Pvt. John T. Stanton was the son of John W. Stanton and Susie Severine-Stanton.  He was born in Mansfield, Texas on August 30, 1913, and known as J. T. to his family.  He was one of three children.  When he was two, his family moved to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.  He lived there for the next 27 years until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in March, 1941.  

    John trained at Fort Still, Oklahoma and then Ft. Knox, Kentucky.  After training at Ft. Knox, he was sent with the 753d Tank Battalion to Camp Polk, Louisiana.  It was there that John volunteered to join the 192nd Tank Battalion which was preparing for duty in the Philippine Islands.  Upon joining the battalion, John was assigned to Headquarters Company.  

    John traveled west by train to San Francisco.  There, he boarded a ferry and went to Angel Island.  He and the other men received physicals and inoculations for duty in the Philippine Islands.  They then boarded a transport on October 27, 1941.

    John arrived in the Philippines and was sent to Fort Stotsenburg.  He spent the next two weeks readying equipment for use in maneuvers.  The morning of December 8, 1941, he lived the Japanese attack on Clark Field.  He spent the next four months working to supply the tanks with ammunition and gasoline.

    On April 9, 1942, Capt. Fred Bruni informed the members of HQ Company of the surrender.  John and the other men remained in the camp for two days before they were ordered to move out to the road that passed their encampment.  As they knelt alongside the road, Japanese soldiers took whatever they wanted from J. T.'s and the other men's possessions.  

    HQ Company boarded trucks and drove to Mariveles.  From there, they walked to Mariveles Airfield and sat and waited.  As they sat, John and the other Prisoners of War noticed a line of Japanese soldiers forming across from them.  They soon realized that this was a firing squad and the Japanese were going to kill them.

    As they sat there watching and waiting to see what the Japanese intended to do, a Japanese officer pulled up to the Japanese soldiers in a car.  He got out and spoke to the sergeant in charge of the detail.  The officer got back in the car and drove off.  The Japanese sergeant ordered the soldiers to lower their guns.  

    Later in the day, John was moved to a school yard in Mariveles.  In the school yard, they found themselves between Japanese artillery and guns firing from Corregidor and Ft. Drum.  Shells began landing among the POWs who had no place to hide.  Some of the POWs were killed from incoming shells.

    The POWs were ordered to move by the Japanese.  J. T. and the other men had no idea that they had started what became known as the death march.  During the march he received no water and little food.  At San Fernando, he was put into a steel boxcar and taken to Capas.  From Capas, J. T. walked the last few miles to Camp O' Donnell. 

    It is not known if J. T. went out on a work detail.  What is known that he was transferred to Cabanatuan when the new camp opened.  It was at Cabanatuan that Pvt. John T. Stanton died on August 30, 1942 at approximately 7:30 AM.  According to the telegram received by his parents, J. T. died of malaria, but the final report on the 192nd Tank Battalion has J. T. dying of dysentery and a back injury.  

    After the war, the U. S. Army attempted to identify the remains of all Americans who died as POWs.  Since John's remains and the remains of the two men he had been buried with could not be separated, it was decided that they would be buried in a common grave.  

    Having received a request that the remains of one or more of the men be returned to the United States, the men were reburied at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Kentucky.  The reason this location was selected was that it was the most centrally located national cemetery.  By burying the men there meant that each family would have to travel approximately the same distance to visit the grave.

    On February 24, 1950, the remains of Pvt. John T. Stanton, 2nd Lt. George W. Porter and Pvt. Wesley L. Thompson were reburied with full military honors at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.  The photograph below shows their grave.