Pvt. Joe Daniel Blair

Parents: Andrew J. Blair & Lennie L. Kirkendall-Blair

Siblings: 2 sisters, 6 brothers

Hometown: Washington, Missouri

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 1941

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

Units: 

    - 194th Tank Battalion

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War: 

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March

           - started march at Mariveles on southern tip of Bataan
           - POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing at Corregidor
           - San Fernando - POWs put into small wooden boxcars
               - 100 POWs packed into each boxcar
                   - those who died remained standing
           - Capas - living left cars - dead fell out of 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 #1

        - Las Pinas Detail

            - POWs built runways with picks and shovels at Nichols Field

            - housed in Pasay School 

        - Bilibid Prison 

    - Japan

        - Fukuoka #3B

            - POWs worked Yawata Steel Mills

Hell Ship: 

- Clyde Maru

         - Sailed: Manila - 23 July 1943

         - Arrived: Moji, Japan - 9 August 1943  

            - POWs taken by train to Omuta, Kyushu

Liberated: 13 September 1945

Discharged: 10 April 1946

Died: 15 July 1979 - Reeds Spring, Missouri

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