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Birth and Early Life:
Grover Pool was born on May 2, 1918. He was raised in Austin, Texas by his father Hill (a school janitor) and mother, Viola.
Enlistment and Boot Camp:
Pool enlisted in the Marines on December 21, 1939. After completing boot training in San Diego, he was assigned to the Marine Barracks at Mare Island Navy Yard.
Service Prior to 1941:
Private Pool served at Mare Island until October 1940; he was promoted to Private First Class in September. Late that year, his transfer to Company E, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines in Shanghai was ordered, and he arrived at his overseas post that December.
Wartime Service:
Pool traveled to the Philippines with his regiment in 1941 where they prepared defenses they hoped they would not have to use, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor closely followed by bombing attacks on installations at Cavite and Olongapo dashed those hopes. PFC Pool fought in the defense of the Philippines, but was cut off on the Bataan Peninsula. His unit was surrendered by General Edward King on April 9, 1942, after a brutal campaign that saw starting American and Filipino troops overwhelmed by superior numbers of Japanese troops. Pool and the other captives were divided into groups of one hundred men apiece and compelled to walk to their destination Camp O'Donnell in Tarlac. The resulting brutality would become infamous as the Bataan Death March. Conditions at O'Donnell, a former Philippine Army camp, were deplorable, to say the least. It was vastly overcrowded, diseases ran rampant, there was little more than a cursory nod towards sanitation, and relief from the heat was second only to the wish for food in the prisoners minds.
Date Of Loss:
Grover Pool was reported dead on May 8, 1942. He was last known to be a prisoner at O'Donnell; the details of his fate are unknown.
Next Of Kin:
Parents, Hill & Viola Pool
Status Of Remains:
Unknown.
Memorial:
Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Philippines.
Austin Memorial Park, Austin, Texas.
Philippine Islands Campaign (1941-42)/Battle of Bataan
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
May / 1942
Description The Battle of Bataan represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II. The capture of the Philippine Islands was crucial to Japan's effort to control the Southwest Pacific, seize the resource-rich Dutch East Indies, and protect its Southeast Asia flank. It was the largest surrender in American and Filipino military history, and was the largest United States surrender since the Civil War's Battle of Harper's Ferry. Ultimately, more than 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 American prisoners of war were forced into the infamous Bataan Death March.
After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur fulfilled a promise to return to overseeing the The Campaign for the Liberation of the Philippines. As part of the campaign, the Battle for the Recapture of Bataan (31 January to 21 February 1945) by US Forces and Philippine guerillas avenged the surrender of the defunct United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) to invading Japanese forces.
