[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 189 (Wednesday, October 27, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1153-E1154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RECOGNIZING THE LIFE OF WALTER GANN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TRENT KELLY

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 27, 2021

  Mr. KELLY of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate 
the life and service of Corporal Walter Gann, an American hero from 
Mississippi, who defended liberty against impossible odds in the 
Pacific during World War II.
  Walter, born in Calhoun City on January 31, 1922, joined the U.S. 
Army on July 3, 1941. By July 15, he was aboard the USS Coolidge 
deployed to the Philippines as a member of the Army Signal Corps 
assigned to 409th Signal Company (Aviation) at Nichols Field outside 
Manila. The plan was to erect radar towers, but none of the equipment 
needed arrived on the ship with them.
  Imperial Japan attacked the Philippines on December 8 and all the 
critical airfields were destroyed by December 10. Walter's company and 
the airmen were soon sent on combat

[[Page E1154]]

duty in the Bataan Peninsula. He was assigned to U.S. Army Forces Far 
East (USAFFE) headquarters at Little Baguio near the tip of Bataan.
  The troops on Bataan, running out of ammunition, food, and medicine, 
with no hope of resupply or reinforcement, were surrendered by their 
commanding officers on April 9, 1942. Walter was among 86,000 American 
and Filipino prisoners of war who were forced on what became known as 
the infamous Bataan Death March, one of World War II's worst war 
crimes. In the tropical sun, deprived of food, water, and mercy, the 
men trekked 65 miles up Bataan to a train station. There they were 
packed standing 100 to a boxcar for the next 24 miles. Men died where 
they stood. Survivors marched another eight miles to their first POW 
camp, O'Donnell.
  Walter, POW No. 203, was shipped to Japan in July 1943 packed in the 
dark, fetid hold of the hell ship Clyde Maru with 500 other POWs. He 
was sent to be a slave laborer at Fukuoka No. 17 POW Camp attached to 
the Mitsui-owned Miike coal mine in southern Japan close to Nagasaki. 
Starved, beaten, and denied medical care, he was forced to dig coal in 
a primitive mine until the camp was liberated in September 1945. The 
coal mine is now a UNESCO Industrial World Heritage site, albeit 
without mention of the thousands of POWs held there or that the mine 
had remained reliant on manual labor and not modem machinery.
  Although asked to testify in Japan at the war crime trials held from 
1946 to 1948, Mr. Gann could not return because he remained too sick 
from the various illnesses he suffered from during his three and one-
half years as a POW. For the remainder of his life, Walter bore the 
weight of all the horror and inhumanity he had witnessed. When he was 
able to work, Walter was a truck driver.
  In 1949, Walter moved to Booneville, Mississippi, and married Juanita 
Goddard. Together they raised four children. In 1963, he lost both his 
wife and his stepson. In his later years, he lived in Chattanooga, 
Tennessee, until he passed away on October 14, 1980.
  During his lifetime, Walter was awarded the Good Conduct Medal, the 
Purple Heart, the World War II Victory Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific 
Campaign Medal with one bronze campaign star, the American Defense 
Service Medal with one bronze campaign star, and the Philippine Defense 
Medal. He also received a letter from President Harry S. Truman 
thanking him for his service. Posthumously, he received the Bronze Star 
Medal for meritorious achievement, the Prisoner of War Medal, and the 
Presidential Unit Citation with two Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters.
  I am grateful for Corporal Walter Gann's commitment to faith, family, 
and democracy. I am humbled by his sacrifices for our country.

                          ____________________