Alvin Amera
Service #: 19032413
Entered Service From: Idaho
Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit: Headquarters Company, 680th Ordnance Company, Aviation Pursuit
Date of Death: 04 October 1942, from dysentery in the Japanese POW Camp 1, Cabanatuan, Nueva Province, Luzon, Philippines 15-121.
Status: Missing in Action. Buried as an "Unknown" in the Manila American Cemetery
Memorialized: Manila American Cemetery – Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Son of Lapwai Allottee Amera – English Name: Charley C. Amera (1870 Idaho -1958) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Cayuse Mocton Bassett (1886 Washington - 1938 Washington).
1915-1922 U.S. Indian Census: Nez Perce Tribe on the Nez Perce reservation, Idaho – Alvin Amera (1914)
1924-1934 U.S. Indian Census: Colville Tribe on the Colville reservation, Washington –Alvin Amera (1914). Other residence: Stites, Idaho County, Idaho.
Alvin Amera (1916 Idaho) a resident of Idaho County, Idaho, enlisted as a Private (S/N 19032413) in the U.S. Army Ordnance Department on 16 October 1940, at Fort George Wright, Washington. His enlistment was for the Philippine Department. Alvin was single, had completed four years of high school and was a carpenter.
Private Amera was assigned to Headquarters Company, 680th Ordnance Company (Aviation). It consisted of 2 officers and 14 enlisted men.
On 20 February 1941, the Ordnance Corps of the Unites States Army activated several Ordnance Aviation Companies within the Fourth Air Force whose headquarters were located at Riverside California, close to March Field. One of those companies was the 680th Ordnance Aviation Pursuit Company at Hamilton Field, California. The 680th Ordnance Company started with a cadre of a few men and usually one officer. Usually only one man in the cadre had three to four years service, most of the rest were inductees with less than two years service and many came directly out of boot camp. The bulk of the officers were 1st and 2nd Lieutenants from the Reserve Corps ordered to active duty on 01 February 1941. These Ordnance Aviation Pursuit Companies were composed of three platoons with a headquarters section. They were organized to operate independently. It was the function of these companies to support an Air Corps Group with one platoon assigned to each squadron of fighter aircraft and supply them with all ordnance items required. From the latter part of February 1941 to September 1941 the 680th Ordnance Company experienced a rapid expansion of personnel and received most of their equipment.
Due to the growing unrest in the Orient, the United States Army decided to strengthen its forces in the Philippine Islands. Among those units selected to go was the 680th Ordnance Company. In October 1941, they moved to Fort McDowell, San Francisco in preparation for embarking for the Philippines, California. On the 4th of October the Company boarded the USAT TASKER H. BLISS, at Fort Mason and sailed at 5:30 PM that afternoon. Accompanying the BLISS was the USAT WILLARD A. HOLBROOK also loaded with troops. They arrived in Manila (via Honolulu Hawaii and Guam) on 23 October 1941. They were stationed at Nichols Field, just outside of Manila, and billeted in the barracks with the 803rd Engineers. Within a day or two all of the equipment was unloaded. At Nichols Field the 680th Ordnance was assigned to support of the 20th Pursuit Group, comprising of the 21st, 24th, and 3rd Squadrons. Headquarters Company (Amera's unit) and 2nd Platoon stayed at Nichols Field while the other platoons followed the squadrons – 1st Platoon went to Iba Field and 3rd Platoon was assigned to Clark Field.
"HAWAII BOMBED–WAR!" On 07 December 1941 Japan attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Ten hours later, 08 December 1941 (Manila time), Japan attacked the Philippines. The series of raids caught most US planes on the ground, destroying the 19th Bomb Group's B-17s at Clark Field and practically wiping out the P-35 and P-40 pursuit fighter squadrons based at Clark, Nichols, Del Carmen, and Iba Fields. In less than 24 hours, the first day of WWII in the Pacific, the US lost much of its fleet at Pearl Harbor and the heart of MacArthur's Air Force in the Philippines.
In the afternoon of 09 December, Nichols Field was bombed and strafed, fortunately there were no casualties to 680th personnel. After this raid the 680th moved out onto the eastern part of Nichols Field along the banks of a stream.
On the 10th of December, Headquarters, 1st and 2nd Platoons were ordered to an auxiliary field near San Marcelano on the China Sea, north of Subic Bay to support the 3rd and 22nd Pursuit Squadrons. "As we pulled onside of the runway the last B-17 was taking off for the southern islands." Here headquarters was set up under a large mango tree with bathing facilities under a small falls nearby. Source: A Brief History Of The 680 Ordnance Company By The Survivors
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur activated War Plan Orange. This plan called for the gradual withdrawal of American and Philippine forces to the Bataan Peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force. It was also where they could await reinforcements from Hawaii and the U.S....reinforcements that never came.
By 25 December all units of the 680th Ordnance were in or on their way to Bataan Peninsula. Headquarters with the 1st and 2nd Platoons bivouacked a day at Hermosa and eventually arrived at KM 154! where the 1st Platoon manned the bomb dump astraddle the main road and adjacent to the east side of Bataan Field. They were assigned to serve Bataan Field. 2nd Platoon supported what few aircraft were left at Bataan Field. 3rd Platoon was sent down the peninsula to Mariveles Field. On 09 January 1942 the battle for Bataan began. All units of the 680th Ordnance Company remained in their positions carrying out their duties as best they could under the circumstances. "The next three months were endured as a member of a beleaguered army without adequate food, shelter, sanitation or medical care." Source: David J. Levy, 2nd Platoon
Private First Class Alvin Amera came down with dysentery in March 1942.
The month of April 1942 marked the beginning of the end for Bataan's defenders. On Good Friday, 03 April 1942, General Homma, with the addition of fresh troops, began an all-out offensive on Bataan. By 07 April, with the front line deteriorating, the 680th Ordnance units were ordered to move back to Air Corps Headquarters area at Little Baguio at Km 174. By the evening of 08 April, the situation was clearly hopeless. With ammunition, rations and supplies practically exhausted and most of his best units destroyed, Major General Edward P. King, commander of the forces on Bataan, was convinced his troops could not physically resist any more and decided to surrender to prevent further loss of life. On 09 April 1942, Maj. Gen. King surrendered the Luzon Force to the Japanese.
After hearing of the surrender, General Wainwright on Corregidor sent a cable to President Roosevelt, stating "I have done all that could have been done to hold Bataan, but starved men without air support and with inadequate field artillery support cannot endure the terrific aerial and artillery bombardment that my troops were subjected to."
"Headquarters with the 1st and 2nd Platoons stayed in this position at Air Corps Headquarters allowing them to rest, get substantial food, new clothing, and medical supplies. Japanese artillery units set up back of us and were shelling Corregidor and being shelled in return. Other American soldiers had joined the men of the 680th Ordnance." Source: A Brief History Of The 680 Ordnance Company By The Survivors
The officers and men of the 680th Ordnance Company along with 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, were subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March. "On the morning of the 15th, after a good breakfast (the last for quite sometime) we started out to go north on the main road...As a unit the 680th ceased to exit at this time, as it's members became separated and were not allowed to reorganize by our captors."
When the Fil-American soldiers began the march, they were in terrible physical condition. For 6 to 9 days (depending on their starting point) they were forced to walk the roughly sixty-five miles to San Fernando, enduring abuse by Japanese guards and seeing the deaths of thousands of fellow soldiers. At San Fernando, the Japanese stuffed about 100 men into steel-sided boxcars for the twenty-five-mile trip to Capas. The scorching hot boxcars were packed so tight that the men could not even sit down. When the train arrived at Capas the POW's were offloaded and marched the final nine miles to Camp O'Donnell.
Surviving the brutal treatment by the Japanese at Camp O'Donnell (about 1500 American and 22,000 Filipino prisoners of war died in just three months) PFC Alvin Amera was transferred to the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, approximately 8 kilometers' northeast of the town by the same name.
In early June of 1942, prisoners from Camp O'Donnell began to stream into Camp No. 1, joining the men from Corregidor and increasing the number of prisoners to over 7,300 men. "Conditions were slightly improved, though the camp was still filthy and overcrowded. Rice remained the principal item of diet, although mongo beans, juice, and small fried fish were sometimes issued....The death rate at Cabanatuan ran around 20 daily. Malaria, wet beri-beri, scurvy, blindness and dry beri-beri took a heavy toll, [along] with dysentery, yellow jaundice and dengue fever." Source: Office of the Provost Marshal General Report on American Prisoners of War Interned by the Japanese in the Philippines, 19 November 1945.
Most of the POWs were assigned to work details and farm labor. Because of the poor health of the men from O'Donnell, the death rate at Camp #1 soared.
Private First Class Alvin Amera (S/N 19032413), 680th Ord., died while being treated for dysentery at 8:00 a.m. on 04 October 1942 in Barracks 3, Hospital Area. Home address: Ferdinand, Idaho; Next of Kin: Mrs. Mary Carter, same address. Alvin had no belongings. He was one of ten men to die that day, the 1,866th prisoner to die in the camp since in opened in June. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, 2,764 Americans had died at Cabanatuan in 2½ years. 90% of the POW deaths in Cabanatuan were men who were captured on Bataan. He was buried in a communal grave No. 505 in the camp cemetery along with nine other POWs who died that day.
After the war, all the remains in the Cabanatuan Prison cemetery that could be found were disinterred (between December 1945 - February 1946) and brought to 7747 USAF Cemetery, Manila #2, Philippine Islands. The deceased in Manila #2 (over 11,000 American soldiers) rested there until their removal to the American Graves Registration Service Manila Mausoleum in the summer of 1948 for positive identification. Of the ten men buried in grave 505, six were positively identified. Unfortunately, no clothing, personal effects nor any other means of identification were found for Alvin and his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan. The four unidentified remains were given the following X numbers and re-interred in the indicated "unknown" graves in the Manila American Cemetery.
Manila_#2_RP_X-1166 - N-10-82
Manila_#2_RP_X-1167 - N-9-82
Manila_#2_RP_X-1168 - L-8-71
Manila_#2_RP_X-1170 - H-16-116
Three of the four unidentified remains belonged to:
1858 - DAVIS JASPER JR (14037623) PVT 31 INF
10/03/1942505 Mrs Jasper Davis; Rt #2, Walnut Cave, N.C.
1859 - GOODRICH WALLACE F (20700233) PVT 194 TANK
10/03/1942505 Mrs Kerry Goodrich; Merrifield, Minn.
1866 - AMERA ALVIN (19032413) PFC 680 ORD
10/04/1942505 Mrs. Mary Carter; Ferdinand, Idaho.
The tombstone photo is of one of the those four unknowns buried in the Manila American Cemetery – Plot H-16-116. There is a 25% chance that the remains here are in fact, Alvin Amera. If not, he is buried in either L-8-71, N-9-82 or N-10-82.
There are 953 men like PFC. Amera who were not identified after the war, "unknowns", permanently interred in the Manila American Cemetery from Cabanatuan.
"HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO GOD"
Private First Class Alvin Amera is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Cottonwood Community Cemetery Cottonwood, Idaho Cenotaph
Cabanatuan Memorial, Cabanatuan, Philippines Memorial
Alvin Amera
Service #: 19032413
Entered Service From: Idaho
Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit: Headquarters Company, 680th Ordnance Company, Aviation Pursuit
Date of Death: 04 October 1942, from dysentery in the Japanese POW Camp 1, Cabanatuan, Nueva Province, Luzon, Philippines 15-121.
Status: Missing in Action. Buried as an "Unknown" in the Manila American Cemetery
Memorialized: Manila American Cemetery – Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Son of Lapwai Allottee Amera – English Name: Charley C. Amera (1870 Idaho -1958) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Cayuse Mocton Bassett (1886 Washington - 1938 Washington).
1915-1922 U.S. Indian Census: Nez Perce Tribe on the Nez Perce reservation, Idaho – Alvin Amera (1914)
1924-1934 U.S. Indian Census: Colville Tribe on the Colville reservation, Washington –Alvin Amera (1914). Other residence: Stites, Idaho County, Idaho.
Alvin Amera (1916 Idaho) a resident of Idaho County, Idaho, enlisted as a Private (S/N 19032413) in the U.S. Army Ordnance Department on 16 October 1940, at Fort George Wright, Washington. His enlistment was for the Philippine Department. Alvin was single, had completed four years of high school and was a carpenter.
Private Amera was assigned to Headquarters Company, 680th Ordnance Company (Aviation). It consisted of 2 officers and 14 enlisted men.
On 20 February 1941, the Ordnance Corps of the Unites States Army activated several Ordnance Aviation Companies within the Fourth Air Force whose headquarters were located at Riverside California, close to March Field. One of those companies was the 680th Ordnance Aviation Pursuit Company at Hamilton Field, California. The 680th Ordnance Company started with a cadre of a few men and usually one officer. Usually only one man in the cadre had three to four years service, most of the rest were inductees with less than two years service and many came directly out of boot camp. The bulk of the officers were 1st and 2nd Lieutenants from the Reserve Corps ordered to active duty on 01 February 1941. These Ordnance Aviation Pursuit Companies were composed of three platoons with a headquarters section. They were organized to operate independently. It was the function of these companies to support an Air Corps Group with one platoon assigned to each squadron of fighter aircraft and supply them with all ordnance items required. From the latter part of February 1941 to September 1941 the 680th Ordnance Company experienced a rapid expansion of personnel and received most of their equipment.
Due to the growing unrest in the Orient, the United States Army decided to strengthen its forces in the Philippine Islands. Among those units selected to go was the 680th Ordnance Company. In October 1941, they moved to Fort McDowell, San Francisco in preparation for embarking for the Philippines, California. On the 4th of October the Company boarded the USAT TASKER H. BLISS, at Fort Mason and sailed at 5:30 PM that afternoon. Accompanying the BLISS was the USAT WILLARD A. HOLBROOK also loaded with troops. They arrived in Manila (via Honolulu Hawaii and Guam) on 23 October 1941. They were stationed at Nichols Field, just outside of Manila, and billeted in the barracks with the 803rd Engineers. Within a day or two all of the equipment was unloaded. At Nichols Field the 680th Ordnance was assigned to support of the 20th Pursuit Group, comprising of the 21st, 24th, and 3rd Squadrons. Headquarters Company (Amera's unit) and 2nd Platoon stayed at Nichols Field while the other platoons followed the squadrons – 1st Platoon went to Iba Field and 3rd Platoon was assigned to Clark Field.
"HAWAII BOMBED–WAR!" On 07 December 1941 Japan attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Ten hours later, 08 December 1941 (Manila time), Japan attacked the Philippines. The series of raids caught most US planes on the ground, destroying the 19th Bomb Group's B-17s at Clark Field and practically wiping out the P-35 and P-40 pursuit fighter squadrons based at Clark, Nichols, Del Carmen, and Iba Fields. In less than 24 hours, the first day of WWII in the Pacific, the US lost much of its fleet at Pearl Harbor and the heart of MacArthur's Air Force in the Philippines.
In the afternoon of 09 December, Nichols Field was bombed and strafed, fortunately there were no casualties to 680th personnel. After this raid the 680th moved out onto the eastern part of Nichols Field along the banks of a stream.
On the 10th of December, Headquarters, 1st and 2nd Platoons were ordered to an auxiliary field near San Marcelano on the China Sea, north of Subic Bay to support the 3rd and 22nd Pursuit Squadrons. "As we pulled onside of the runway the last B-17 was taking off for the southern islands." Here headquarters was set up under a large mango tree with bathing facilities under a small falls nearby. Source: A Brief History Of The 680 Ordnance Company By The Survivors
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur activated War Plan Orange. This plan called for the gradual withdrawal of American and Philippine forces to the Bataan Peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force. It was also where they could await reinforcements from Hawaii and the U.S....reinforcements that never came.
By 25 December all units of the 680th Ordnance were in or on their way to Bataan Peninsula. Headquarters with the 1st and 2nd Platoons bivouacked a day at Hermosa and eventually arrived at KM 154! where the 1st Platoon manned the bomb dump astraddle the main road and adjacent to the east side of Bataan Field. They were assigned to serve Bataan Field. 2nd Platoon supported what few aircraft were left at Bataan Field. 3rd Platoon was sent down the peninsula to Mariveles Field. On 09 January 1942 the battle for Bataan began. All units of the 680th Ordnance Company remained in their positions carrying out their duties as best they could under the circumstances. "The next three months were endured as a member of a beleaguered army without adequate food, shelter, sanitation or medical care." Source: David J. Levy, 2nd Platoon
Private First Class Alvin Amera came down with dysentery in March 1942.
The month of April 1942 marked the beginning of the end for Bataan's defenders. On Good Friday, 03 April 1942, General Homma, with the addition of fresh troops, began an all-out offensive on Bataan. By 07 April, with the front line deteriorating, the 680th Ordnance units were ordered to move back to Air Corps Headquarters area at Little Baguio at Km 174. By the evening of 08 April, the situation was clearly hopeless. With ammunition, rations and supplies practically exhausted and most of his best units destroyed, Major General Edward P. King, commander of the forces on Bataan, was convinced his troops could not physically resist any more and decided to surrender to prevent further loss of life. On 09 April 1942, Maj. Gen. King surrendered the Luzon Force to the Japanese.
After hearing of the surrender, General Wainwright on Corregidor sent a cable to President Roosevelt, stating "I have done all that could have been done to hold Bataan, but starved men without air support and with inadequate field artillery support cannot endure the terrific aerial and artillery bombardment that my troops were subjected to."
"Headquarters with the 1st and 2nd Platoons stayed in this position at Air Corps Headquarters allowing them to rest, get substantial food, new clothing, and medical supplies. Japanese artillery units set up back of us and were shelling Corregidor and being shelled in return. Other American soldiers had joined the men of the 680th Ordnance." Source: A Brief History Of The 680 Ordnance Company By The Survivors
The officers and men of the 680th Ordnance Company along with 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, were subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March. "On the morning of the 15th, after a good breakfast (the last for quite sometime) we started out to go north on the main road...As a unit the 680th ceased to exit at this time, as it's members became separated and were not allowed to reorganize by our captors."
When the Fil-American soldiers began the march, they were in terrible physical condition. For 6 to 9 days (depending on their starting point) they were forced to walk the roughly sixty-five miles to San Fernando, enduring abuse by Japanese guards and seeing the deaths of thousands of fellow soldiers. At San Fernando, the Japanese stuffed about 100 men into steel-sided boxcars for the twenty-five-mile trip to Capas. The scorching hot boxcars were packed so tight that the men could not even sit down. When the train arrived at Capas the POW's were offloaded and marched the final nine miles to Camp O'Donnell.
Surviving the brutal treatment by the Japanese at Camp O'Donnell (about 1500 American and 22,000 Filipino prisoners of war died in just three months) PFC Alvin Amera was transferred to the Cabanatuan POW Camp No. 1, approximately 8 kilometers' northeast of the town by the same name.
In early June of 1942, prisoners from Camp O'Donnell began to stream into Camp No. 1, joining the men from Corregidor and increasing the number of prisoners to over 7,300 men. "Conditions were slightly improved, though the camp was still filthy and overcrowded. Rice remained the principal item of diet, although mongo beans, juice, and small fried fish were sometimes issued....The death rate at Cabanatuan ran around 20 daily. Malaria, wet beri-beri, scurvy, blindness and dry beri-beri took a heavy toll, [along] with dysentery, yellow jaundice and dengue fever." Source: Office of the Provost Marshal General Report on American Prisoners of War Interned by the Japanese in the Philippines, 19 November 1945.
Most of the POWs were assigned to work details and farm labor. Because of the poor health of the men from O'Donnell, the death rate at Camp #1 soared.
Private First Class Alvin Amera (S/N 19032413), 680th Ord., died while being treated for dysentery at 8:00 a.m. on 04 October 1942 in Barracks 3, Hospital Area. Home address: Ferdinand, Idaho; Next of Kin: Mrs. Mary Carter, same address. Alvin had no belongings. He was one of ten men to die that day, the 1,866th prisoner to die in the camp since in opened in June. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, 2,764 Americans had died at Cabanatuan in 2½ years. 90% of the POW deaths in Cabanatuan were men who were captured on Bataan. He was buried in a communal grave No. 505 in the camp cemetery along with nine other POWs who died that day.
After the war, all the remains in the Cabanatuan Prison cemetery that could be found were disinterred (between December 1945 - February 1946) and brought to 7747 USAF Cemetery, Manila #2, Philippine Islands. The deceased in Manila #2 (over 11,000 American soldiers) rested there until their removal to the American Graves Registration Service Manila Mausoleum in the summer of 1948 for positive identification. Of the ten men buried in grave 505, six were positively identified. Unfortunately, no clothing, personal effects nor any other means of identification were found for Alvin and his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan. The four unidentified remains were given the following X numbers and re-interred in the indicated "unknown" graves in the Manila American Cemetery.
Manila_#2_RP_X-1166 - N-10-82
Manila_#2_RP_X-1167 - N-9-82
Manila_#2_RP_X-1168 - L-8-71
Manila_#2_RP_X-1170 - H-16-116
Three of the four unidentified remains belonged to:
1858 - DAVIS JASPER JR (14037623) PVT 31 INF
10/03/1942505 Mrs Jasper Davis; Rt #2, Walnut Cave, N.C.
1859 - GOODRICH WALLACE F (20700233) PVT 194 TANK
10/03/1942505 Mrs Kerry Goodrich; Merrifield, Minn.
1866 - AMERA ALVIN (19032413) PFC 680 ORD
10/04/1942505 Mrs. Mary Carter; Ferdinand, Idaho.
The tombstone photo is of one of the those four unknowns buried in the Manila American Cemetery – Plot H-16-116. There is a 25% chance that the remains here are in fact, Alvin Amera. If not, he is buried in either L-8-71, N-9-82 or N-10-82.
There are 953 men like PFC. Amera who were not identified after the war, "unknowns", permanently interred in the Manila American Cemetery from Cabanatuan.
"HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO GOD"
Private First Class Alvin Amera is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Cottonwood Community Cemetery Cottonwood, Idaho Cenotaph
Cabanatuan Memorial, Cabanatuan, Philippines Memorial
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