Japanese military leadership was inattentive to the POWs, preoccupied with completing their conquest of the Philippines. The 71st lacked water at the unfinished camp, so they drew from a stream nearby. Leonard M. Pvt.
Other articles where Camp O’Donnell is discussed: Bataan Death March: The march and imprisonment at Camp O’Donnell: Japanese military leaders had severely underestimated the number of prisoners that they were likely to capture and were therefore unprepared, logistically and materially, for the tens of thousands taken into captivity. Camp O'Donnell is now a camp of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. I worked in Materiel Control and Maintenance Control. Camp O’Donnell is now a camp of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). In all, of the some 22,000 Americans (soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines) captured by Japanese forces on the Bataan Peninsula , only about 15,000 returned to the United states, a death rate of more than 30 percent. Permission granted for educational and research usage with proper Copyright citation. John E. Olson, estimated that some 20-30 more were unrecorded.The American POWs at Camp O'Donnell were moved to new POW camps near Camp O'Donnell was later transferred to the US Air Force and became home to the 3rd Tactical The former internment camp is the location for the A photo of what is believed to be a burial detail at Camp O'DonnellThe number of POWs at Camp O'Donnell is variously estimated and in the case of the Filipinos is little more than a guess. Before the facility was transferred to the US Air Force, it was originally a Philippine Army post and later a United States Army facility. The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains. The number of Americans who died at Camp O'Donnell is not precisely known. This photo shows the POWs at Camp O'Donnell receiving their rations. Latitude: 15° 22' 33.24" N Longitude: 120° 30' 42.84" E I've joined the … The men were then forced to march approximately 70 miles to Camp O'Donnell, a former US Army training camp, which the Japanese had turned into a Prisoner of War (POW) Camp.
The food was given in meager portions. With his three sisters and five brothers, he grew up in Texas and Anadarko, Oklahoma, and attended Fairview School. They had believed the force opposing them in Bataan was much smaller and that the prisoners would number only about 10,000 rather than the 70,000 or more they actually captured. O’Donnell got its name from a family of early Spanish settlers in the late 1800’s. My tour at Camp O'Donnell was definitely my best assignment. The former interment camp is the location for the Capas National Shrine which was built by the Philippine government as a memorial to the Filipino and American soldiers who died there. American prisoners on burial detail at Camp O'Donnell, the terminus of the Bataan Death March, 1942. Many soldiers died during the march and the survivors arrived at Camp O'Donnell in extremely poor condition. They were also told they were captives and not prisoners of war and would be treated as captives. The Japanese took approximately 70,000 prisoners: 60,000 Filipinos and 9,000 Americans. There was no plumbing; water was scarce. The number of Americans dying at the camp has been calculated with some precision, but the number of Filipino deaths is only an estimate.Beckenbaugh, Lisa and Harris, Heather, "Casualties of the Philippines POW Camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan and the history of their burials," "Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. Army," Skelton III, William Paul "American Ex-Prisoners of War", Department of Veterans Affairs, pp.