Johnson, Harley A.
Army Corporal

Harley A. Johnson from Ohio, Noble county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Wednesday, April 8, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor and food and water supplied extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Seaman Second Class Harlan Wayne Johnson, who entered the U.S. Navy from the District of Columbia, served aboard the USS Canopus (AS-9). During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the Canopus participated in the defense of Manila Bay, even though it had been badly crippled by an armor-piercing bomb on December 29, 1941. After Bataan fell on April 8, 1942, the crew scuttled the ship and afterwards, SEA2 Johnson reportedly made it ashore at Corregidor Island where he was taken prisoner by the Japanese following the Allied surrender there on May 6. He was sent to the Cabanatuan Prison Camp where he died of beriberi on December 26. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Seaman Second Class Johnson is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency