Veterans' Memorial Project

John Phillip Crandell

Champaign, IL

World War II

College: Engineering

Graduation Year: 1941

Service Branch: Army

Rank: Second Lieutenant

Date of Birth: 01/25/1919

Date of Death: 09/07/1944

Second Lieutenant Crandell served with the 59th Coast Artillery Regiment. He was a prisoner of the Japanese since the fall of Bataan and Corregidor and died when the Japanese freighter transporting prisoners, the Shinyo Maru, from the Philippines was destroyed at sea. The freighter was attacked by an American submarine. The POWs escaped the ship, but they were hunted down in the water and shot by the Japanese. Of the 750 POWs on the ship, only 82 survived. Lt. Crandell entered active service 24 hours after his graduation and went to the Philippines in September, 1941. He is listed as Missing in Action or Buried at Sea on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines. He was awarded the Purple Heart.

-taken from Illinois Alumni News, November, 1945 and Web site above

Further information: https://www.abmc.gov

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