A Bataan Death March survivor who died at Cabanatuan was buried at home in Arkansas this month. Many Cabanatuan survivors were later shipped out on the Oryoku Maru.
Eighty-four years after he died as a prisoner of war, Pvt. Delmor Erwin is home.
Delmor was a 20-year-old from Newport, Arkansas. He survived the surrender on Bataan on April 9, 1942, and then the Death March that followed. He died of malaria at Cabanatuan POW Camp on November 26, 1942.
In March the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified his remains. On October 15 he was laid to rest at Settlement Cemetery in Shirley, Arkansas, with his nephew and great-niece there. The state flew its flags at half-staff for him on October 19.
Many of the men who lived through Cabanatuan were later crowded onto hellships like the Oryoku Maru.
Delmor's story is why naming and remembering each man matters.
Was someone in your family held at Cabanatuan? Please share his name below so we can remember him together.
