The Leaf-Chronicle (Clarksville, Tennessee) 29 December 1942, Tuesday
Sgt. Dabney Is Prisoner Of Japanese
Staff Sergeant Edmund Dabney, reported missing since May 6, 1942, is a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands according to a telegram received by Mrs. Wade Hadley, sister of Sergeant Dabney, from the Adjutant General at Washington.
Sergeant Dabney was reported missing when Bataan fell to the Japanese. He has been in the service since 1936 and part of this time was spent in the Hawaiian islands. He left California in November of 1941 and it is believed he was on duty in the Philippines until the islands fell to the Japanese.
Sergeant Dabney is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Dabney.
—————
Edmund served as a Staff Sergeant, 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
He resided in Tennessee prior to the war.
He became a POW of the Japanese Army during the "Fall Of the Philippines" in 1942.
Edmund was declared "Missing In Action" while a POW of the Japanese Army. He was a passenger on the Japanese ship "Arisan Maru".
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
The Japanese ship "Arisan Maru" was loaded with 1,782 U.S. POW's and about 100 civilians in the cargo holds. The U.S.S. Shark, not knowing that American POW's were on board, fired three torpedoes at 5:30pm that hit the ship, causing it to break into two pieces that floated before sinking.
The entire crew except for nine of the POWs aboard died in the sinking. The sinking was the largest loss of American lives in a single disaster at sea.
Service # 6395058
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Note: Later that same day the U.S.S. Shark (SS-314), which sank the "Arisan Maru", was also sank by the Japanese destroyer Harukaze off Taiwan with a loss of 87 crew members.
Bio by:
Russell S. "Russ" Pickett
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle (Tennessee), 22 June 2014
REMEMBER WHEN: My hero, Edmund Read Dabney (1910-1944)
This is the life story, as best as I can tell it, of my uncle, WWII Staff Sergeant Edmund Read Dabney, born Dec. 24, 1910, in the quiet and rural Ringgold Community, Montgomery County. Since my immediate family then lived in Robertson County, I felt I was the luckiest boy alive to spend my summers at the old Dabney homeplace, where I became familiar with my unmarried Uncle Edmund.
Handsome, well built and tall (6-foot-2), he was a good athlete and good student who had won several academic high school awards, including National Honor Society.
Happy times for him, as he would relate them, were his teen years when he traveled with a wealthy uncle across our nation in a bus converted into a motor home. He especially loved California and the sea.
Back home and an excellent swimmer, he entertained us children by winning every one of the races swum in the famed Ringgold swimming hole. Then he would climb to the highest point of an old sycamore hanging out over the creek to deliver a perfect swan dive. Nobody could equal him.
He was good with his hands. He made sailboats and little motor boats out of tin cans and put wind-up clock motors in them to drive the propeller. Delighting us all, he could walk on his hands up the front porch steps.
Then the Depression hit. Hard times to find a job. He tried several. First was in an auto factory in Detroit. It closed. Coming home, he ran a filling station for a while. Soon, he landed a job at the Clarksville Airport where he earned both his mechanic’s and pilot’s licenses.
Wishing to become a U.S. Air Corps pilot, he joined the army in 1935. Disappointingly, he was colorblind. He became, instead, a corps mechanic. Stationed in California, he was back near the sea. When transferred to Hawaii he reveled in sailing and diving off cliffs.
By this time, war clouds were forming, so he was sent to the Philippines. By the end of 1941, both his mother and father, Elizabeth Donelson and Edmund Dabney Sr., had passed away, and thankfully were spared the never-dreamed-of atrocities their son would be forced to endure.
Life, death of a captive
December 7, 1941, found him in the Philippines. My mother – his sister – Elizabeth Dabney Hadley, about this time, received a letter expressing his assurance and determination for a successful end to the war. It was not to be. Not yet.
The commander slipped out of the country, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. We must never let that happen again. Running out of ammunition, the troops were captured and forced into the death march to Bataan. He then was placed in POW Camp No. 501, where he lived through unspeakable inhumane treatment for about two years.
In September 1944, he, along with approximately 1,780 other POWs, was crowded into the “foul and steamy” hold of the “hell ship” Arisan Maru, part of a Japanese merchant fleet. Torpedoed by an American submarine, the ship broke in half. In October 1944, my mother received notification from the War Department that all aboard were lost. (Five survivors were later found.)
The letter continues: “Edmund Read Dabney Jr. stands with patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives in a way that humbles the undertaking of men.”
Uncle Edmund was a fine Christian man. I believe, had he survived the war, he would have forgiven those who had done such horrible things to him.
(Note: The above written tribute was delivered by Bill Hadley to honor his hero and uncle, Edmund Read Dabney Jr., on July 25, 2003, at the downtown dedication of the Dabney Office Complex at 212 Madison St.)
—————
Previously added to Find A Grave,
Source Unknown:
Entered Service From Tennessee
Edmund R. Dabney Jr.
World War II
Service # 6395058
Rank Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group
Entered Service From Tennessee
Date of Death October 24, 1944
Status Missing in Action
Memorialized Tablets of the Missing
Manila American Cemetery
TMSI [53265]
Sgt. Dabney Is Prisoner Of Japanese
Staff Sergeant Edmund Dabney, reported missing since May 6, 1942, is a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands according to a telegram received by Mrs. Wade Hadley, sister of Sergeant Dabney, from the Adjutant General at Washington.
Sergeant Dabney was reported missing when Bataan fell to the Japanese. He has been in the service since 1936 and part of this time was spent in the Hawaiian islands. He left California in November of 1941 and it is believed he was on duty in the Philippines until the islands fell to the Japanese.
Sergeant Dabney is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Dabney.
—————
Edmund served as a Staff Sergeant, 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
He resided in Tennessee prior to the war.
He became a POW of the Japanese Army during the "Fall Of the Philippines" in 1942.
Edmund was declared "Missing In Action" while a POW of the Japanese Army. He was a passenger on the Japanese ship "Arisan Maru".
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
The Japanese ship "Arisan Maru" was loaded with 1,782 U.S. POW's and about 100 civilians in the cargo holds. The U.S.S. Shark, not knowing that American POW's were on board, fired three torpedoes at 5:30pm that hit the ship, causing it to break into two pieces that floated before sinking.
The entire crew except for nine of the POWs aboard died in the sinking. The sinking was the largest loss of American lives in a single disaster at sea.
Service # 6395058
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Note: Later that same day the U.S.S. Shark (SS-314), which sank the "Arisan Maru", was also sank by the Japanese destroyer Harukaze off Taiwan with a loss of 87 crew members.
Bio by:
Russell S. "Russ" Pickett
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle (Tennessee), 22 June 2014
REMEMBER WHEN: My hero, Edmund Read Dabney (1910-1944)
This is the life story, as best as I can tell it, of my uncle, WWII Staff Sergeant Edmund Read Dabney, born Dec. 24, 1910, in the quiet and rural Ringgold Community, Montgomery County. Since my immediate family then lived in Robertson County, I felt I was the luckiest boy alive to spend my summers at the old Dabney homeplace, where I became familiar with my unmarried Uncle Edmund.
Handsome, well built and tall (6-foot-2), he was a good athlete and good student who had won several academic high school awards, including National Honor Society.
Happy times for him, as he would relate them, were his teen years when he traveled with a wealthy uncle across our nation in a bus converted into a motor home. He especially loved California and the sea.
Back home and an excellent swimmer, he entertained us children by winning every one of the races swum in the famed Ringgold swimming hole. Then he would climb to the highest point of an old sycamore hanging out over the creek to deliver a perfect swan dive. Nobody could equal him.
He was good with his hands. He made sailboats and little motor boats out of tin cans and put wind-up clock motors in them to drive the propeller. Delighting us all, he could walk on his hands up the front porch steps.
Then the Depression hit. Hard times to find a job. He tried several. First was in an auto factory in Detroit. It closed. Coming home, he ran a filling station for a while. Soon, he landed a job at the Clarksville Airport where he earned both his mechanic’s and pilot’s licenses.
Wishing to become a U.S. Air Corps pilot, he joined the army in 1935. Disappointingly, he was colorblind. He became, instead, a corps mechanic. Stationed in California, he was back near the sea. When transferred to Hawaii he reveled in sailing and diving off cliffs.
By this time, war clouds were forming, so he was sent to the Philippines. By the end of 1941, both his mother and father, Elizabeth Donelson and Edmund Dabney Sr., had passed away, and thankfully were spared the never-dreamed-of atrocities their son would be forced to endure.
Life, death of a captive
December 7, 1941, found him in the Philippines. My mother – his sister – Elizabeth Dabney Hadley, about this time, received a letter expressing his assurance and determination for a successful end to the war. It was not to be. Not yet.
The commander slipped out of the country, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. We must never let that happen again. Running out of ammunition, the troops were captured and forced into the death march to Bataan. He then was placed in POW Camp No. 501, where he lived through unspeakable inhumane treatment for about two years.
In September 1944, he, along with approximately 1,780 other POWs, was crowded into the “foul and steamy” hold of the “hell ship” Arisan Maru, part of a Japanese merchant fleet. Torpedoed by an American submarine, the ship broke in half. In October 1944, my mother received notification from the War Department that all aboard were lost. (Five survivors were later found.)
The letter continues: “Edmund Read Dabney Jr. stands with patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives in a way that humbles the undertaking of men.”
Uncle Edmund was a fine Christian man. I believe, had he survived the war, he would have forgiven those who had done such horrible things to him.
(Note: The above written tribute was delivered by Bill Hadley to honor his hero and uncle, Edmund Read Dabney Jr., on July 25, 2003, at the downtown dedication of the Dabney Office Complex at 212 Madison St.)
—————
Previously added to Find A Grave,
Source Unknown:
Entered Service From Tennessee
Edmund R. Dabney Jr.
World War II
Service # 6395058
Rank Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group
Entered Service From Tennessee
Date of Death October 24, 1944
Status Missing in Action
Memorialized Tablets of the Missing
Manila American Cemetery
TMSI [53265]
The Leaf-Chronicle (Clarksville, Tennessee) 29 December 1942, Tuesday
Sgt. Dabney Is Prisoner Of Japanese
Staff Sergeant Edmund Dabney, reported missing since May 6, 1942, is a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands according to a telegram received by Mrs. Wade Hadley, sister of Sergeant Dabney, from the Adjutant General at Washington.
Sergeant Dabney was reported missing when Bataan fell to the Japanese. He has been in the service since 1936 and part of this time was spent in the Hawaiian islands. He left California in November of 1941 and it is believed he was on duty in the Philippines until the islands fell to the Japanese.
Sergeant Dabney is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Dabney.
—————
Edmund served as a Staff Sergeant, 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
He resided in Tennessee prior to the war.
He became a POW of the Japanese Army during the "Fall Of the Philippines" in 1942.
Edmund was declared "Missing In Action" while a POW of the Japanese Army. He was a passenger on the Japanese ship "Arisan Maru".
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
The Japanese ship "Arisan Maru" was loaded with 1,782 U.S. POW's and about 100 civilians in the cargo holds. The U.S.S. Shark, not knowing that American POW's were on board, fired three torpedoes at 5:30pm that hit the ship, causing it to break into two pieces that floated before sinking.
The entire crew except for nine of the POWs aboard died in the sinking. The sinking was the largest loss of American lives in a single disaster at sea.
Service # 6395058
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Note: Later that same day the U.S.S. Shark (SS-314), which sank the "Arisan Maru", was also sank by the Japanese destroyer Harukaze off Taiwan with a loss of 87 crew members.
Bio by:
Russell S. "Russ" Pickett
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle (Tennessee), 22 June 2014
REMEMBER WHEN: My hero, Edmund Read Dabney (1910-1944)
This is the life story, as best as I can tell it, of my uncle, WWII Staff Sergeant Edmund Read Dabney, born Dec. 24, 1910, in the quiet and rural Ringgold Community, Montgomery County. Since my immediate family then lived in Robertson County, I felt I was the luckiest boy alive to spend my summers at the old Dabney homeplace, where I became familiar with my unmarried Uncle Edmund.
Handsome, well built and tall (6-foot-2), he was a good athlete and good student who had won several academic high school awards, including National Honor Society.
Happy times for him, as he would relate them, were his teen years when he traveled with a wealthy uncle across our nation in a bus converted into a motor home. He especially loved California and the sea.
Back home and an excellent swimmer, he entertained us children by winning every one of the races swum in the famed Ringgold swimming hole. Then he would climb to the highest point of an old sycamore hanging out over the creek to deliver a perfect swan dive. Nobody could equal him.
He was good with his hands. He made sailboats and little motor boats out of tin cans and put wind-up clock motors in them to drive the propeller. Delighting us all, he could walk on his hands up the front porch steps.
Then the Depression hit. Hard times to find a job. He tried several. First was in an auto factory in Detroit. It closed. Coming home, he ran a filling station for a while. Soon, he landed a job at the Clarksville Airport where he earned both his mechanic’s and pilot’s licenses.
Wishing to become a U.S. Air Corps pilot, he joined the army in 1935. Disappointingly, he was colorblind. He became, instead, a corps mechanic. Stationed in California, he was back near the sea. When transferred to Hawaii he reveled in sailing and diving off cliffs.
By this time, war clouds were forming, so he was sent to the Philippines. By the end of 1941, both his mother and father, Elizabeth Donelson and Edmund Dabney Sr., had passed away, and thankfully were spared the never-dreamed-of atrocities their son would be forced to endure.
Life, death of a captive
December 7, 1941, found him in the Philippines. My mother – his sister – Elizabeth Dabney Hadley, about this time, received a letter expressing his assurance and determination for a successful end to the war. It was not to be. Not yet.
The commander slipped out of the country, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. We must never let that happen again. Running out of ammunition, the troops were captured and forced into the death march to Bataan. He then was placed in POW Camp No. 501, where he lived through unspeakable inhumane treatment for about two years.
In September 1944, he, along with approximately 1,780 other POWs, was crowded into the “foul and steamy” hold of the “hell ship” Arisan Maru, part of a Japanese merchant fleet. Torpedoed by an American submarine, the ship broke in half. In October 1944, my mother received notification from the War Department that all aboard were lost. (Five survivors were later found.)
The letter continues: “Edmund Read Dabney Jr. stands with patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives in a way that humbles the undertaking of men.”
Uncle Edmund was a fine Christian man. I believe, had he survived the war, he would have forgiven those who had done such horrible things to him.
(Note: The above written tribute was delivered by Bill Hadley to honor his hero and uncle, Edmund Read Dabney Jr., on July 25, 2003, at the downtown dedication of the Dabney Office Complex at 212 Madison St.)
—————
Previously added to Find A Grave,
Source Unknown:
Entered Service From Tennessee
Edmund R. Dabney Jr.
World War II
Service # 6395058
Rank Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group
Entered Service From Tennessee
Date of Death October 24, 1944
Status Missing in Action
Memorialized Tablets of the Missing
Manila American Cemetery
TMSI [53265]
Sgt. Dabney Is Prisoner Of Japanese
Staff Sergeant Edmund Dabney, reported missing since May 6, 1942, is a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands according to a telegram received by Mrs. Wade Hadley, sister of Sergeant Dabney, from the Adjutant General at Washington.
Sergeant Dabney was reported missing when Bataan fell to the Japanese. He has been in the service since 1936 and part of this time was spent in the Hawaiian islands. He left California in November of 1941 and it is believed he was on duty in the Philippines until the islands fell to the Japanese.
Sergeant Dabney is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Dabney.
—————
Edmund served as a Staff Sergeant, 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
He resided in Tennessee prior to the war.
He became a POW of the Japanese Army during the "Fall Of the Philippines" in 1942.
Edmund was declared "Missing In Action" while a POW of the Japanese Army. He was a passenger on the Japanese ship "Arisan Maru".
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
The Japanese ship "Arisan Maru" was loaded with 1,782 U.S. POW's and about 100 civilians in the cargo holds. The U.S.S. Shark, not knowing that American POW's were on board, fired three torpedoes at 5:30pm that hit the ship, causing it to break into two pieces that floated before sinking.
The entire crew except for nine of the POWs aboard died in the sinking. The sinking was the largest loss of American lives in a single disaster at sea.
Service # 6395058
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Note: Later that same day the U.S.S. Shark (SS-314), which sank the "Arisan Maru", was also sank by the Japanese destroyer Harukaze off Taiwan with a loss of 87 crew members.
Bio by:
Russell S. "Russ" Pickett
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle (Tennessee), 22 June 2014
REMEMBER WHEN: My hero, Edmund Read Dabney (1910-1944)
This is the life story, as best as I can tell it, of my uncle, WWII Staff Sergeant Edmund Read Dabney, born Dec. 24, 1910, in the quiet and rural Ringgold Community, Montgomery County. Since my immediate family then lived in Robertson County, I felt I was the luckiest boy alive to spend my summers at the old Dabney homeplace, where I became familiar with my unmarried Uncle Edmund.
Handsome, well built and tall (6-foot-2), he was a good athlete and good student who had won several academic high school awards, including National Honor Society.
Happy times for him, as he would relate them, were his teen years when he traveled with a wealthy uncle across our nation in a bus converted into a motor home. He especially loved California and the sea.
Back home and an excellent swimmer, he entertained us children by winning every one of the races swum in the famed Ringgold swimming hole. Then he would climb to the highest point of an old sycamore hanging out over the creek to deliver a perfect swan dive. Nobody could equal him.
He was good with his hands. He made sailboats and little motor boats out of tin cans and put wind-up clock motors in them to drive the propeller. Delighting us all, he could walk on his hands up the front porch steps.
Then the Depression hit. Hard times to find a job. He tried several. First was in an auto factory in Detroit. It closed. Coming home, he ran a filling station for a while. Soon, he landed a job at the Clarksville Airport where he earned both his mechanic’s and pilot’s licenses.
Wishing to become a U.S. Air Corps pilot, he joined the army in 1935. Disappointingly, he was colorblind. He became, instead, a corps mechanic. Stationed in California, he was back near the sea. When transferred to Hawaii he reveled in sailing and diving off cliffs.
By this time, war clouds were forming, so he was sent to the Philippines. By the end of 1941, both his mother and father, Elizabeth Donelson and Edmund Dabney Sr., had passed away, and thankfully were spared the never-dreamed-of atrocities their son would be forced to endure.
Life, death of a captive
December 7, 1941, found him in the Philippines. My mother – his sister – Elizabeth Dabney Hadley, about this time, received a letter expressing his assurance and determination for a successful end to the war. It was not to be. Not yet.
The commander slipped out of the country, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. We must never let that happen again. Running out of ammunition, the troops were captured and forced into the death march to Bataan. He then was placed in POW Camp No. 501, where he lived through unspeakable inhumane treatment for about two years.
In September 1944, he, along with approximately 1,780 other POWs, was crowded into the “foul and steamy” hold of the “hell ship” Arisan Maru, part of a Japanese merchant fleet. Torpedoed by an American submarine, the ship broke in half. In October 1944, my mother received notification from the War Department that all aboard were lost. (Five survivors were later found.)
The letter continues: “Edmund Read Dabney Jr. stands with patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives in a way that humbles the undertaking of men.”
Uncle Edmund was a fine Christian man. I believe, had he survived the war, he would have forgiven those who had done such horrible things to him.
(Note: The above written tribute was delivered by Bill Hadley to honor his hero and uncle, Edmund Read Dabney Jr., on July 25, 2003, at the downtown dedication of the Dabney Office Complex at 212 Madison St.)
—————
Previously added to Find A Grave,
Source Unknown:
Entered Service From Tennessee
Edmund R. Dabney Jr.
World War II
Service # 6395058
Rank Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Unit 21st Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group
Entered Service From Tennessee
Date of Death October 24, 1944
Status Missing in Action
Memorialized Tablets of the Missing
Manila American Cemetery
TMSI [53265]
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
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