Flippen

What is known about Pfc. Roy Flippen is that he was born in 1917 in Dallas County, Texas to Lon & Virgie Flippen. With his four sisters and two brothers, he would later reside in Ferris, Texas. It is known he was married and was inducted into the U. S. Army on March 21, 1941 in Dallas. Roy did his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Afterwards, he went to Camp Polk, Louisiana where he was assigned to the 753rd Tank Battalion which had just been created.

After the Louisiana maneuvers of 1941, the National Guardsmen in the 192nd who were 29 years old or older were given the chance to resign from federal service. Roy joined the battalion at Camp Polk, Louisiana and assigned to HQ Company.

From Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, Roy traveled to the Philippine Islands. There, he worked on readying the supplies needed by the letter companies of the battalion. On December 8, 1941, Roy lived through the Japanese attack on Clark Air Field. He spent the next four months attempting to get supplies to the tank companies.

On April 9, 1942, Roy became a Prisoner of War when Bataan was surrendered to the Japanese. C Company traveled to Mariveles at the southern tip of Bataan. It was from there that Roy started what became known as the death march.

Roy did the entire march from Mariveles to Capas. There, he and the other prisoners were pushed into boxcars and taken to San Fernando. Those who died remained standing until they fell out as the living climbed out of the cars.

From San Fernando, the POWs walked the last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell. He remained in this camp until Cabanatuan opened in late May. He was then taken to Cabanatuan.

While he was a POW, Roy went out on an work detail to Batangas. On this detail, Roy and the other prisoners built runways or worked on a farm. He later was returned to Cabanatuan and then sent to Manila.

Sometime while he was a POW, Roy was returned to Cabanatuan. He would later go out to Camp Murphy to build runways. On August 20, 1944, he was sent to Bilibid. He was scheduled to sail to Japan on the Noto Maru, but for some reason, possibly illness, his name was scratched from the list of POWs. He remained at Bilibid for another month.

On October 11th, Roy and 1802 other prisoners were taken to the Port Area of Manila. When they arrived they were boarded onto the Arisan Maru. They had been scheduled to sail on the Hokusen Maru, but since some of the POWs from this group had not arrived Roy's group replaced them. The POWs were packed into the ship's first hold which comfortably could hold 400 men. During the first two days, five POWs died.

The ship sailed but instead of heading for Formosa it headed south. Off Palawan Island, the ship anchored in a cove to avoid American planes. During this time, the ship was attacked by American planes. The POWs in the hold realized that the power to the lights had not been turned off, so they hooked the hold's ventilation system into it. For two days they had fresh air until the Japanese turned off the power. The situation grew worse and many of the POWs developed heat blisters. It was at this time that the Japanese opened the second hold and transferred POWs into it. During this transfer, one POW tried to escape and was killed.

The Arisan Maru returned to Manila on October 20th and joined eleven other ships to form a convoy. The ship sailed again on October 21st. The second day at sea the Japanese issued each POW a life jacket. The life jackets would keep a man afloat for two hours. Doing this confirmed the belief held by many of the POWs that they would never reach Japan.

In the South China Sea, the convoy came under attack by American submarines. Since the POW ships were not marked with red crosses to indicate that they carrying POWs, the submarines had no idea that some of the ships were carrying prisoners.

On October 24th, around 5:00 pm, the some POWs were on deck cooking dinner for the other prisoners. Suddenly, they heard sirens and bells. The Japanese guards ran to the bow of the ship and watched as a torpedo went wide of the bow. The guards ran toward the stern of the ship and watched as a second torpedo went wide of the stern. The next two torpedoes hit the ship amidships. The ship shook and stopped dead in the water.

The Japanese guards took their guns and opened fire on the POWs on deck. The POWs dove into the ship's holds. Before the Japanese abandoned ship, the Japanese put the hatch covers over the holds. They did not tie the covers down.

The Japanese abandoned ship, but before they left, they cut the rope ladders trapping the POWs in the holds. Some the POWs in the second hold made it onto the deck and managed to reattach the ladders and dropped them to the men in the POWs in both of the holds.

Since a number of the POWs could not swim, they raided the ship's food lockers. They wanted to die on full stomachs. One group of POWs attempted swim to a Japanese destroyer that was picking up Japanese survivors. When the crew realized the men were Americans, they pushed them away with poles and hit them with clubs.

The ship split into two sections which stayed afloat for hours. Those who could swim attempted to build rafts from what they found on the ship's deck. The exact time of the ship's sinking is not known since it occurred after dark. The survivors stated that as time went on, they heard fewer and fewer cries for help. Then, there was just silence.

Of the 1803 Americans who boarded the Arisan Maru in Manila, only nine survived the sinking. Of these nine men, only eight saw the end of the war. Pfc. Roy Flippen was not one of these men.

Since he was lost at sea, Pfc. Roy Flippen's name appears on the Tablets of the Missing at the American Military Cemetery outside of Manila.