Pvt. Samuel Fields

Mother: Sallie Muskrat

    - Stepfather: Robert Muskrat

Siblings: 1 brother, 1 step-brother, 1 step-sister

    - Native American

Hometown: Stillwell, Oklahoma

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        -17 March 1941 - Oklahoma City

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Units:

    - 753rd Tank Battalion

    - 192nd Tank Battalion

Overseas Duty:

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

    - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War: 

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March

            - Mariveles - POWs start march at southern tip of Bataan

               - POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing on Corregidor

               - American artillery on Corregidor returned fire

            - San Fernando -POWs put into small wooden boxcars used to haul sugarcane

               - each boxcar could hold eight horses or forty men

               -  Japanese packed 100 POWs into each boxcar

               - POWs who died remained standing

            - Capas - POWs left boxcars - dead POWs fell to the floor

            - POWs walked the last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell 

POW Camps: 

    - Philippine Islands: 

        - Camp O'Donnell

           - unfinished Filipino Army training base 

            - Japanese put camp into use as POW camp

            - one water spigot for the entire camp

            - as many as fifty POWs died each day 

            - POWs went out on work details to get out of camp 

        - Cabanatuan

Died: 30 July 1942* - dysentery 

        - Cabanatuan death roster lists his cause of death as cerebral malaria

Died:

     - Approximate time of death: 9:06 A.M.

              * In 1st Lt. Jacques Merrifield's report on the 192nd Tank Battalion, the date of death was

                 reported as 5 July 1942.

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