Sgt. Edmund Foster Van Galder

    As a child, Edmund grew up at 1409 South Wheeler Street in Janesville, Wisconsin.  He attended Jefferson and Roosevelt Schools and although he attended Janesville High School, he like many others of the time, did not finish high school.  Edmund worked as a truck driver for the City of Janesville.

    Edmund enlisted in the 32nd Tank Company of the Wisconsin National Guard during the summer of 1940.  On November 25, 1940, Edmund traveled with his company to Fort Knox, Kentucky.  There the company was designated A Company, 192nd Tank Battalion.

    It was during his training at Ft. Knox that Edmund received his high school diploma from Janesville High School as a member of the Class of 1934.  In January, 1941, Edmund was reassigned to Headquarters Company when the company was formed.  There he worked in maintenance repairing the tanks, trucks, jeeps and motorcycles of the battalion.

    In the late summer of 1941, Edmund traveled to Louisiana with the 192nd to take part in maneuvers.  After the maneuvers were completed, the battalion was sent to Camp Polk, Louisiana.  There the members were gathered on a hillside and informed that their time in the regular army had been extended from one to six years.  They also received the news that they were being sent overseas.

    Edmund and the other members of the battalion received leaves home to say their goodbyes.  When the day came for Edmund to return to Camp Polk, his father did not want him to leave.  If his father could have stopped him from going, he would have.  The reason his father acted this way was that he had the feeling that he would never see Edmund again.

    Traveling west by train to San Francisco, the company was sent to Angel Island.  There he received the necessary inoculations.  He was then boarded onto a transport for the Philippines Islands.  After stops at Hawaii and Guam, Edmund arrived in Manila on Thanksgiving Day, 1941.  He and the rest of the company were housed in tents along the main road between Ft. Stotsenburg and Clark Airfield since their barracks were unfinished.

    At morning assembly on December 8, 1941, just ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Edmund and the other members of A Company learned of the Japanese attack.  They were sent to defensive positions around the perimeter of the airfield.  

    Around 11:45 in the morning, the soldiers spotted formations of planes approaching Clark Field.  At first they believed that the planes were Americans, it was only when bombs began exploding that they knew the planes were Japanese.  Since Edmund was assigned to HQ Company, all he could do during the attack was to take cover.

    Being a mechanic, Edmund's job was too keep as many of the tanks running as possible.  To do this he and the other mechanics often were scavengers and took parts off tanks that had been disabled.  These tanks were often recovered after battles against the Japanese.

    On April 8, 1941, Edmund and the other members of HQ Company received the news of Bataan's surrender to the Japanese.  In an attempt to get the members of HQ Company repatriated, Lt. Col. Wickord attempted to have the company taken to Manila on trucks.  When the trucks stopped, Edmund and the others soldiers found themselves in Mariveles.

    It was from Mariveles that Edmund started the death march.  For Edmund and the other Prisoners Of War, the heat and lack of water were unbearable.  He was fed only once during the march.  When he arrived at San Fernando, Edmund and the other prisoners were packed into freight cars.  They were packed in so tightly that those who died remained standing until the POWs disembarked from the cars at Capas.  Then, the bodies of the dead fell out of the cars.  The surviving prisoners walked the last few miles to Camp O'Donnell.

    After spending about a month at Camp O'Donnell, Edmund was transferred to Cabanatuan Prison Camp.  Conditions there were bad, but they were not as bad as conditions at Camp O'Donnell.  Regardless of the conditions, Sgt. Edmund F. Van Galder died of dysentery and malaria while a POW at Cabanatuan on July 30, 1942.  He was 28 years old. 

    At this time, the final resting place of Sgt. Edmund F. Van Galder is not known.  It is possible that he is buried in a common grave at the American Military Cemetery at Manila or that his remains were returned to the United States. 

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