Sioux Cityan Is War Prisoner
Private O’Conner Had Been Listed as Missing in Action
Mrs. F.C. Fowler, 810 22d Street, who last April was saddened by news that her son, Private First Class James T. O’Connor, was “missing in action” in the Philippines, Monday was thrilled to receive notice that he had been found to be “alive and a prisoner of war.”
The later notice came from Capt. C.P. Lancaster of the United States Marine Corps and he gave the International Red Cross credit for having furnished the information, young O’Connor’s name appearing in a published list of prisoners in the Manila Bay area. Place of internment had not been disclosed, but Mrs. Fowler was told she could reach her son by letter through the Japanese Red Cross at Tokyo.
Young O’Connor enlisted in the marines in August, 1940. He was at Shanghai before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was sent from Shanghai to “somewhere in the Philippines.” He had attended East Junior School here. He is a cousin of Policeman Joe O’Connor.
A brother, Lieut. Robert O’Connor, has been visiting at the Fowler home on his way from Camp Hale, near Pando, Colorado to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he will enter a motor maintenance school.
Mrs. Fowler has still a third son in the service.
Source: The Sioux City Journal-Tribune, March 22, 1943
Son of Charles E. and Fern Low O’Connor
James Theodore O’Connor died Apr. 27, 1943 in a Japanese prison camp. He is buried in Manila American Cemetery, Taguig City, Philippines.
Source: ancestry.com
