Parents: Laurence & Ruth Weir

Hometown:

    - lived on Bagetto Road in Bazetta Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, in 1930

Occupation: Truck Driver

Wife: Gladys Baker

    - married before he went overseas 

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        -  30 January 1941 - Cleveland, Ohio

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 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

Died:

    - 28 May 1942 - malaria & dysentery

Buried:

    - Camp O'Donnell Cemetery 

Reburied:

    - October 1948 

        - Hillside Cemetery - Courtland, Trumbull County, Ohio
Posthumously promoted: Tec 5

Note: LaVern's wife, Gladys, never remarried