T/5 Joseph E. Willrodt

Parents: Peter & Othelia Willrodt

Siblings: 1 sister, 1 brother

Home: 329 Hawthorne Avenue - Salinas, California

    - family previously resided in Los Angeles, California

Enlisted: California National Guard

Inducted: 

    - U. S. Army

        - 10 February 1941 - Salinas Army Air Base

Training: 

    - Fort Lewis, Washington

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:

    - 7 May 1942 - malaria & dysentery

        - Approximate time of death: 3:00 PM

Buried:

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

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