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| Pvt. Shelley Bolton was in an AA battery in the Philippines at the start of WW2. http://argonautsand40niners.blogspot.com/2011/06/ https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=21419416 http://www.angelfire.com/nm/bcmfofnm/history/200thdetails.html |
Shelley L. Bolton never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on November 12, 1917 in Kansas. His mother was also born in Kansas while his father was born in Missouri. His father worked as a farmer. Shelley had a younger sister and four younger brothers. By 1940 Shelley had completed eight years of schooling and lived at home, working on the family farm.
For some reason he was in New Mexico in the spring on 1941 where he enlisted in the army on March 22, 1941. He served as a private in Battery C, 515th Coast Artillery Regiment. The 515th was originally part of the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment which was sent to the Philippines in August 1941 from New Mexico for what was to be a one year posting. Pvt. Bolton was disappointed in the mail service in the army. He had written 45 letters to friends and family and had not received any correspondence back.
Pvt. Bolton's unit provided anti-aircraft defense when the Japanese bombed Philippine targets a few short hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The anti-aircraft units were credited with shooting down 85 Japanese planes in the next four months.
Pvt. Bolton fought on the Bataan Peninsula until the Americans surrendered and endured the April 9, 1942 Bataan Death March to the Camp O'Donnell prison camp. He was in better shape than most and carried a fellow soldier too weak to walk on his own.
Pvt. Bolton contracted malaria which caused his death on May 15, 1942. At the end of the war only half of the original 1,800 men from the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment remained alive to be liberated from Japanese prison camps.
His grave is at Park Cemetery in Columbus, Kansas.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Join the public Facebook group WW2 Fallen 100
Thanks to Mark Kenton who spotted a typo which has been corrected. I appreciate the help in keeping these stories accurate.
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