Local 'Death March' Survivor Ends Army Duty
Item
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Title
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Local 'Death March' Survivor Ends Army Duty
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Date Created
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1946-07-12
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Creator
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The Bethlehem globe-times. (Bethlehem, Pa.) 1925-1977
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Identifier
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ww2-11652
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Description
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Clipping extracted from The Bethlehem globe-times pertaining to WWII military personnel from the Lehigh Valley, part of the BAPL WWII Newspaper Clipping Collection.
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Digital Format
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application/pdf
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Clipping
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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Bethlehem Area Public Library
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Contributor
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Entries added in 2013 funded in part with Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries.
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Date Submitted
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2013-04-01
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Type
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Text
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content
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July 12, 1946
Local, ’Death March’ Survivor Ends Army Duty
FORT DIX, N. J. – Cpl. Edwin W. Warfield, 2124 Glendale Ave., Bethlehem, survivor of the “Death March of Bataan,” today received his honorable discharge from the Army at the Separation Center here after more than five years service.
Cpl. Warfield, husband of the former Miss Mildred Frankenfield and son of Mrs. Gertrude Warfield, 603½ N. 6th St., Allentown, was married one week before he entered service, June 7, 1941. His father, Harper Warfield, died two months later.
With the Combat Engineers at Fr. Belvoir, Va., he later transferred to the 803rd Aviation Engineers and went overseas October 4, 1941. Captured on Bataan, he endured a five-day “Death March” without food and was interned in a prison camp. For eight months he was sent out with a “work detail” whose real mission was the hunting down of guerillas and the party killed one American and two Japanese officers. He later worked, barefooted, on a farm, then was taken aboard an open whaleboat which floated over the Pacific for two months, during which time the prisoners were given food and water once daily. In Japan he was put to work in a factory making sulphuric acid, lived in unheated barracks and had to wear rubber sneakers in snow 10 to 15 feet high.
Liberated by American troops on September 6, 1945, he arrived in the U.S. a month later and was a patient for one week in Letterman General Hospital, San Francisco, from which he was transferred to Tilton General Hospital, Fort Dix. He was later processed through “Project J” at Reception Station No. 2 here, receiving a 104-day furlough, including two weeks’ vacation at a Niagara Falls Hotel, accompanied by his wife.
Corporal – now Mister Warfield, plans to resume his former position with Food Fair, Allentown.
