[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15936]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 REMEMBERING LIEUTENANT THOMAS F. BURKHART AND VETERANS OF THE WAR IN 
                              THE PACIFIC

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, this week my constituent Caroline 
Burkhart of Baltimore, MD, is on a historic trip to Japan of 
remembrance and reconciliation. A guest of the Japanese Government, she 
will follow the journey of her father, Thomas F. Burkhart, who was a 
prisoner of war of imperial Japan 75 years ago. Her trip will include a 
visit to the site of the camp in which her father was held as a POW.
  At the start of WWII, Lieutenant Burkhart served in the Philippines 
with the Headquarters Company of the 45th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, 
an elite U.S. Army unit composed of American officers and Filipino 
enlisted men. After Japan's December 8, 1941, invasion of the 
Philippines, his battalion helped defend the withdrawal of American 
forces on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula. Barely a month after being 
promoted to first lieutenant, on January 24, 1942, Lieutenant Burkhart 
earned a Silver Star for ``Gallantry in Action'' at the Battle of 
Abucay Hacienda, January 15 to 25, 1942, which maintained the first 
battle position on Bataan.
  Sick with malaria, Lieutenant Burkhart was in the open-air general 
hospital No. 1 near the tip of Bataan when Major General Edward King 
surrendered the peninsula to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. Soon 
thereafter, the patients were taken by truck, boxcar, and foot up to 
Camp O'Donnell, an overcrowded, makeshift POW camp. In early June, the 
Japanese, fearing the deaths of the prisoners from the horrific 
conditions in the camp, began to release their Filipino POWs and 
transfer the others to a new facility at Cabanatuan. It is estimated 
that 1,550 Americans and 22,000 Filipinos died at Camp O'Donnell, the 
overwhelming majority within the first 8 weeks.
  On November 6, 1942, Lieutenant Burkhart was among 1,500 prisoners 
packed into the coal bunker of the unmarked ``hell ship'' Nagato Maru 
to Japan. It took three torturous weeks for the ship to make its way 
from the tropics to the cold of Northeast Asia. Lieutenant Burkhart, 
nearly blind from malnutrition, was used as a slave laborer for the 
construction company Toshima Group--today's Tobishima Corporation. He 
was soon moved to the Hiroshima No. 1-B Zentsuji POW Camp on the island 
of Shikoku. The enlisted men at Zentsuji were slave stevedores for 
Nippon Express Co.--Nippon Tsuun--at Sakaide Rail Yards and the Port of 
Takamatsu. As an officer, Lieutenant Burkhart worked in the camp 
garden. On June 23, 1945, he and 334 officers were transferred to POW 
Camp 11-B Rokuroshi, deep in the Japanese Alps. Food was scarce, 
conditions were overcrowded, and winter clothes were unavailable, 
leading many to fear that they would not survive the harsh winter. 
Lieutenant Burkhart was liberated from this camp in early September.
  Lieutenant Burkhart remained in the Army and had a distinguished 
career with the quartermaster corps, retiring in 1957 as a lieutenant 
colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Throughout his life, he was plagued 
by health problems most likely caused by the illnesses and hardships of 
being a POW. In 1972, at age 57, he passed away and was buried in 
Arlington National Cemetery.
  Thomas Burkhart's daughter Caroline has honored his memory by working 
tirelessly to preserve the history of the POW experience and to teach 
its lessons of American perseverance and grit. Ms. Burkhart is an 
active member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor 
Memorial Society. In this year, the 75th anniversary of the fall of the 
Philippines, we appreciate the effort by Japan to reach out to Ms. 
Burkhart and the American POWs in the spirit of reconciliation and 
healing.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing Caroline Burkhart a safe 
and meaningful journey and in expressing our gratitude and appreciation 
to Thomas F. Burkhart and all veterans of the war in the Pacific for 
their heroic service and sacrifice.

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