Robert I. Shope, age 20, from Montana, Yellowstone county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Wednesday, July 15, 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, with food and water 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. Staff Sergeant Robert I. Shope entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Montana and served in the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group, during World War II. The unit arrived in the Philippines in October 1941 and was stationed at Clark Field on Luzon Island. Two days before the Japanese attack, the 93rd began to move its B-17s to Del Monte Air Field on Mindanao Island. When the Japanese attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, half of the 93rd Squadron’s B-17 Flying Fortresses that had not relocated to Del Monte were destroyed on the ground at Clark Field. In late December, the few surviving aircraft were ordered to Australia, while the aircrews and ground personnel who remained in the Philippines were ordered to the Bataan Peninsula to fight as infantry. Staff Sergeant Shope was with his unit on Bataan when Allied forces surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942, and afterward he was forced on the Bataan Death March. Following the march he was interned in the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province, and died there of malaria and dysentery on July 15, 1942. 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 of those recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Staff Sergeant Shope is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
