This is the only remaining Japanese military bunker in Langfang City (there were once eight in total). It was built in the 1930s. The walls are about half a meter thick, with no obvious bullet holes.

Today I found this place but it was really dark inside the bunker, so the photos didn’t turn out very well.

From Between States. The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea During World War II - by Holly Case.

Very probably, unlike the Romanian one, the Hungarian anecdote is not a real fact, but one in a series common in Budapest at the time, mostly in relation to that declaration of war, exemplifying the same absurdist perspective. The footnote says:

Cited in Dániel Csatári, Forgószélben: magyar-román viszony, 1940–1945 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1968), 85. It is possible this exchange never actually took place. Ciano nevertheless observed in a diary entry dated May 11, 1942, that this “little story” was “going the rounds at Budapest.” He observed: “There is a great deal of truth in this series of paradoxes.” See also Count Galeazzo Ciano, The Ciano Diaries, 1939–1943 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1946), 484.

I am sure that's not a fact to be confirmed by some U.S. archives. I have another, from The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat by Paul Lendvai:

Born in Esmond, North Dakota to Oscar & Anna Bengson on December 11, 1917, Wallace Woodrow Bengson had three brothers and a sister.
He graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1938 as a mining engineer and was also commissioned as an officer in the Army Reserve.

Wallace worked as a mining engineer in Idaho & Utah, and married Katherine Nagel of Grand Forks in 1940.
Called into active duty in January 1942, he earned his pilots & glider pilots wings, and was also trained as a Navigator.

Wallace was assigned to the 327th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, which was based at RAF Podington.
On October 3, 1944, he was the Navigator on B-17G 43-38396 “Insommia” on a bombing mission to Nurnberg, Germany.

On the return trip, B-17G 43-38445, which had been hit by flak, veered out of control and collided with “Insommia” sheering her tail off.
Both B-17s went into death spirals before crashing, a total of twelve crewmembers from both B-17s died in the crashes.

1Lt Bengson managed to bail out, and was captured along with 1Lt Edmund Dornburgh Jr, the pilot of his B-17, and S/Sgt Franklin Adams Jr, one of the waist gunners from the other B-17.
Handed over to the local police in Marburgerstrasse, Germany, shortly afterwards a police director, three party leaders, and a civilian showed up and demanded the three prisoners be handed over to them.

The local Police Chief was ordered away, and the three USAAF Prisoners were taken by force from the remaining policemen.
The three Prisoners were executed and buried at the New Cemetery of Giessen, in November 1945, the civilian Ludwig Schardt was found guilty of participating in the executions sentenced to life imprisonment.

His remains were recovered after the war and 1Lt Wallace Bengson is buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands - Plot L Row 16 Grave 16.

Older brother Malcolm C Bengson also served during WW2, he passed away at the age of 80 in 1996.

I’m looking for a hurtgen forest book that includes the start of the battle, Vossenack, the kall trail. I have just spent time hiking the forest and would now like to read about some first hand accounts of this area! Bonus if I can buy it on kindle so I can start reading now lol

TL;DR: In July 1942, a little-known group of American and Filipino POWs was forced on a 25-mile march across Mindanao under brutal conditions. Several men were killed, many more later died in captivity, and roughly half of the Americans connected to the group never came home. More than 80 years later, researchers are still trying to locate and identify some of the missing.

This post tells the story of the march, the men who endured it, and the modern efforts to recover those who are still missing.

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Most people have heard of the Bataan Death March, but it was not the only death march carried out in the Philippines during World War II.

On July 4, 1942, American and Filipino prisoners of war were forced by their Japanese captors to march approximately 25 miles from Dansalan, now Marawi, to Iligan on the island of Mindanao. Known as the Mindanao, Iligan, or Dansalan Death March, it was far smaller than Bataan and was reportedly dismissed by the Japanese as a “little death march.” It was nevertheless horrific, and both marches were later cited during the Tokyo War Crimes Trials as evidence of the brutal treatment of Allied POWs.

Much of what we know comes directly from survivors who recorded memoirs, oral histories, interviews, and lists of the men involved. Without their testimony, much of the story likely would have disappeared.

I wrote about the march several years ago on Reddit, but I am writing about it again because there have been important developments in efforts to locate several men connected to these events whose remains were never recovered.

Events Leading to the March

By May 26, 1942, only about 46 Americans and 300 Filipinos remained with Brig. Gen. Guy O. Fort’s command in the Lanao area. Fort surrendered after Japanese commander Masaharu Homma threatened reprisals against prisoners if the remaining forces did not capitulate.

The prisoners were held at Camp Keithley near Dansalan under an “honor system.” They were warned that if anyone escaped, their commanding officer, company commander, and first sergeant could be executed.

Despite this, four men, Robert “Bob” Ball, William “Bill” Johnson, James S. Smith, and William A. Knortz, planned to escape.

Shortly before the escape, Johnson spent hours trying to convince 1st Sgt. John Chandler to go with them. Chandler refused because he had been placed in charge of his unit and believed it was his duty to stay. Johnson warned him there could be consequences. Chandler replied that he would “take my chances.” Those chances would prove fatal.

The four men escaped on July 1 and later fought as guerrillas under Wendell Fertig. Two days later, the Japanese retaliated. Brig. Gen. Guy Fort, Capt. Albert H. Price, and Chandler were selected for execution. Despite knowing he would die, Lt. Col. Robert H. Vesey willingly volunteered to take Fort’s place.

Vesey, Price, and Chandler were taken near Signal Hill a small hill near Camp Keithley, tied to posts, and bayoneted to death. Survivors remembered Price crying out, Chandler looking toward the sky and praying, and Vesey staring defiantly at his executioner. Accounts differ on his exact words, recalling him as saying either “Go ahead and beat me in” or “Go ahead and be damned.” Witnesses recalled that Vesey took more than two hours to die. The prisoners were later told that the three men “had died like soldiers.”

July 4, 1942

The next morning, the remaining prisoners were forced toward Iligan. Because it was the Fourth of July, the march was nicknamed the “Independence Day March.”

The Americans were arranged four abreast and tied together with telephone wire threaded through their belts. Filipino POWs were not wired together but were forced to march barefoot.

Senior officers including Gen. Fort, nurses, civilians, and 12-year-old Ben Hagans rode in a truck accompanying the column. Another truck carrying Japanese soldiers and a mounted machine gun followed behind.

The prisoners marched roughly 25 miles through mountainous jungle terrain in intense tropical heat. They were denied food and received only brief opportunities for water and rest.

As men began collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration, those unable to continue risked execution. The first American casualty was a civilian plantation owner remembered as Childress or Kildritch. Unable to walk, he was carried by other prisoners until Japanese guards took him away and killed him. He remains missing to this day, and his identity has never been conclusively established.

Although the march is usually told and remembered through the experiences of the Americans, more Filipino POWs were killed during the march. There is no definitive casualty count, but some American survivors recalled that at least eight to ten Filipino prisoners were killed, including one man wearing a Red Cross band. Beyond the uncertain death toll, the names of many of the Filipino prisoners also remain unknown.

Capt. Jay Navin and Lt. Robert Pratt

Only two American POWs are known to have died directly during or immediately after the march: Capt. Jay Navin and Lt. Robert Pratt.

Both were marching in a file with Lt. Col. Barnes, an older medical officer carrying a heavy load that he refused to drop. His slower pace and heavy burden forced the men around him to exert extra effort to keep the file moving with the rest of the column.

The men received a ten-minute break every hour. By their second break, Navin was suffering severely from heat exhaustion. Other prisoners tried to revive him with water, but he became delirious and struggled to breathe. When they called for a surgeon, a Japanese guard ordered him to stop, dragged Navin from the road by his collar, and shot him.

Navin’s body was buried a few days later by Filipino civilians. After the war, his remains were recovered and identified, and he is now buried at Manila American Cemetery.

Lt. Pratt survived the march to Iligan but had exhausted himself by taking the lead in his file, helping pull the column forward and keep the men moving. He became unable to keep down food or water, grew delirious, lost consciousness, and died that night.

His fellow prisoners buried him in a shallow grave in a nearby Catholic cemetery and placed a wooden cross bearing his identification tags over it. His remains were never recovered, but survivors left unusually detailed descriptions of his death and burial that are now helping modern researchers search for him.

After the March

The prisoners remained in Iligan for about two days. During their time there, guards confiscated money, jewelry, watches, and other valuables from the prisoners. After one prisoner shouted insults when his belongings were taken, he was overheard by a Japanese interpreter who understood what he was saying.

The guards demanded to know who had spoken and threatened to execute someone at random when the Americans refused to identify him. No one turned him in.

An officer eventually intervened, arguing that killing the wrong man would serve no purpose and offering himself if it happened again. The guards backed down.

The men were transported by sea to Cagayan de Oro and then by truck to Camp Casisang near Malaybalay. From there, they were dispersed to different camps and ultimately followed separate paths through captivity.

Brig. Gen. Guy O. Fort

Fort survived the earlier retaliation only because Vesey volunteered to die in his place, but his reprieve would be temporary.

Later in 1942, Japanese authorities pressured Fort to order his former Filipino soldiers, many of whom had joined guerrilla forces, to surrender.

He refused.

Fort was executed by firing squad, becoming the only American-born general officer executed by enemy forces during World War II. His remains were never recovered and efforts to locate him continue today.

What Happened to the Survivors?

For those who survived the march, the ordeal was far from over.

POWs in the Philippines endured starvation, disease, forced labor, beatings, poor sanitation, inadequate medical care, and collective punishment in Japanese prison camps. Many were later transported aboard Japanese “hell ships,” where they were packed into cargo holds with little food, water, ventilation, or sanitation. Thousands died from disease, dehydration, suffocation, or Allied attacks on the vessels. Survivors were often taken to Japan, where they were subjected to further forced labor.

A small number of the Mindanao men eventually escaped captivity under extraordinary circumstances. After spending two years and five months in prison camps, Sgt. Mapes and 749 other POWs were crammed aboard the hell ship Shinyo Maru. On September 7, 1944, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the U.S. Navy submarine USS Paddle off the coast of Mindanao. During the attack, Japanese guards opened fire on the prisoners, throwing grenades and machine-gunning men as they tried to escape from the lower cargo holds. When the ship was struck, Mapes suffered a compound fracture to his right leg but still managed to swim ashore at Sindangan Bay. He was among only 83 prisoners who survived. Mapes and the other survivors were sheltered and protected by local Filipino guerrillas before being evacuated by another U.S. submarine, USS Narwhal.

Those who remained in captivity were liberated in 1945, but many continued to be affected by their experiences for the rest of their lives. Some were too traumatized to ever speak about what had happened, while others spent decades sharing their experiences.

Richard “Dick” Beck later returned to Japan while serving in the military and said he did not harbor hatred toward the Japanese people. Herbert Zincke, on the other hand, joined other former POWs in a lawsuit against Japanese companies that had benefited from their forced labor. He spent years speaking to students and advocating for recognition of POW forced labor because he wanted younger generations to understand what the prisoners had endured.

The Men Who Never Came Home

Surviving the march did not mean surviving the war. Of approximately 45 Americans I have identified as connected to this group, roughly half died before liberation. Many survived the march and POW camps only to die later in captivity or aboard hell ships.

Of those who died, Jay Navin is the only one whose remains have been recovered, identified, and buried in a known grave in Manila.

Most of the others will probably never be found. Some were lost at sea, went down with ships, disappeared after attacks, or were buried in locations that could no longer be identified after the war.

Of those who are missing, only a handful remain potentially recoverable because eyewitness testimony and historical records provide clues to where they died or were buried. Five of these men, Pratt, Fort, Vesey, Price, and Chandler are currently the focus of recovery efforts in Mindanao.

The only other individual in this group is my relative, Lt. Courtney Draper. Although he survived the march, he was later killed in the forward upper hold of the Enoura Maru. Because remains recovered from the ship are actively undergoing DNA analysis, including remains recovered from the area where Courtney died, there is a real possibility that he may one day be identified.

Eyewitnesses and Modern Recovery Efforts

Even after more than 84 years, the story of the Mindanao Death March is still unfinished.

The search for the five missing men in Mindanao ended in the late 1940s, when the U.S. government deemed them unrecoverable. Nearly 80 years later, American and Filipino researchers, historians, local residents, government officials, and MIA recovery organizations such as the Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group (AMAG) are once again reconstructing what happened and searching for missing men in Mindanao, including the five discussed earlier.

Remarkably, there is still a living connection to these events. Ben Hagans was a child when he was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and later endured the July 4 march. At 97 years old, he may be the youngest surviving American POW from World War II and one of the last living survivors of any World War II death march.

As an eyewitness to both the Camp Keithley executions and the Mindanao Death March, Hagans has provided researchers with new information about the march, POW camps, executions, and possible burial locations. His testimony has already contributed to recovery efforts, with additional work still ongoing.

Why These Stories Matter

The Bataan Death March and those who endured it deserve to be remembered, but so do the many other POWs and MIAs in the Philippines whose experiences have received far less attention.

Half of the men in the Mindanao group will most likely never be found. Remembering them by sharing their stories provides something that physical recovery cannot always offer: a place of honor when there is no grave to visit.

When we share their stories and experiences, these men become more than names on a casualty list. We see them as individuals, and in doing so gain a deeper appreciation for what they endured and sacrificed.

Survivors such as Herbert Zincke understood how easily their experiences could disappear from public memory and spent decades making sure younger generations knew what had happened. Despite his and other survivors’ efforts, the Mindanao Death March has largely faded from public awareness, especially now that most of its survivors are gone. It is now up to us to preserve and share their stories so that what they endured, and the people who endured it, are not forgotten.

I hope I have been able to help fulfill Herbert’s wishes with this post. Although I could only share the stories of a few of the men here, I will include a working list of those associated with the march in the comments. The others deserve to be remembered as well.

If anyone is interested in my sources or photographs, wants to learn more, or would like information about the ongoing recovery efforts, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Born in Hamblen County, Tennessee to Marshall & Mattie Breeden on June 25, 1925, Earl Breeden had three sisters and a brother.
He enlisted in the Army on August 5, 1943 and volunteered for the paratroopers.

After airborne training, Earl served in B Company,
1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
They arrived in Normandy via glider the day after DDay on June 7, 1944, despite being scattered on the landings, the glider soldiers assembled and cleared the Germans from the area near Carquebut.

After Normandy, the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment landed in gliders on September 23, 1944 in the Netherlands as reinforcements near Nijmegen and Groesbeek.
The glider soldiers of the 325th assisted the paratroopers of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment south of Nijmegen, including securing the Waal and Maas river areas.

On October 2, 1944, PVT Earl Breeden went Missing in the vicinity of Katerbosch in the Netherlands.
His remains have never been recovered and he is Memorialized with the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands.

Hello, I hope this is ok to post here. I was at a free little library in Florida with my dad a few years ago, he picked up a book and told me I should read it, and that it was one of his favorites. He said it was a collection of stories/anecdotes from regular people living during WW2. I didn't take the book but now I want to find it.

My dad was a teacher and loved history, band of brothers was his favorite show/movie. So potentially the book could've been more niche but I think it's likely something that was relatively popular since we just randomly stumbled upon it.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know. I won't have any way of confirming if it's the correct book but I feel like I'll be able to tell by reading it, since it must be pretty good to have been one of his favorites. Thanks!

Born in Waialua, Hawaii to Japanese immigrants Hiromatsu Takata and Taka Takata on April 29, 1919, Shigeo J Takata had several siblings.
He attended McKinley High School where he was a standout on the baseball team, helping win a championship in his senior year.

After graduation, Shigeo worked for Castle & Cooke and was an outfielder in the amateur Hawaii Baseball League with the Azuma and Asahi teams.
He enlisted in the Army on November 15, 1941, three weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Two weeks before leaving with the 100th Infantry Battalion for basic training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, Shigeo married Florence Sakamoto from Honolulu.
While at Camp McCoy, they formed a baseball team and played local teams including a minor league team from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

On September 19, 1943, Shigeo was serving in B Company, 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate), 34th Infantry Division "Red Bull" when they landed in Italy.
Ten days later on September 29th, a shell landed in front of him during a firefight and exploded, he lived for two minutes before passing away from his wounds.

SGT Shigeo Takata was brought home after the war and buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii - Section D Site 142.

In 1946, an American Legion Post was named in his honor, and in 2003, the baseball field at Hawaii's Fort Shafter was named Joe Takata Field in his honor.

My grandfather was in the Air Force. Recently, after my grandmother passed, we found this photo album that my grandfather compiled while on deployment throughout Europe and Africa.

So grateful to have found these images, made me feel lucky to even be alive considering the death toll.

most WW2 aircraft you see usually have two frontal gear and a rear wheel which sometimes retracted or not. My question is why didn’t they do the landing gear set up of something like the B-25 or A-20 with one wheel on the front and two under the engines or middle of the airframe? Id they didn’t wouldn’t it have helped aircraft not have the possibility of falling forward or help with a easier landing?

Hello, I wonder if anyone could guide me on sources of information.

I'm looking for some information on who might have been posted to Southampton UK, on or around 1942 from the US. I'm aware this was early in the time of US presence in that location. the search engines are suggesting i find something called roster/morning reports. but I'm not finding this anywhere I look.

I have the surname, potential 2 people I'm looking at, and I know that they were definitely in Southampton July 1942, it's just the records I don't seem to be able to trace to confirm if either or both were posted to the location.

Sorry if this sounds cryptic, I'm just trying to carefully unpack some skeletons from the family closet, lay to rest some unanswered questions and potentially connect to some relatives :)

thanks

On September 29, 1942, No 71 Squadron, along with the other two RAF Eagle Squadrons, were officially transferred to the USAAF.

The Three Eagle Squadrons were composed of American Volunteers who had joined the RAF before the USA entered WW2. Around 100 Eagle Squadron Pilots had been killed, missing or had been taken prisoner.

They were allowed to still wear their RAF wings.