Choate

Born: 3 December 1918 - Hopkins County, Kentucky

Mother: Artie Choate

Nickname: Piggy

Siblings: 3 brothers, 1 sister

Step-siblings: 2 sisters, 1 brother

Hometown: Madisonville, Kentucky

Married: Margaret Almon

Children: 1 son - Lonnie

Occupation: coal minor & automobile salesman

Inducted:

- U. S. Army

- 22 January 1941

Training:

- Fort Knox, Kentucky

- tank driver

- 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

- Las Pinas work detail - 12 December 1942 - April 1944

- Work: built runways - farmed

- Palawan Island

Died: 14 December 1944 - burnt to death - Palawan Island

Buried: Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery - St. Louis, Missouri