Rank and Name, Private Charles Marion Wilson Jr.
Unit/Placed in, 31st Infantry Regiment.
Camp Cabanatuan(Pangatian)
(former HQ 91st Philippine army Division)
After the Japanese occupation in 1942, the camp was converted by the Imperial Japanese Army into the Cabanatuan POW Camp. At its height, 8,000 prisoners were detained at this location. The prisoners also included some civilians including one British and one Norwegian citizen. This POW Camp detained prisoners until liberated during the night of January 30, 1945.
The rectangular camp spanned roughly 25 acres and was 800 yards deep by 600 yards wide, divided by a road in the center. The camp consisted of a barracks for Japanese guards, barracks for prisoners, a hospital and water tower enclosed by barbed wire with guard towers.
Charles is born approx. on 28 Jan. 1914 in Christiansburg, Virginia.
Father, Charles Marion Wilson Sr.
Mother, Flora Ellen (Cox) Wilson.
Sister(s), Lilian Virginia, Mary Elizabeth and Helen Marguerite Wilson.
Brother(s), John William, Robert E. Lee, Frank Edwin and William Woodrow Wilson.
Charles enlisted the service in Virginia with service number # 6852931.
Charles died as a POW in Camp Cabanatuan on 14 July 1942, he is honored with a Bronze Star Medal, POW Medal, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal, WW II Victory Medal.
Charles is buried/mentioned at Manila American Cemetery and Memorial Manila, Metro Manila, National Capital Region, Philippines.
Walls of the missing.
Charles is also Mentioned at Cabanatuan Memorial
Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines.
Charles also has a Memorial Grave at West View Cemetery
Radford, Radford City, Virginia, USA.
Thanks to, https://www.familysearch.org
Jean Louis Vijgen, ww2-Pacific.com
Air Force Info, Rolland Swank.
ABMC Website, https://abmc.gov
Marines Info, https://missingmarines.com/ Geoffrey Roecker
Seabees History Bob Smith https://seabeehf.org/
Navy Info, http://navylog.navymemorial.org
POW Info, http://www.mansell.com Dwight Rider and Wes injerd.
Philippine Info, http://www.philippine-scouts.org/ Robert Capistrano
National Historian
Navy Seal Memorial, http://www.navysealmemorials.com
Family Info, https://www.familysearch.org
Info, https://www.pacificwrecks.com/
Medals Info, https://www.honorstates.org
Website,
Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com
Tank Destroyers, http://www.bensavelkoul.nl/
Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor and food and water supplied extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war.
Private Charles M. Wilson joined the U.S. Army from Virginia and was a member of Company K, 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured in Bataan following the American surrender on April 9, 1942, and died of malaria and dysentery on July 14, 1942, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Private Wilson is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
