A decent source would be John A. Adams book
The Fightin' Texas Aggie Defenders of Bataan & Corregidora total of 89 Aggies served on the islands during the defense
- 30 returned home
- 6 KIA
- 31 died onboard Hell Ships
- 15 died in Camp/ on March
- 2 MIA
- 5 Escaped (4 survived the war, one KIA)
Overall about 2/3 Aggies who were on the islands never saw the States again, the most common cause of death was by being torpedoed while onboard a Japanese Prison Ship called "Hell Ships", these ships were typically not clearly marked as POW ships which resulted in 7 ships being sunk by American planes and Submarines. The worst sinking was the
Arisan Maru on October 21, 1944 she had roughly 1,800 Prisoners and was sunk by the
USS Shark. After the attack, two Japanese destroyers were able to sink the
Shark and then they went back to the wreck to look for survivors. The destroyers refused to rescue any POW's and only rescued the Japanese crew of the transport. Most of the POW's survived the sinking but left to the elements in total 1,791 POW's would perish, including 12 Aggies. The nine survivors were able to make it to mainland China, where four were rescued by US Forces in the CBI theater, 5 were recaptured by the Japanese, with one dying shortly after being captured. In all the sinking of the
Arisan Maru is the largest loss of life in American maritime history.
Another Horrendous ship was the Shinyo Maru with around 750 POW's she was torpedoed on September 7th, 1944, the Captain of the ship grounded her to prevent her from fully sinking . Initially after the torpedoes hit, the guards started dropping grenades and shooting Prisoners who tried to escape as chaos erupted on the ship the POW's onboard tried to swarm and kill the guards on the ship. During the scuffle about 83 POW's were able to swim away and were recovered by Guerillas and would be rescued by the
USS Narwhal, among them were two Aggies :t. Harry Discher '29 and Lt Roy B . Russell '42.The Japanese were also trying to scoop up POW's with around being recovered by a Japanese oil tanker lined up and executed. In total of the 750 POW's 667 would die during the event, including 5 Aggies.
