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Donald M. Williams Morrison Knudson Wake Island Naval Air Base Construction |
Sasebo Main Camp List Home
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Source:
Diana Williams Nidick, sister of Donald Williams
When Wake Island was overtaken Williams stayed behind working different jobs until Sept 30th 1942 when he along with 250 other men where transported by an oil tanker to Yokohoma, arriving on Oct 15th. Most of the men where marched through the street's and put on a train for 1 1/2 days until they ended up at Sasebo Camp # 18. My brother worked on the Soto Dam project and, in early March of 1943, he was ordered to mix cement in his bare feet. He caught a cold which developed into pneumonia. Three to four days later he was taken to the camp hospital where he died 2 days later on the 9th of March, 1943. He was buried in Unoki near Sasebo. I was told when our military arrived they were shown a diagram of the burial site and the bodies of the men were recovered. The remaining men were transferred from Sasebo later that same summer to a new camp at the Sasebo Airport. [see Rogge Report] All of this information was given our family by his friend and bunk mate, Mr. Arnold R Green, and still have his letter to my father.
Don was born in San Francisco CA May 14, 1921. He was a gifted
guitar player who played by ear. He wrote poems and short stories
of which I have two. After his parents divorced, he lived with
my father and was in Hawaii with my father and my mother in 1939.
He graduated from high school in Hawaii and then went to work
for Morrison - Knudsen. His first job was on Midway Island and
later he was sent to Wake Island. |
