Pfc. Salvador J. Montero

Home: Monterey County, California

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

            - 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 spigot for entire camp
            - as many as 50 POWs died each day
            - Japanese opened new POW camp to lower death rate   

        - Cabanatuan #1

        - Las Pinas Detail

            - POWs built runways

        - Nichols Field

           - runway construction

Hell Ship:

    - Arisan Maru

        - Boarded: 10 October 1944

        - Sailed: 11 October 1944

        - Arrived: 11 October 1944 - Palawan Island

            - ship hid from American planes

        - Sailed: 21 October 1944

            - returned to Manila to join convoy

        - Sailed: 22 October 1944

        - Sunk: 24 October 1945

            - 1094 POWs died in sinking

            - 9 POWs survived sinking

Memorial:

    - Tablets of the Missing - American Military Cemetery- Manila, Philippine Islands

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