2RHPZ
05-30-2005, 03:00 PM
Cpl. Bill McMillan captured at Corregidor
05/30/05
When Debbie McMillan, of Port Charlotte, was just a kid, maybe 8 or 10 years old, her father taught her and her sister how to count from one to 10 in Japanese. After 40 months and nine days as a Japanese slave laborer during World War II, Cpl. Bill McMillan spoke the language well enough to survive.
Her father served in the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry. He was a coastal artilleryman stationed on Corregidor in the Philippines when the Emperor's forces overwhelmed Gen. Douglas MacArthur's troops in May 1942. He almost made the infamous "Bataan Death March," where hundreds of captured Allied soldiers were killed on the grueling 65-mile trek without food or water.
Her dad passed away in July 2002, four days before his 83rd birthday. Since his death, she has collected all his medals and ribbons, dog tags, honorable discharge paper, a number of newspaper stories written about him, dozens of letters he and her mom wrote each other during the war --some were just a couple of words in pencil on a Red Cross-provided card when he was a POW.
http://www.sun-herald.com/Graphics/headersunhead.gif (http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/053005/tp1ch6.htm?date=053005&story=tp1ch6.htm)
05/30/05
When Debbie McMillan, of Port Charlotte, was just a kid, maybe 8 or 10 years old, her father taught her and her sister how to count from one to 10 in Japanese. After 40 months and nine days as a Japanese slave laborer during World War II, Cpl. Bill McMillan spoke the language well enough to survive.
Her father served in the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry. He was a coastal artilleryman stationed on Corregidor in the Philippines when the Emperor's forces overwhelmed Gen. Douglas MacArthur's troops in May 1942. He almost made the infamous "Bataan Death March," where hundreds of captured Allied soldiers were killed on the grueling 65-mile trek without food or water.
Her dad passed away in July 2002, four days before his 83rd birthday. Since his death, she has collected all his medals and ribbons, dog tags, honorable discharge paper, a number of newspaper stories written about him, dozens of letters he and her mom wrote each other during the war --some were just a couple of words in pencil on a Red Cross-provided card when he was a POW.
http://www.sun-herald.com/Graphics/headersunhead.gif (http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/053005/tp1ch6.htm?date=053005&story=tp1ch6.htm)