Pvt. Willis C. Vincent

Parents: Unknown

    - Aunt & Uncle: Walter W. Vincent & Anna Bateman-Vincent

    - 1930 - living with another aunt & uncle

Home: Medford, Oregon

Inducted:

    - U. S. Army

        - 16 September 1940 - Medford, Oregon

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 and revetments with picks and shovels 

        - Cabanatuan 

Liberated:

    - 31 January 1945 - U. S. Army Rangers

Promoted: corporal

Discharged: 8 December 1945

Died:

    - 13 February 1975 - Multnomah County, Oregon

Buried:

    - Williamette National Cemetery - Portland, Oregon

        - Section:  L   Site:  4224

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