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| Lt. Joseph Smith was POW for most of the war and died on the Japanese hellship Enoura Maru. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93002445/joseph-francis-smith http://www.powtaiwan.org/archives_detail.php?THE-ENOURA-MARU-HELLSHIP-MEMORIAL-SAGA-52 |
Joseph Francis Smith never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on March 4, 1919 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents Edgar and Florence were born in Indiana and Illinois, respectively. His father worked as a commercial salesman and later as a wholesale hat salesman. Joseph had two younger sisters and one younger brother. By 1940 Joseph had completed four years of high school and moved out and rented a room of his own. He worked as a stock clerk and graduated from the University of Illinois in June 1941 where he participated in the ROTC program.
He enlisted in the army on August 3, 1941. He was sent to the Philippines and rose to the rank of 2nd lieutenant in the Philippine Scouts 14th Engineer Combat Regiment. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Lt. Smith was assigned to keep bridges open long enough for the Americans and Filipinos to retreat and then blow them up before the advancing Japanese could capture them. He was on the Bataan Peninsula until the Americans surrendered and took part in the Bataan Death March.
Lt. Smith was moved around various Philippine prison camps for the next 31 months. In December 1944 Lt. Smith was one of 1,620 American POWs sent into the holds of the Japanese passenger liner Oryoku Maru. The unmarked ship was sunk by American carrier planes while still in the Philippines. Lt. Smith was one of about 1,000 survivors who swam to shore. The prisoners were moved to the cargo ship Enoura Maru which steamed from the Philippines to Formosa, arriving on New Years Day. This ship was also unmarked and it was bombed and disabled by American carrier planes on January 9, 1945. 350 prisoners, including Lt. Smith were killed.
His cenotaph grave is at Auburn Cemetery in Auburn, Illinois.
Last year on this date I profiled B-17 bombardier Daniel Ohman. You can read about Daniel here.
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.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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