Lost Battalion (Pacific, World War II)

The men of the battalion, plus the survivors of the sunken cruiser USS Houston, were captured by the Japanese on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in March 1942.

The 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment (75mm Gun) (Truck-Drawn) was assigned to the 36th Division, Texas National Guard and was mobilized on 25 November 1940.

The Battalion sailed from San Francisco on 21 November 1941 assigned to the Philippines, but with the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific the convoy was rerouted to Brisbane, Australia.

After Christmas in Brisbane, the Battalion sailed again on a Dutch freighter, arriving on the island of Java on 11 January 1942 with 558 men.

[4] During the Battle of Java, the Battalion distinguished itself supporting the Australian defense of Leuwiliang and fighting alongside the Dutch at Porong.

Among the 32,500 soldiers taken prisoner, mostly Dutch, British, and Australian, were 534 members of the U.S. battalion, 21 men of the original 558 having been transferred and three killed in action.

[8] The Americans were part of a group of about 300,000 workers, mostly Southeast Asians but including 66,000 POWs, put to work building the railroad that would cross the mountains for a distance of 258 miles (415 km) between Burma and Thailand.

The POWs and other workers suffered from insufficient food, poor medical care, murderous guards, and heavy work quotas.

Captured in early March 1942, E Battery was housed initially in Surabaja with Dutch, British, and Australian soldiers.

On that date, American submarines sank two Japanese freighters which were transporting more than 2,000 British and Australian POWs to Japan.

The surviving POWs told the U.S. that American soldiers from the Second Battalion and sailors from USS Houston had worked with them on the Burma railroad.