Ex-POW who survived twin horrors dead at 93
Glenn Stuart Oliver would get calls from across the country from people hoping he’d met their loved ones while he was a prisoner of war on the Arisan Maru before the Japanese ship was torpedoed during World War II.
In December, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombed Clark Field, where Oliver was deployed. A piece of shrapnel hit him in the head during an attack the next month, and he received a Purple Heart.
Oliver survived the Bataan Death March in 1942, in which thousands of U.S. and Filipino POWs died. He also spent time at the notorious Cabanatuan POW camp.
In 1944, he was one of more than 1,800 POWs loaded into the two front holds of the Arisan Maru to be sent to Japan. Oliver estimated he was held with 18 other people in a 6-by-16-foot space on the ship, Cook said.
U.S. submarines attacked the convoy, and torpedoes cut the ship in half. Of the nine who survived the sinking, four – including Oliver – were picked up by another Japanese convoy. He was taken to a Japanese prison camp.
After the war, he weighed about 85 pounds and was treated at Madigan Army Medical Center.
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