Pvt. Jack D. Driver

Parents: Fred & Ola Driver

    - father died and his mother married W. A. Rider

Home: Clarkwood, Texas

Education: left high school after junior year

Occupation: oilfield roughneck

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 21 March 1941 - Ft. Sam Houston, Texas

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Units:

    - 753rd Tank Battalion

        - assigned to battalion after basic training

    - 192nd Tank Battalion

        - volunteered to replace National Guardsman released from federal service 

Engagements:

    - Battle of Luzon 

        - 8 December 1941 - 6 January 1942

    - Battle of Bataan

        - 7 January 1942 - 9 April 1942

            - Battle of the Points - 27 January 1942 - 13 February 1942

                -  Agloloma and Anyasas Rivers Area

                    - tanks sent in attacked and disengaged Japanese

                    - according to Capt. Alvin Poweleit, the battalion's surgeon, the tanks

                      did a great deal of damage to Japanese troops  

            - Battle of Tuol Pocket - 23 January - 17 February 1942

                - Japanese trapped behind Filipino-American lines

                - B Company & C Company tanks were sent into pocket to wipeout the resistance 

                - Filipino soldiers rode on tanks and dropped grenades into Japanese foxholes

                - tanks also would park with one track over foxhole and spin by applying power to

                  one of the tank's tracks

            - Note: The tankers would strip their uniforms of anything indicating they were

                         members of the tank battalions after the surrender because the Japanese

                         wanted to seek revenge against them

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
            - Japanese opened new POW camp to lower death rate 

        - Cabanatuan #1

Died:

    - 24 June 1942 - dysentery

    - Approximate time of death - 4:00 AM

Buried:

    - Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery

Memorial:

    - Tablets of the Missing - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands

        - buried as an "Unknown" at the cemetery 

Return to C Company