M/Sgt. William Giles Boyd

    It is known that  he married Jacqueline E. Whitlock on May 4, 1929 in Santa Cruz, California.  The couple resided in Alisal, California.  He joined the California National Guard and was called to federal duty on February 10, 1941.  After training at Fort Lewis, Washington, William was sent to San Francisco for overseas duty. 

    Arriving in the Philippine Islands, William spent the next several months readying equipment to be used in maneuvers.  The morning of December 8, 1941, he lived through the Japanese attack on Clark Field.  Being that headquarters company had no weapons to use against planes, William could do little more than watch the attack.

    For the next four months, the 194th fought to slow the Japanese conquest of the Philippines.  On April 9, 1942, William became a Prisoner of War. He took part in the death march and was held as a POW at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan.  In late June 1942, William and other POWs were taken to Manila and boarded onto the Interisland Steamer.  On July 1st, the ship sailed for Davao, Mindanao arriving there on July 9th.

    The POWs on the detail worked on a farm and built runways.  William remained on the detail until June 1944.  At that time, William and other POWs were taken to Cebu City and boarded onto the Teiryu Maru.  The ship sailed for Manila on June 21st arriving on June 24th.  From Manila, he was taken to Bilibid Prison where he was held until October.

   On October 10, 1944, William was boarded onto the Arisan Maru. William was one of 1803 POWs who were packed into the ship's number one hold.  Along the sides of the hold were shelves that served as bunks.  These bunks were so close together that a man could not lift himself up if he was laying in one.  Those standing in the hold had no room to lie down. The latrines for the prisoners were eight five gallon cans.  Since the POWs were packed into the hold so tightly, many of the POWs could not get near the cans.  The floor of the hold was covered with human waste.

    On October 11th, the ship set sail but took a southerly route away from Formosa.  Within the first 48 hours of being boarded onto the ship, five POWs had died.  The ship anchored in a cove off Palawan Island where it remained for ten days.  The Japanese covered the hatch with a tarp.  During the night, the POWs were in total darkness.  Being anchored in the cove resulted in the ship missing an air attack by American planes.

    During the time off Palawan, the ship did come under attack by American planes, but no major damage was done to the ship.  Each day, each POW was received three ounces of water and two half mess kits of raw rice.  Conditions in the hold were so bad, that the POWs began to develop heat blisters.  Although the Japanese had removed the lights in the hold, they had not turned off the power.  Some of the prisoners were able to hot-wire the ship's ventilation blowers into these power lines.  This allowed fresh air into the hold.  The blowers were disconnected two days later when the Japanese discovered what had been done.  

    The Japanese soon realized that if they did not do something many of the POWs would die.  To prevent this, they opened the ship's number two hold and transferred 600 POWs into it.  At this point, one POW was shot while attempting to escape.

    The Arisan Maru returned to Manila on October 20th.  There, it joined a convoy.  On October 21st, the convoy left Manila and entered the South China Sea.  The Japanese refused to mark POW ships with red crosses to indicate they were carrying POWs.  This made the ships targets for American submarines.  The POWs in the hold were so desperate that they prayed that the ship be hit by torpedoes.

    According to the survivors of the Arisan Maru,  on October 24, 1944, about 5:00 pm, some POWs were on deck preparing the meal for those in the ship's two holds.  The ship was near Shoonan, off the coast of China.  Suddenly, sirens and other alarms were heard.  The men inside the holds knew this meant that American submarines had been spotted and began to chant for the submarines to sink the ship.

   The Japanese on deck ran to the bow of the ship.  As the POWs watched, a torpedo passed just in front of the ship.  Moments later, the Japanese ran to the stern of the ship.  A second torpedo passed behind the ship's stern.  There was a sudden jar and the ship stopped dead in the water.  It had been hit by two torpedoes amidships in its third hold where there were no POWs.  It is believed that the submarine that fired the torpedoes was the U.S.S Snook.

    One of the Japanese guards picked up a machinegun and began firing at the POWs who were on deck.  To escape, the POWs dove back into the holds.  After they were in the holds, the Japanese put the hatch covers on the holds but did not tie them down.

    As the Japanese abandoned ship, they cut the rope ladders into the ship's two holds, but they still did not tie down the hatch covers.  Some of the POWs in the second hold were able to climb out and reattached the rope ladders.  They also dropped ropes down to the POWs in both holds.

    The POWs were able to get onto the deck of the ship.  The first thing many of them did was to raid the ship's food lockers.  At this time, few POWs attempted to escape the ship.  A group of 35 POWs swam to a nearby Japanese ship, but when the Japanese realized they were POWs, they were pushed away with poles and hit with clubs.  The Japanese destroyers in the convoy deliberately pulled away from the POWs as they attempted to reach them.

    As the ship got lower in the water, some POWs took to the water.  These POWs attempted to escape the ship by clinging to rafts, hatch covers, flotsam and jetsam.  Most of the POWs were still on deck even after it became apparent that the ship was sinking.  At some point, the ship broke in two.  The exact time of the ship's sinking is not known since it took place after dark.

    Five of the POWs found a abandoned lifeboat, but since they had no paddles, they could not maneuver it to help other POWs.  According to the survivors, men were still on deck when the Arisan Maru sank.  Cries for help could be heard by the survivors.  As the night went on, the cries for help grew fewer and fewer until there was silence.

    M/Sgt. William G. Boyd lost his life when the Arisan Maru was torpedoed in the South China Sea.  Of the 1803 POWs on the ship, only nine survived the sinking.  Eight of these men would survive the war.  Since he was lost at sea, M/Sgt. William G. Boyd's name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the American Military Cemetery outside of Manila.

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