Pvt. Ross Casmo

Hometown: Beach City, Ohio

Inducted:

    -U. S. Army

        - 22 March 1941 - Fort Hayes - Columbus, Ohio

Training:

    - Ft. Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty:

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War:

    - 9 April 1942

        - 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

        - Nichols Field

            - Work: POWs built runways with picks and shovels 

        - Bilibid Prison 

Liberated:

    - 4 February 1945

Promoted: Sergeant

Discharged: 21 August 1945

Reenlisted: 21 September 1950

Discharged: 26 July 1951

Married: Clara

Children: 1 son, 2 daughters

    - Divorced

Remarried: Joanne

Lived: 

    - Columbus, Ohio

    - Lithonia, Georgia

Died: 18 October 1996 -Tyler, Texas

    - cremated

    - ashes interred in the Chapel Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens, Columbus, Ohio

Medals: Awarded Bronze Star - 30 July 1984

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