- raised in Gladwin County, Michigan

Parents: Manuel Harger & Mattie Conigan-Harger

Family: 2 sisters, 1 brother

Hometown: Fremont, Ohio

    - August 1937 - lived with aunt and uncle

        - Mr. & Mrs. J. W. Harger

    - Work: farmhand

Married: Jean Govitz

Enlisted: 

    - Ohio National Guard - November, 1940

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 25 November 1940 - Fort Knox, Kentucky

Training: 

    - Fort Knox, Kentucky

    - Camp Polk, Louisiana

Overseas Duty: 

    - Fort Stotsenburg, 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 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

            - POWs built runways and revetments with picks and shovels 

        - Bilibid Prison

Died:

    - 19 January 1943 - dysentery

Buried:

    - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands