[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 63 (Monday, April 11, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E377]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REMEMBERING PORT CLINTON, OHIO'S COMPANY C MEMBERS IN HONOR OF NATIONAL 
                       FORMER POW RECOGNITION DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 11, 2022

  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise today at the request of members of 
the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society 
regarding National Former POW Recognition Day which took place on April 
9th. The Society notes that this year it ``commemorates the 80th 
anniversary of the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines and 
the Start of the infamous Bataan Death March.'' Port Clinton, a small 
city along Lake Erie in my District, shared 32 of its sons in Company 
C, only ten of whom returned from the Bataan Death March. I am pleased 
to include in the Record the history of the March written by Mindy 
Kotler Smith, a member of the American Defenders of Bataan and 
Corregidor Memorial Society:

       ``Participating in the historic defense of the Philippine 
     Islands were 32 men from Port Clinton, Ohio. They were 
     members of Company C of the 192nd Tank Battalion, an Ohio 
     National Guard unit federalized in late 1940. The 192nd 
     arrived in the Philippines two weeks before Imperial Japan 
     began its invasion of the American territory on December 8, 
     1941--within hours of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
       ``On Dec. 22, 1941, at Lingayen Gulf, the 192nd earned the 
     distinction of taking part in the first `tank-versus-tank 
     battle' of World War II. But it was Company C, on December 
     31st at Baliuag, that won the first American tank battle of 
     the war. At a time when victories were rare, Company C was 
     celebrated stateside.
       ``For four months, on Bataan, American and Filipino forces 
     put up the first significant resistance to Japan's lightning 
     advance though Southeast Asia. Sick, starving, lacking 
     ammunition and without hope of resupply, the American 
     commanders fearing a slaughter surrendered their men to the 
     Japanese on April 9, 1942.
       ``Within hours, those that did not escape to Corregidor--
     the island fortress in Manila Bay--were forced onto the 
     Bataan Death March up the full length of the Bataan 
     Peninsula. The 65-mile trek to a train station in the 
     tropical heat was marked by unimagined cruelty and murder all 
     while food, water, and medicine were withheld by their 
     capturers. For the next 24 miles, they were packed standing 
     into steaming, fetid boxcars. Those still alive were then 
     walked several more miles to a makeshift POW camp that had 
     only two sources of water for some 60,000 POWs.
       ``Of the 100 men of Company C, only six died in combat or 
     on the March. However, 58 died as POWs of Japan in the 
     following three and one-half years of captivity and slave 
     labor. Of the 32 men from Port Clinton, only 10 returned 
     home.
       ``One of the Port Clinton tankers who did not return was 
     25-year-old Sgt. John Robinette. He survived the Battle of 
     Bataan and the Bataan Death March only to succumb to 
     starvation and disease on November 10, 1942 in a POW camp in 
     the Philippines.
       ``Please join me in remembering the men and women on Bataan 
     who gave so much against impossible odds and a relentless 
     enemy. My condolences to all those families of Company C 
     whose loved ones did not return. And I humbly thank all those 
     who fought against tyranny in the Pacific during World War 
     II. Never Forgotten.''

  It has been my privilege throughout the years to meet with survivors 
of the Bataan Death March who hail from Port Clinton. Most recently, in 
2017, residents of Port Clinton turned out en masse to honor John 
Kovach, Jr. whose remains were returned to his surviving sisters, still 
deeply moved 75 years later. Though all of the men have since passed 
on, Bataan Memorial School bears their legacy and yearly honors the men 
who represented the school's namesake. The lives of the men who did not 
survive along with those fortunate to have come home, live in our 
memory, always.

                          ____________________