A Marine's Unimaginable Journey: Remembering Gunnery Sergeant John T. White
Gunnery Sergeant John T. White survived things that would have broken most men. The thing that killed him was friendly fire.
The China Marines and the Gathering Storm
John T. White was a career Marine whose service predated the outbreak of the Second World War. He served as a senior non-commissioned officer with the 4th Marine Regiment, the China Marines, who had been in Shanghai since 1927, assigned to protect American citizens and interests in the International Settlement.
As Japanese troops moved deeper into Chinese territory and street-level tensions in the Settlement turned dangerous, White and his fellow Marines held their ground under a deteriorating situation they had no power to resolve.
In November 1941, as tensions between the United States and Japan reached a breaking point, President Roosevelt ordered the withdrawal of American Marine forces from China. The regiment evacuated Shanghai, with the 1st Battalion and the regimental band departing aboard the liner President Harrison. They arrived in Olongapo at Subic Bay in the Philippines between November 30 and December 1, 1941 — mere days before the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and Clark Field pulled the United States into the war.
The Siege of Corregidor
With the war rapidly intensifying, the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, was formally activated on January 1, 1942. Gunnery Sergeant White served in I Company, assigned to defend the middle sector of Corregidor — the fortress island commanding the entrance to Manila Bay. White and his men constructed barbed wire barriers, tank traps, bunkers, and trench systems to prepare for the inevitable assault.
For five months, the garrison endured a relentless siege. Following the fall of Bataan in April 1942, Japanese artillery unleashed an unceasing barrage on Corregidor — over 3,600 rounds of 240mm shells on some days alone. The middle sector positions held by White's battalion were repeatedly demolished. The men subsisted on half-rations that ultimately dwindled to just 30 ounces of food per day, leading to severe malnutrition, malaria, and dysentery.
Following a massive Japanese amphibious assault, General Jonathan Wainwright ordered the surrender of the Philippine garrison on May 6, 1942. More than 11,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor became prisoners of war — the largest surrender of American forces in history. White was among them.
Years of Captivity
Initially held at Bilibid Prison in Manila, White was later transferred to Cabanatuan, which became the largest concentration of American POWs in the Far East. Men were dying faster than they could be buried in those first months. For more than two years, White endured brutal confinement, unpredictable Japanese conduct, devastating disease, and starvation — surviving long enough to watch the war slowly turn in the Allies' favor.
The Hell Ships Nightmare
As American forces returned to the Philippines in late 1944, the Japanese ordered the transfer of able-bodied POWs to Japan as forced labor.
On December 13, 1944, White and over 1,600 other prisoners were packed into the dark, unventilated holds of the Oryoku Maru, an unmarked Japanese passenger-cargo ship. With no sanitation and no water in equatorial heat, men began dying within hours.
Because the ship carried no markings to indicate it was transporting POWs, U.S. Navy aircraft from the USS Hornet attacked the Oryoku Maru off Subic Bay on December 14 and 15, ultimately sinking it.
Approximately 300 prisoners died from bomb blasts, suffocation, drowning, or being shot by guards as they tried to escape. White survived the sinking, only to be herded onto an open tennis court at Olongapo Naval Base — no shelter, no food, no water — for days. There, in a documented war crime, fifteen weak or wounded prisoners were taken to a nearby cemetery and beheaded.
The Final Voyage of the Enoura Maru
On December 27, 1944, the surviving prisoners were loaded onto another hell ship, the Enoura Maru. Some 1,070 Allied POWs were crammed into holds that had previously transported horses. The prisoners were forced to sit in layers of horse manure.
Driven to desperation by starvation, some resorted to eating undigested grain found in the animal waste. When officers begged the Japanese translator, Shusuke Wada, for more food to prevent mass starvation, Wada's response was simple: everyone must die eventually. It was no time for stupid sympathy.
The Enoura Maru arrived in Takao harbor in Formosa on New Year's Day, 1945. The prisoners remained trapped in the holds while docked.
January 9, 1945
As the prisoners were eating their meager rice rations, American F6F Hellcat fighter-bombers from the USS Hornet swept over Takao harbor. Unaware of the human cargo below, the aircraft scored direct hits on the Enoura Maru. The explosion destroyed the forward hold, collapsing the flooring and dropping men thirty feet into the darkness below.
Approximately 270 men died in the attack. After surviving the siege of Corregidor, years of disease at Cabanatuan, and the sinking of the Oryoku Maru, Gunnery Sergeant John T. White was killed aboard the Enoura Maru on January 9, 1945. He had been a prisoner for two years and eight months.
The Japanese left the dead and wounded in the shattered holds for days before removing the bodies. White's remains, along with hundreds of others, were buried in a mass grave near Takao harbor.
Of the 1,619 men who boarded the Oryoku Maru, 403 made it home. John White wasn't one of them. He's buried as an unknown.
Please share this post to ensure that the name of Gunnery Sergeant John T. White, and the thousands of men who perished alongside him on the hell ships, are never lost to history.
The Enoura Maru Project (PDF) Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency is actively recovering and identifying the POW remains.
Thanks to John Gillespie for the actual photo of his Uncle John "Buck" White
See more information here:
