Pvt. Mayo Gadish Stephenson

Home: Harris County, Texas

Inducted:

    - U.S. Army 

        - Camp Shelby - Mississippi

Units: 

    - 753rd Tank Battalion

    - 192nd Tank Battalion

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty: 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

            - Mariveles - POWs start march at southern tip of Bataan
            - POWs ran past Japanese 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 spigot for entire camp
            - as many as 50 POWs died each day
            - Japanese opened new POW camp to lower death rate 

         - Cabanatuan

         - Las Pinas Detail

              - POWs built runways with picks and shovels 

    - Formosa: 

        - Toroku Camp

    - Japan: 

        - Maribara #10-B - 15 May 1945 

            - Work: canal building

Hell Ships:

    - Hokusen Maru

        - Departed: Manila - 3 October 1944

        - Arrived: Formosa - 11 November 1944

    - Melbourne Maru

        - Departed: Formosa - 14 January 1945

        - Arrived: Japan - 23 January 1945

Liberated: September 1945

Promoted: Corporal

Died: 4 September 1949 -  Liberty, Texas

Buried: Beauregard Cemetery, DeRidder, Louisiana

Return to HQ Company