Sgt. Lawrence J. Jordan

     On November 25, 1940, Larry was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, with his company.  The new name of his unit was Company B, 192nd Tank Battalion.  At Fort Knox, Larry was  taught to operate all the equipment used by the company.  During this time Larry became a tank commander.

    During his time at Ft. Knox, Larry participated in boxing.  He fought fellow B Company member, John Cahill for the Kentuckiana Welter-weight Title.  Larry had been a Catholic Youth Organization Inter-City Boxing Champion in Chicago.  

    Larry next went on maneuvers with his company at Camp Polk, Louisiana.  With the other members of Company B, on the side of a hill, he learned that he was not being released from federal service but being sent overseas.  Larry was sent to the Philippine Islands in October of 1941 and arrived  there on Thanksgiving Day, 1941. 

     When the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, just ten hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Larry lived through the Japanese attack on Clark Field.  During the attack, the tankers fought the best they could with weapons not designed to fight airplanes.

    On December 21, 1941, Larry's tank platoon was given orders to engage the Japanese who were landing troops at Lingayen Gulf.  Larry was the tank commander of the third tank in the column.  The next day, the platoon's tanks came into contact with the Japanese.  Because the road was surrounded by rice paddies, the tanks were restricted to the road.

    The tanks came under heavy enemy fire.  During the attack the tank of Larry's commanding officer, 2nd Lt. Ben Morin, was knocked out.  The remaining tanks attempted to come to his aid but withdrew because of the heavy fire.

     With the other members of Company B, Larry fought the Japanese on Bataan for four months buying  time for the Allies and preventing the Japanese invasion of Australia.  Two days before Filipino-American Forces on Bataan surrendered, Larry received a telegram from his family.  It would turn out to be the only news he would receive from home for the next three and a half years as a Prisoner of War.

     When Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1942, at the age of 21, Larry became a Prisoner of War with most of the other members of his company.  He took part in the death march limping the entire length due to shrapnel wounds in one leg.  He was interred at Camp O'Donnell and then selected to rebuild bridges on a work detail under Lt. Col. Theodore Wickord's command.  

    On this detail, Larry and the other POWs heard that ten POWs on another detail at a nearby sawmill had been executed because one man had escaped.  The POWs were forced to dig their own graves and then machine gunned as they stood in the graves.

    One day, Larry and Jim Bashleben were on a break when a guard known as "Nikki" to the POWs began to ask them questions about their homes.  Nikki looked at Larry and Bashleben and told each man that after the war was over, he was going to visit each man at his home.  Under his breath, Larry said to Bashleben that if Nikki showed up at his front door, a bullet would be waiting for him.

    After the detail was completed, Larry was sent to Cabanatuan and then Nichols Field to build runways.  He again returned to Cabanatuan most likely because of illness.  

    In the fall of 1943, Larry was sent to Japan on the Canadian Inventor on July 4, 1944.  The ship sailed but returned to Manila because of boiler problems  After repairs had been made, on July 16th, the ship sailed again.

    During the trip to Formosa, the Canadian Inventor again experienced boiler problems.  The other ships in the convoy left it behind to make the trip alone.  It arrived at Takao, Formosa on July 23rd.  It remained there for ten days.  While in port, salt was loaded onto the ship.  

    On August 4th, the Canadian Inventor left Takao and made its way along the west coast of Formosa to Keelung Harbor.  Arriving there on August 5th, it remained in port for twelve days while additional repairs to its boiler were made to its boiler.

    It sailed again on August 17th, and had more boiler problems, north of Formosa, near the Ryuku Islands.  This time it made its way to Naha, Okinawa.  After repairs again were made, it sailed for Moji, Japan.  The trip ended on September 4, 1944 after 62 days when it finally arrived at Moji.  

    In Japan he was held as a prisoner at the Nagoya #3-B until the end of the war.  He was 25 years old when he was liberated.  The POWs in the camp were used as labor in the mining and refining of lead and zinc.

     One of the more interesting side stories of World War II involved Larry.  In 1941, Larry was out with a friend, Herbert Hans Haupt.  The two men had attended Lakeview High School in Chicago together.  Haupt suggested that they visit a German Bund club he belonged to.  When they entered the club, Larry knew that being there was a mistake.  From the ceilings of the club hung Nazi flags.  Larry got into an argument with Haupt about Hitler and the Nazis.  One reason for the argument was that Haupt had begun to preach Nazi propaganda to Larry.  Things were said and Larry punched Haupt in the nose.  This was the last time that Larry saw Haupt.

    Harold Hans Haupt would later return to Germany and train as a spy.  During the war, he was landed by submarine on the coast of Florida.  He traveled to Chicago since his family was there.  Haupt's job was to commit acts of sabotage to cripple the American war effort.  To allow Haupt to perform these acts of sabotage, he took Larry Jordan's name off a list of American soldiers being held as POWs by the Japanese.  The Nazis then created false identity papers for Haupt.  Haupt selected the name because he had been friends with Larry in high school.  

    It was at this time that Haupt had a Social Security Card issued with Larry's name on it.  Haupt was unaware that his espionage team had already been betrayed by one if its members.  After Haupt was captured, Larry's mother had to travel to Washington D.C., to testify that Herbert Hans Haupt was not her son.  Haupt was later executed for espionage.  All this took place while Larry was suffering in Japanese POW Camps.

    After Larry was liberated he was told that he was being flown back to the United States instead of taking a troop ship.  Larry teased the other surviving members of B Company that the important people were being flown home while the less important people were being sent home on troop ships.

    On the flight home, the plane Larry was on flew over Chicago.  He began to protest that this was where he was suppose to get off.  Instead, Larry was flown directly to Washington D.C. to give testimony about the Herbert Hans Haupt affair.

    Going on with his life, Larry married and worked as a sales representative in Chicago and Maryland.  He was the father of one child.  Larry returned to Chicago where he died on March 27, 1974.

Return to Company B