1st Lt. Jack Thurston Woodson

Hometown: Vinita, Oklahoma

Education:

    - University of Oklahoma

        - Bachelors Degree - Electrical Engineering

Inducted:

    - April 1941 

Unit:

    - 19th Ordnance Company

        - reorganized as: 17th Ordnance Company

Training:

    - Ft. Knox, Kentucky

Overseas Duty:

    - Ft. Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands

Engagements:

    - Battle of Luzon

        - 8 December 1941 - 6 January 1942 

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942 

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1941

        - Death March

            - POWs start march at Mariveles at southern tip of Bataan

            - ran pass Japanese artillery firing on Corregidor

            - American artillery returned fire

        - San Fernando

            - POWs packed into small wooden boxcars used to haul sugarcane

            - each boxcar could hold 40 men or eight horses

            - Japanese packed 100 POWs into each boxcar

            - POWs who died remained standing

        - Capas

            - POWs leave boxcars

            - dead fall to floor

            - POWs walked the last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell 

POW Camps:

    - Philippine Islands:

        - Camp O'Donnell

            - unfinished Filipino Army training base

            - one water spigot for entire camp

            - as many as 50 POWs died each day

        - Cabanatuan

            - Japanese open camp in an attempt to lower death rate among POWs

            "healthy POWs" sent to camp 

    - Japan:

        - Osaka #12B

        - POWs worked Seitetsu Steel Mills

            - transferred  

        - Oeyama Camp #3D

            Work: Nickel Refinery

Hell Ship:

    - Coral Maru

        - also known as Taga Maru 

         - Sailed: Manila -  20 Septmber 1943

        - Arrived: Takao, Formosa - 23 September 1943

        - Sailed: Takao - 26 September 1943

        - Arrived: Moji, Japan - 5 October 1943 

Liberated: 2 September 1945

Wife: Margaret

Children: 1 daughter, 1 son

Residence:

     - Lee's Summit, Missouri

     - Independence, Missouri

Died:

 - 2 March 2011 - Independence, Missouri

Buried:

   - Longview Memorial Garden - Kansas City, Missouri 

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