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Post by chadhill on Jul 13, 2012 6:29:11 GMT 8
Karl, as far as the Geary deaths, 31 men died on 1/6/42 while taking cover in an unfinished bomb shelter near Battery Geary. wwalker has done interesting research on this and posted some findings in one of Geary threads. Strangely, I did a cursory check in the Belote's and Morris books and could find nothing. Even Morton has only two sentences on it, not even mentioning the unit.
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Post by armyjunk on Jul 13, 2012 11:17:13 GMT 8
USED is United States Engineer Department, the other I have no idea.
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Post by chadhill on Jul 14, 2012 2:19:32 GMT 8
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Post by wwalker on Jul 14, 2012 9:17:46 GMT 8
Hello,
Thanks for the compliments Chad. Although I made the original post/inquiry about the bomb shelter incident of Jan. 06, 1942, the thread was really brought to life with the exploration and information from Fots2 and Mr. Kearbey. I originally learned about this tragedy from another veteran of Battery H (Geary) 59th Coast Artillery years ago. It was a tremendous morale set-back for the battery, and most of the men killed were those soldiers that had been trained with the 12" mortars.
It is sparsely mentioned in the great books about Corregidor, and this originally made it difficult to learn many of the details. Although many people learned about this incident on the island after it occurred, I believe it was kept somewhat "hush" to much of the garrison on The Rock. Perhaps it was done so to keep morale up. I really don't know, and my assumptions on that could be entirely false. That's just how it appears to me at this point in my research.
According to Mr. Kearbey, the shelter was actually completed. In many of the books and official records it states that it was an "incomplete" bomb shelter. The soldiers of Battery Geary found a concrete slab base of a building in which seems to be building 103 on the old Corregidor maps. They dug an earthen room underneath it, shoveled the dirt, and then put it on top of the concrete slab for camouflage. When the bomb hit beside the shelter it collapsed it "sideways". The men inside of the shelter were crushed and suffocated. Somehow three were gotten out alive. I'm not sure who these men were that survived.
For a complete list of those that were killed that day, you can visit the thread address that Chad posted earlier in this thread.
WW
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Post by Bob Hudson on Jul 27, 2012 9:33:25 GMT 8
Gentlemen, I have to rely on your expertise about Corregidor of which I know very little. I have thousands of documents from my research most of which I have paid scant attention to. Since I retired and moved to Bataan, I have had more time to comb through the attic and hence dropping off some stuff here on this site. Since so much information is available on personnel involved in combat in the Philippines and their subsequent capture, one must specialize in a single area which I have done for the past five years producing two databases involving Bilibid prison. Those two databases can be found at: battlingbastardsbataan.com/bob1.htmand www.west-point.org/family/japanese-pow/BLR.htm. I do have some Ft. Mills rosters in the dust bin of my hard drive which I am sure exists somewhere within the treasures held by individuals in this community. But one never knows and I would be willing to share should anyone wish to see them, however, it will take a fair amount of combing to find them.
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Post by EXO on Jul 27, 2012 17:47:17 GMT 8
Bob, What an extraordinary thing that database is! I looked up two men whose details are familiar to me, and there were their names, plain as day looking back at me, and the sadness of their transit through Bilibid. (One was on Arisan Maru.) Check your West-Point link will you, I got a 404 Not Found return on it. Can a file such as at corregidor.org/taps/control/kia_full_listing.htm be converted easily into such a database? Is it done by MS Excel?
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Post by JohnEakin on Jul 27, 2012 23:54:45 GMT 8
EXO - that's another little pearl I had no idea existed. What else you gotten hidden around here? <G>
Putting databases on line is not to big of a deal if the host server has database software installed. Each server is a little different and I've never really gotten in to that, but in most cases I can convert .txt or .htm files to various types of database files if that will help.
Bob - any more casualty information hidden away in your digital attic?
FWIW, so far, I've identified 36 X files from Corregidor and 522 from Bataan and surrounding provinces (except O'Donnell and Cabanatuan, 112 and 700 files respectively). It is sometimes possible to match these X files to a name if a casualty roster is available and someone knows the history and terrain of the area. <hint, hint>
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Post by okla on Jul 28, 2012 0:07:56 GMT 8
Hey EXO...Don't you find it amazing, even with the world crumbling around them and everything going to Hell in a hand basket, that the Special Orders, Morning Report, Personnel Clerks managed to keep churning out the paperwork. There is, somewhere on this Forum, a death report of a Corregidor defender, noting "head wound or stomach wound", etc and other details. If memory serves, the date was only the day previous to the final fight. It just seemed that the "pencil/paper pushers" labored to the end, much as did the guys pulling the triggers. The famous photo of the Finance Section in Malinta, again if memory serves, was taken only a couple of days prior to the "last stand". "Payroll must be calculated, recent promotions notated with the appropriate raises in pay, and lastl but certainly not least, deaths recorded and insurance beneficiaries taken care of. All these mundane things seemed to go on right down till the first Japanese walked into the East Portal. Amazing, methinks.
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Post by Karl Welteke on Jul 29, 2012 20:15:40 GMT 8
Hello Bob Just now looked at your spread sheet you posted in the Battling Bastard of Bataan web pages with the 10, 000 plus names of POWs. It is posted in reply #14. I hate to think how many hours you spend making it up. It must have been real beneficial to a lot of survivors and family members. You really done a great job, thanks.
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Post by Bob Hudson on Jul 30, 2012 9:38:44 GMT 8
Karl,
You have no idea how long that took to type, especially since I type with my two index fingers. Yes..it has given previously unknown information to several hundred descendants. All retrieved from the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Funny thing is I found this information in a file marked "POW's repatriated through the Port of Nagasaki. God knows where other missing information lies.
Thanks
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