Sgt. Jennings Bryan Scanlon


Born: 4 July 1922 - Harrodsburg, Kentucky

Parents: Archie B. Jennings & Alma Crews-Scanlon

    - Father owned a general store in Harrodsburg

Siblings: 1 sister, 1 brother

Graduated: Harrodsburg High School - 1938

Enlisted: Kentucky National Guard

    - joined while in high school

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 25 November 1940 - Harrodsburg, Kentucky

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty:

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements:

    - Battle of Luzon

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War: 

   -  9 April 1941

        - Death March

            - Mariveles - POWs started 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 #1

Died: 8 June 1942 - dysentery

            - Approximate time of death - 8:00 A.M.

    - According to Jack Reed, Jennings could not eat the rice that made up the main part of

      the POWs diet - when he died he weighed only 80 pounds

    - Bland Moore and Earl Pratt found Jennings laying partially in the slit trench that served

      as a latrine.  They bathed him and brought it back to the barracks.  He died a few days

      later.

Buried: Spring Hill Cemetery - Harrodsburg, Kentucky - 28 October 1949


 

 

 

Return to Company D