Jack Brady, WWII death march survivor, dead at 87

TACOMA, Washington (AP) – Jack Emerson Brady, who survived the Bataan Death March in World War II and rose to the rank of major during 20 years in the Army, has died. He was 87.

Brady died Aug. 11 after a long illness, his daughter said.

Brady was stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was among about 12,000 US troops and 66,000 Filipinos who surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942.

On the 70-mile (113-kilometer) march along the Bataan Peninsula that began the next day, the prisoners were denied practically any food or water, and as many as 11,000 died.

He recalled that at one point in the march, he saw a well, ran to try to get a drink and was hit with a rifle butt between the shoulder blades but managed to return to the line. He was lucky. Often those who sought water or disobeyed in any way were bayoneted to death on the spot.

Clinging to life on meager rations in a prisoner-of-war camp, he said, he woke up one morning to find the soldiers on either side of him had died.

He was freed by US troops toward the end of the war and was awarded two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.

After his Army career, he earned a degree at the University of Puget Sound and taught high school math in the Peninsula School District and later at Annie Wright School in Tacoma.