ord510
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Posts: 169
AZ
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Peter,
While Henry has a 1945 enlistment date, he could have been fighting as a guerrilla, unless it can be proven he was outside the Philippines during the fighting there. I have run into Filipinos who never left the Islands, yet had enlistment records like Henry with stateside places of enlistment. I am thinking he, like a lot of Filipinos, enlisted in the US Army in the early months of 1945. Even tlhough he was always in the Philippines. The Army ran a lot of these enlistments through Montana and the individual never left the Philippines.
Because the 70,000 man Filipino Army didn't have paper work (I understand a lot of 1st Sgts in the Filipino Army couldn't read or write), there is a very good chance Henry went through the Death March. A lot of these 1945 enlistments saw duty in the occupation of Okinawa after the war.
NARA, aad, has WW II Records on POWs. Ancestry.com has the same records but you have to pay. Sometimes I get the record from both, generally though a record is gotten from only one of them. I belong to Ancestry.com and use NARA, aad to keep Ancestry honest, so to speak. My wife is from Mexico and my children went to school there when I had a house. So they are bilingual. When I saw Henry I thought he enlisted under Enrique (the Spanish name for Henry) and sure enough.
As far as determining who went through the Death March that is a tricky subject as there is no paperwork to verify it. Because he enlisted in 1945 there is a very good reason to believe he fought before he enlished. He was old enough. From what I have heard they formed up the Filipino Army, everyone had to go, unless he had pull, then they made him an officer.
There were a group of Filipiinos that came from an island near Cebu and after the Surrender and their release (1942)they had no where to go. Didn't speak the dialect and from what I read,l they were causing trouble and all they wanted was to go home. I forget but I think the Japs could care less and it was the Guerrillas that enlisted who they could and got the rest home.
Regards,
Tom McGeeney
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