Pfc. John Lowery Striplin


Born: 5 February 1910 - McKinney, Texas

Parents: Robert H Striplin & Josie Gilmore-Striplin

    - family lived in Helen and Geronimo, Oklahoma

Siblings: 4 sisters, 6 brothers

Home: Los Angeles, California

Enlisted: California National Guard

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 29 March 1941 - Los Angeles

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

    - Cabanatuan

Died:

    - 21 November 1942 - pellagra

        - Approximate time of death - 7:00 PM

Buried:

    - American Military Cemetery - Manila, Philippine Islands

Posthumously Promoted to Corporal


 

 

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