Pfc. William A. Garrison

Parents: Allen P. Garrison & Mary E. Foster-Garrison

Siblings: 2 sisters

Home: Salinas, California

Enlisted: California National Guard

Inducted:

    - U.S. Army

        - 10 February 1941 - Salinas Army Airfield

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

Units: 

    - 194th Tank Battalion

Overseas Duty: 

    - Philippine Islands

Engagements: 

    - Battle of Luzon

   - Battle of Bataan

Prisoner of War: 

    - 9 April 1942

        - Death March      

            - POWs started march at Mariveles at the souther tip of Bataan

           - POWs ran past Japanese artillery firing on Corregidor

                - American artillery returned fire

                - shells landed among POWs

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

               - boxcars could hold eight horses or forty men 

               - 100 POWs packed into each boxcar

               - POWs who died remained standing

           - Capas - POWs left cars - dead fell to floor

           - POWs walked the 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

            - one water spigot for entire camp 

            - as many as 50 POWs died each day

            - Japanese opened new camp to lower death rate 

        - Cabanatuan

        - Nichols Field

            - POWs built revetments and runways 

                - removed a hill to build runway using picks and shovels 

            - POWs lived in Pasay School about a mile from airfield 

            - reported to have died while on detail 

    Japan:

        - Tanagawa Camp

            - 27 November 1942 - March 1945

        - Fukuoka #8

            - March 1945 - September 1945

Hell Ship:

    Nagato Maru

        - Boarded: 6 November 1942

        - Sailed: Manila - 7 November 1942

        - Arrived: Takao, Formosa - 11 November 1942

        - Sailed: 18 November 1942

        - Arrived: Pescadores Islands - 18 November 1942

        - Sailed: 18 November 1918

        - Arrived: Keelung, Formosa - 18 November 1942

        - Sailed: 20 November 1942

        - Arrived: Moji, Japan - 24 November 1942

Liberated: September 1945

Discharged: 30 March 1946

Married:

Children: 1 son

Residence: Walnut Creek, California

Died:

    - 31 January 1978 - Walnut Creek, California

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