 - Wisconsin

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March

            - Mariveles - POWs start march at southern tip of Bataan
            - POWs ran past Japanesee 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

POW Camps: 

    - Philippine Islands:

        - Camp O'Donnell

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

        - Cabanatuan

        - Las Pinas Detail - Lipa, Batangas - 12 December 1942 - April 1944

    - Japan: 

        - Hirohata Camp or Naruo Camp

        - Nagoya #9 - 29 May 1945 - 5 September 1945

            - Work: Stevedores Iwase docks

Liberated: September 1945

Discharged: 3 March 1947

Married: Violet S. Ogvenich - 31 July 1954 - Cook County, Illinois

    - 2 sons, 1 daughter

Died: 10 September 2000 - Prattsville, Arkansas

Buried:

    - Poe Cemetery - Prattsville, Arkansas

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