Pvt. P. Z. Eldridge

Parents: Elton & Gennie Eldridge

Siblings: 3 sisters, 2 brothers

Hometown: Slocomb, Alabama

Occupation: farmhand

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 6 August 1940 - Fort Benning, Georgia

Training: 

    - Ft. Benning, Georgia

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Units:

    - 753rd Tank Battalion

    - 192nd Tank Battalion

        - volunteered to replace a National Guardsman released from federal service 

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

        - 8 December 1941 - 6 January 1942

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942

            - B Company's tanks guarded one of the few beaches, on the East Coast of Bataan, where the

              Japanese could land troops.  One night, they were involved in a firefight with Japanese landing barges.

              When morning came, not one Japanese soldier had been landed.

        - Battle of the Points - 27 January 1942 - 13 February 1942

            -  Agloloma and Anyasas Rivers Area

            - tanks sent in attacked and disengaged Japanese

            - according to Capt. Alvin Poweleit, the battalion's surgeon, the tanks

              did a great deal of damage 

         - Battle of Tuol Pocket - 23 January - 17 February 1942

            - Japanese trapped behind Filipino-American lines

            - B Company & C Company tanks were sent into pocket to wipeout the

               resistance 

            - Filipino soldiers rode on tanks and dropped grenades into Japanese

              foxholes

            - tanks also would park with one track over foxhole and spin by applying

              power to one track

                - tank spun and its stationary track burrowed into ground 

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1942 

        - 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

Died: 

    - 21 July 1942 - dysentery & malaria

        - Approximate time of death - 1:15 PM

Buried:

    - Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery 

Reburied: 

    - Burns Assembly of God Church Cemetery - Slocomb, Alabama

    - Headstone Date off Death: 24 July 1942 

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