Harley E. Kilgore

Service #: 34140229

Entered Service From: Tennessee

Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army Air Forces

Unit: Company B, 803rd Engineer Battalion, Aviation

Date of Death: 20 April 1942, killed by the Japanese on the Bataan Death March, near Bacolor, province of Pampanga Province, Central Luzon, Philippines

Status: Missing in Action, body not recovered

Memorialized: Manila American Cemetery – Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces

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1920 United States Federal Census (17 January 1920): Civil District 5, Marion County, Tennessee (sheet 9A, family 162) – Harley E. Kilgore (1 7/12 Tennessee).

1940 United States Federal Census (13 April 1940): Civil District 3, Whitwell, Marion County, Tennessee (sheet 9B, household 174, East Whitwell) – Harley E. Kilgore (21 Tennessee). His family had lived in the same house in 1935. Harlie had completed 2 years of high school.

Harley Edward Kilgore (22, 01 May 1918, Birmingham, Alabama), a resident of Whitwell, Marion County, Tennessee, signed up for his World War II Draft Registration Card (Serial No. 455, Order No. 2189) on 16 October 1942 at Whitwell, Marion County, Tennessee. He was not working. Harley listed his father, Mr. Richard Kilgore, as the person who would always know his address. He was described as 5′ 4″ in height, 162 lbs., with a light complexion, brown hair and blue eyes.

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Harlie E. Kilgore (1918 Alabama), a resident of Marion County, Tennessee, enlisted as a Private (S/N 34140229) in the U.S. Army on 30 May 1941 at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. He was single, had completed 2 years of high school and had been working as a “semiskilled painters, construction and maintenance.”

Private Kilgore was sent to Westover Field, Massachusetts where he was assigned to Company “B”, 803rd Engineer Battalion, Aviation, U.S. Army Air Corps.

In September 1941, the 803rd Engineer Battalion was sent to the West Coast in preparation for deployment. Their equipment was shipped by train to San Francisco, California on 18 September 1941, the men following three days later.

21 September 1941: – 16 car all-pullman train of 803rd Engr. Bn. left for San Francisco, Calif. – Travelled west to Albany, New York via the Boston & Maine Railroad and then to Buffalo on the New York Central Railroad. They then went southwest through St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri – stopped 4 hrs. in Kansas City, Mo. (longest stop) – Dodge City, Kansas, Albuquerque New Mexico, Barstow, California before arriving in San Francisco, California. They rode on the Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe, & Southern Pacific Railroads. Rumors on the destination “were a dime a dozen.”

26 September 1941: – Arrived at San Francisco and sent to Ft. McDowell, Angel Island. At Fort McDowell the men were given physical examinations and immunizations and issued tropical uniforms. The 803rd learned their destination was to be the Philippines.

The 464 men, including Medical Corps personnel of the 803rd sailed for the Philippine Islands on 04 October 1941 aboard the U.S.A.T. TASKER H. BLISS (AP 42) (formerly the SS President Cleveland) from San Fransisco. Also, on board the BLISS, were aviation ordnance, chemical, and medical companies assigned to the Philippines as part of the reinforcement effort. It was accompanied by the U.S.A.T. WILLARD A. HOLBROOKE and the SS LIBERTY. The USS CHESTER, a heavy cruiser, served as the convoy’s armed escort. The route to Manila was via Hawaii and Guam. A brass band greeted the arrival of the TASKER H. BLISS in Honolulu on the evening of 09 October.

09 October 1941: – Arrived Honolulu, 6:00 P.M. Officers given shore leave until 12:00 M. Departed 4:00 P.M. Oct. 10, 1941 with cruiser Chester as escort. Observed blackout for remainder of trip.

19 October 1941: – Arrived Guam, 8:00 A.M. – Officers and 1st 3 grades given shore leave – sailed 5:00 P.M.

23 October 1941: – Arrived Pier 7, Manila, P.I. 9:00 P.M. The convoy made the trip in 17 days. – Left Manila by bus for Clark Field, Fort Stotsenburg. Arrived 12 M. to tent camp.

24 October 1941: – Organized new camp. Set up kitchens, etc. Convoying equip. fr. Manila.

Company “B”, 803rd Engineer Battalion went to the Sugar Central Area of Del Carmen, near the base of the Bataan Peninsula, where it began work on what was originally known as Del Carmen Field on 10 November 1941. It was to be a major airdrome with multiple runways designed to be a fighter base.

“It was hot all the time. Some guys found a stream coming down through the mountain. We took a power shovel and carved out a swimming hole. There was a rock you could dive off of.” Source: Bitter Surrender, A Brutal Walk In the Sun; An interview by David Venditta of Joseph T. Poster; The Morning Call, 07 April 2002.

Barely a month and a half after the 803rd arrived, war came to the Philippine Islands. At 12:30 p.m. on 08 December 1942, 54 Japanese two-engine bombers attacked Clark and Iba Fields, followed by Japanese fighter planes. The Japanese followed up their success of the first day of war with air attacks that completed the destruction of American airpower in the Philippines. Only a few of USAFFE’s pursuit planes and B-17 bombers remained after the raids on 11 and 12 December. Those few B17s that survived were flown to Australia. The 803d continued to repair the bomb-damaged airfields at Clark and Nichols, and they sped up their construction efforts to complete Del Carmen and O’Donnell Fields.

In the first month after the initial attack, the 803d not only made considerable progress in airfield construction, but also repaired and improved roads and defensive positions…Meanwhile, after Company B finished the strip at Del Carmen, the unit withdrew to Hermosa and Pilar to build bomber airstrips on Bataan’s eastern coast. Since Pilar was so close to the front lines, work was only done at night. Additionally, the unit surveyed locations for the large artillery guns and moved some 8-inch guns and parts. From Pilar, the company was sent to the southern tip of Bataan to work on Mariveles Field and a section of road…Although the engineers provided the airstrips, few planes used them, and the enemy captured most of the airstrips. Early in the Japanese siege, there were only three airstrips–Bataan, Mariveles, and Cabcaben–left to be lengthened, widened, and maintained; only one airplane existed at each airfield, respectively, and no more would come. Captain Samuel A. Goldblith, who published the unit’s history in Military Engineer in August 1946 wrote, “In Bataan, the company extended the runways at two fields, and constructed camouflaged plane pens–for the planes that never came.”

In all, according to Captain Samuel Goldblith, the battalion built over 12 airstrips on Luzon in efforts in defense of the Philippines despite dwindling supplies and diseases resulting from malnutrition, malaria, and dysentery. Its personnel and equipment also moved heavy guns across the Bataan peninsula, repaired bridges and roads, built emplacements for guns and searchlights, strung out barbed wire, and even transported, set up, and maintained four rice mills. Goldblith concluded, “the Battalion ended up as an infantry battalion…In spite of these difficulties, the 803d heroically performed as engineers and as infantry soldiers. The 803d EAB heroically repulsed numerous Japanese advances and endured multiple enemy bombing attacks. Source: Engineer aviation units in the Southwest Pacific Theater during World War II by Natalie M Pearson (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2005), pages 31-34

“From the very beginning, Bataan men were cut to 1/2 rations, and very soon, to 1/4 rations. About four weeks later, they were living on 1/8 rations, that is, when food was available to them. Towards the end, it was changed to 1/16th of their rations…Quite often, they would go several days with no food, unless they could catch something in the jungle.” Source: Federico Baldassarre letter

In the wake of starvation came diseases, such as malaria, dengue, scurvy, beriberi and amebic dysentery. The average American soldier lost 15-25 pounds and malaria was as high as 35 percent among front line units.

On Good Friday, 03 April 1942, General Homma, with the addition of fresh troops, began an all-out offensive on the Fil-American forces on Bataan. The men of the 803rd were released from their engineering duties, converted into infantrymen, and placed in the Philippine II Corps reserve. On 06 April, the 803rd Engineer Battalion was sent to the front at Mt. Samat near Kilometer Marker 143.8. They joined up with elements of the 26th Cavalry Regiment (PS), 57th (PS) and 31st (US) Infantry Regiments, 14th Engineer Battalion (PS), and air corps personnel to form a “Task Force” under Brigadier General Clifford Bleumel. “The general mission of the Task Force was to keep open Trail 20, a north-south fairly good dirt road… which would no doubt be needed for withdrawal.” On 08 April, the Task Force tried to delay the actions of the Japanese, but they were forced back.

By the evening of 08 April the situation was clearly hopeless. With ammunition, rations and supplies practically exhausted and most of his best units destroyed, Major General Edward P. King, commander of the forces on Bataan, was convinced his troops could not physically resist any more and decided to surrender to prevent further loss of life. On 09 April 1942, Maj. Gen. King surrendered the Luzon Force to the Japanese.

“.. the 803d EAB, … the aviation engineers … repairing airfields helter-skelter, scraping out emergency runways in a few hours, dodging bombs, and pitching in for all types of work. By the first days of 1942 the battalion was on Bataan. There the men laid out airstrips, erected bridges, built emplacements for guns and searchlights, strung out barbed wire, and fought as combat troops.

“At last Bataan was overrun, and two companies (Headquarters and B Companies) of the 803d were captured. Company A made it to Corregidor, where for three months its men tried to keep Kindley Field in operation despite the shelling and bombing, the sickness, and failing hopes. A few lived to tell the story.” Source: The Army Air Forces In World War II, The Aviation Engineers Battalion.

PFC Kilgore became a prisoner of the Japanese. He, along with 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, were subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March.

He was killed by the Japanese on 20 April 1942 while on the Bataan Death March, near Bacolor, province of Pampanga Province, Central Luzon, Philippines.

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“As I was heading back to Bataan, I was stopped by a barrio policeman, who said, “Sergeant, the chief of police wants to see you.”

At the chief s office he greeted me, shaking hands, then sat down. “Sergeant, I know of the graves of George Christy and Harlie Kilgore.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were killed on the Death March”

We were shown the graves, and headed back to Balanga with the bodies.

Source: Oh, God, Where are You? by *Abie Abraham (Vantage Press, New York 1997) page 519.

*After the war before returning the States, Sergeant Abie Abraham stayed in the Philippines for 2½ years tasked with searching for the the remains of soldiers who had died in the Philippines during the fall so they could be buried properly.

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Private First Class Harlie Edward Kilgore is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing – United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.