US Army Private Manuel R. Carpenter was born in Milton, Florida on May 22, 1917, the son of Thomas "Tom" Morgan Carpenter Jr. (1886-1949) and Albert "Bertie" Sanders (1897-1976). His parents married on June 4, 1911, in Milton, Florida and spent their life in Santa Rosa County. For most of his life, his father supported his family as a house carpenter but in the midst of the Great Depression few people were building houses. So, in 1940, his father took a job as a truck driver and "ginner" at a cotton gin while his son Manuel was working as a laborer at a local bottling company. The family owned their house at 110 Alabama Street in Milton, which was valued at $1,000.
As WWII was raging in Europe, Manuel traveled to Pensacola and enlisted in the US Army Coast Artillery at Ft. Barrancas on January 31, 1941. He was assigned to Battery "A" (Anti-aircraft) of the 60th Coast Artillery Regiment who took care of his basic training. When war finally arrived at America's doorstep, his regiment was deployed to Nichols Airfield near Manila, where it provided anti-aircraft and machine gun defenses against the Japanese invaders. They were soon withdrawn to Cabcaben on the Bataan Peninsula on December 27, 1941, and thence to Ft. Mills on Corregidor. There, the regiment fought valiantly until they were forced to surrender to the Japanese forces on May 6, 1942. Due to their lengthy holdout on Corregidor, they missed the infamous Bataan Death March that killed so many soldiers the previous month.
Instead, they were imprisoned in Manila where they were constantly beaten and starved by their captors. Manuel was finally selected for transport to Japan in early October 1944. His POW detachment shuffled aboard the "Hell Ship" Arisan Maru on October 11, 1944. The ships were named "Hell Ships" because of the absolute horrible, inhumane conditions the prisoners were forced to endure. The Arisan sailed ten days later as part of a convoy with accompanying destroyers. While sailing through the Bashi Strait on October 24, 1944, the ship was hit amidships by two American torpedoes from the submarine USS Shark (SS-314). The hatch covers were quickly placed over the prisoner's holds that contained the prisoners and latched down. Knowing the POWs would drown, the Japanese abandoned the ship leaving the trapped men to their fate. However, the resourceful Americans found a way out and jumped overboard. Most survived the initial attack but those who could not swim raided the food lockers, choosing to die with full stomachs after starving for two years.
As the ship sank, the remaining POWs took to the water on anything that floated. Some swam to nearby Japanese ships but were pushed away by Japanese sailors with poles. But five men found an abandoned lifeboat during the night and climbed aboard. Sadly, all night they heard their comrade's crying for help somewhere in the dark. The pitiful pleas soon faded away until there was only an eerie silence. Of the 1,800 Americans on board, only nine men survived the sinking of which five were in the lifeboat and made their way to China. The other four were recaptured with one dying shortly after reaching land. The remainder were left to drown by the Japanese. Even more sad was the news that the USS Shark had been depth charged by the Japanese escort IJN Harukaze and was sent to the bottom with all 87 crewmen the same day. Private Carpenter's body was never recovered, and nothing remains of the brave Miltonian except for a memorial marker in the Crain Cemetery in Milton, Florida.
Commentaires