Strickland, Clifford H.
Army Staff sergeant

Clifford H. Strickland from Washington, Pierce county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Wednesday, July 29, 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. Technician Fifth Grade Clifford H. Strickland, who joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in Colorado, was a member of the 803rd Engineers Battalion, Philippine Department, tasked with defending the Philippine Islands and training the Philippine Army. After Allied troops surrendered Bataan Province in April 1942, Technician Fifth Grade Strickland was taken to Cabanatuan Prison Camp, where he died from dysentery and malaria on July 29, 1942. He was buried at the camp cemetery; however, he could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Technician Fifth Grade Strickland is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency