Bunker attended the U.S. Military Academy and became the first football player at West Point to be selected as a first-team All-American by Walter Camp.

He was not the colorful elusive runner so prominent in football today, but depended on bull strength and a pair of piston-like legs that consistently sent him through the center of the line for three, four and five yards at a clip.

Bunker testified that his hazing activities were confined to bracing, "making men sing out their wash lists to popular airs, ride broomsticks, stand on their heads and charge sparrows with fixed bayonets.

There, Bunker was reunited with his West Point classmate, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and was involved in the tragic sinking of the ferry SS Corregidor in which more than 1,000, mostly Filipinos, lost their lives: Bunker reportedly refused to deactivate the electrically controlled minefield the ship was violating in its run to bring to safety evacuees from Manila to Mindanao, including Philippine legislators and military personnel.

I had lost 25 pounds living on the same diet as the soldiers, and I must have looked gaunt and ghastly standing there in my old war-stained clothes - no bemedaled commander of inspiring presence.

Through the shattered ruins, my eyes sought 'Topside,' where the deep roar of heavy guns still growled defiance, with their red blasts tearing the growing darkness asunder.

In May 1942, when Gen. Wainwright decided to surrender at Corregidor, he ordered Bunker to lower the U.S. flag and burn it to prevent its falling into the hands of the Japanese forces.

While he was in the hospital Col. Paul D. Bunker of Taunton, Mass., was brought in suffering from seriously infected blisters on his feet and blood poisoning in one leg.

On June 10, Bunker watching carefully 'to see that there were no Japs near,' swore him to secrecy, Ausmus continued, and 'said he wanted to turn something over to me to deliver to the Secretary of War.'

From beneath a false patch set into the left pocket of his shirt Bunker took a bit of red cloth.

Gen. Wainwright later recalled the circumstances of Bunker's death in the prison camp, still holding onto the remnant: "He must have suffered ... constant pain of hunger ...

I sat with him for a part of the last two hours of his life ... [He was] cremated in the rags in which he had carefully sewn a bit of the American flag he had pulled down in Corregidor.

The citation read: His courageous and incessent [sic] devotion to duty in directing the activities of his batteries and in supervising the immediate repair of damage inflicted by Enemy bombardment was outstanding.

[18] Bunker Road, which is carried through the Baker–Barry Tunnel between Forts Baker and Barry in what is now the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is named for Col.

[19] An intersection in Boston, Massachusetts near the Fort Point Channel was named as Paul Bunker Square at some time after World War II.

[20][21] Their eldest son Paul Delmont Bunker Jr. was a 1932 West Point graduate and Army Air Corps officer who died in a 1938 plane crash.