Pfc. Keith D. Lewis

Home: Salinas, California

Enlisted: California National Guard

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 10 February 1941 - Salinas Army Air Base

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

        - Halftrack driver/motorcycle messenger

Unit: 

    - 194th 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 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:

    - 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: 25 May 1942 - malaria & dysentery

Buried:

    - 29 October 1948 - Golden Gate National Cemetery - San Bruno, California

        - Section:  C   Site:  858

Promoted: Sergeant

Note: Wesley Lewis, who died in 2008, shares the headstone with his brother. His name

           appears on the backside of the headstone.

Return to Company C