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HOLGER HOLM |
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Manilla - late 1941 |
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| Holger Holm was awarded the Silver Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters |
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| In Memory of Holger Holm. |
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| With grateful thanks to his son Vern. |
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| It's Christmas Eve 2007 and it was a little over 62 years ago that the paths of my father, Holger Larsen Holm and that of the British destroyer H.M.S. Wizard crossed paths. Holger Larsen Holm was born in October 1916 to Peter Holm and Karoline Swensen Holm. Peter and Karoline immigrated to Iowa from Denmark in the early part of the 20th Century and purchased an 80 acre farm in northeast Grundy County, Iowa which is about 3 miles southwest of New Hartford. Peter and Karoline were always known as Bestefa and Bestamor to me (Grandpa and Grandma in Dane). There children were Martin, Mary, Carl, Peter, Eva and my father, Holger. In early 1941 my father enlisted in the United States Army. He traveled to Fort
Des Moines for his physical and thought he would be home for a little while waiting to ship out. Instead, with no chance to say good-bye he was placed on a
troop train and was on his way to San Francisco where he boarded the S.S. Republic and sailed for the Philippine Islands Holger (aka Dad) took his basic training in the Philippines and was assigned to Battery C (Chicago) of the 60th Coast Artillery and was duty stationed on Morrison Hill on Corregidor Island. It was an island paradise until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7 1941.(Dad always said it was December 8 where he was at!) The war came quickly to the Philippines and to Corregidor with the Bataan Peninsula surrendering in early April 1942 and Corregidor surrendering in early May. Dad spent time in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps at Cabanatuan, Bilibid and Palawan in the Philippines and in 1944 was put aboard the Hell Ship Canadian Inventor and sailed for Mogi, Japan. From there Dad was sent to Nagoya Camp No. 3 at Funatsu, Japan where he spent the remainder of the war as a slave labourer in a Japanese zinc mine. With the war’s end in August of 1945 the camp was liberated (in early September)
Survivors and the prisoners were taken by train to Nagoya harbour on the east coast of Japan. After a brief physical the now ex-prisoners (about half Americans and the other half British and Australians) were issued new clothing, placed aboard a U.S. Navy barge and taken out into Nagoya harbour where Dad’s path crossed with that of the H.M.S. Wizard. The Wizard had been charged with transporting the ex-prisoners to Tokyo. The ex-P.O.W.’s were taken aboard the Wizard and were immediately told to strip and
throw their new clothes into the harbour. Lice! Dad was very unhappy with losing
his new clothes. After delousing the men were issued a new set of clothes
(extra clothing given to them by the crew of the Wizard). They were then taken below
to the mess. Dad said they started eating breakfast at 0930 and 12 hours later
they were still eating breakfast with many getting quite ill from the
overindulgence After sailing to Tokyo the prisoners were taken ashore and Dad’s trip home via Guam began. Imagine the joy of the family back home as the first word they received of Dad’s survival of the war came with a phone call to his brother Martin when he docked in San Francisco.
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