Mike S. Wepsiec Bataan Death March Survivor - Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery; Elwood, IL
Posted by: cldisme
N 41° 23.356 W 088° 07.726
16T E 405628 N 4582585
A survivor of the Bataan Death March and Hell Transport Ships
Waymark Code: WM8N4B
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 04/22/2010
Views: 4
As a member of the 192nd Tank Battalion in Bataan,
Mike Wepsiec and the rest of the US forces were over run by Japanese reinforcements in April of 1942.
As a Prisoner-of-War he survived the horrors of not only the Bataan Death March, being kept in captivity twice in the holds of transport ships for 47 days and 12 days respectively, and being used as slave labor to build Japanese airfields, harvest sugarcane and mine lead and zinc.
Mike Wepsiec was able to survive all these trials until the end of the war when he was released in August of 1945. Upon discharge, he was able to return home to raise a family of 5 children and live a typical American life until his death in 2001. He is buried at the posted coordinates (Section 2; Site 418) in the
Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.
Mike Wepsiec's life story (and many other members of the
192th Tank Battalion) is available as a recorded
oral history project hosted by Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois.
The summary of Mike Wespiec's biography is used with permission of Proviso East High School.