"We just begin to see it, it was every man for himself...Boy that was hard. You just turn your eyes and move on...knowing he's going to die that night." (Audio Interview, 27:48, Part I)
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Albert L. Allen, Jr. |
| World War II, 1939-1946
Army
C Company, 192nd Tank Battalion
Pacific Theater; Philippines; Mukden, Manchuria
Staff Sergeant
Yes
Mansfield, OH
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As an idealistic 21-year old from Mansfield, Ohio, who enlisted in the Army two years after the Second World War broke out in Europe, Albert Allen just wanted to do what everyone else at the time was doing: help make the world a better place. What he didn't know was that he would grow as an individual, learning new things about himself and becoming a new person. The "new" Albert Allen was stationed at an airfield in Bataan when U.S. forces surrendered; he was strong enough and able to survive imprisonment in Bataan, the Bataan Death March, and imprisonment in Manchuria as well. His story reveals the brutality of the Japanese--the beatings, the scare tactics, the lack of food, and poor sanitary conditions-all of it reflecting the lack of respect they had for the American soldiers.
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