Thomas Lynwood Wetherington
PFC Thomas L. “Tommy” Wetherington served with Able Company, First Separate Marine Battalion.
He was killed in action at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines, on 10 December 1941.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 266778
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
March 19, 1920
at New Bern, NC
Parents
Leon A. Wetherington (d. 1932)
Lucille Nadine (Dupree) Wetherington
later Mrs. Lucille Page
Education
Details unknown
Occupation & Employer
Details unknown
Service Life
Entered Service
July 27, 1938
at San Diego, CA
Home Of Record
932 12th Avenue
San Diego, CA
Next Of Kin
Mother, Mrs. Lucille Page
Military Specialty
—
Primary Unit
First Separate Marine Battalion
Campaigns Served
Philippines
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
(only if relevant and short)
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Thomas Wetherington enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1938 at the age of eighteen. He spent his first year in uniform at Navy yards along the west coast; in November 1939, he boarded the USS Henderson and sailed for China, where he joined Company H, Second Battalion, 4th Marines. Wetherington spent the last few months of peace in the increasingly hostile atmosphere of Shanghai. His outfit departed in September 1941, bound for the Philippines to help prepare for an anticipated defense of the islands. Upon arrival at Cavite Navy Yard, he was transferred to Company A, First Separate Marine Battalion.
While most of this company was deployed to nearly Sangley Point, some remained on duty at the Yard itself, providing security and directing traffic. PFC Wetherington had this duty on 10 December 1941 when the air raid alarms began to wail. Ted Williams of the 4th Marines described the scene:
I was engulfed in terror. The interminable swoosh-swoosh of bombs falling, followed by the heavy dull thud of their explosion seemed endless. Confusion reigned supreme! AA batteries of ancient vintage threw hundreds of futile rounds into the air.... Shrapnel rained on the surrounding tin roofs like the sound of hail. Small-arms fire added their fruitless din to the melee.... Orders were being shouted from every side and to everyone. Shock and surprise were master of the moment.
Comfortably out of range of defensive fires, the Japanese bombers methodically worked over the Navy Yard and virtually leveled one of the most important American military installations in the Philippines. They left behind burning buildings, sinking ships, and hundreds of dead and wounded civilian workers and military personnel
PFC Junior H. Newman, a long-time friend of Wetherington’s was worried when his buddy didn’t turn up after the attack. “Willie [as he called Wetherington] was at his post just inside the front gate of the yard, standing on top of a car directing traffic out of the Navy Yard. It was his first and last post of World War II. After
the enemy had dropped their ordnance and retreated back into the Pacific, the Captain of the Yard blocked off the gate and would not allow anyone inside to look for their buddies.”
About a week after the raid personnel was scarce and I was promoted to driver for the Yard Captain. Having thus gained access to the yard, I searched for over an hour around the gate and finally found Willie about fifty feet to the east of the gate where he had been thrown by a direct hit. For a positive identification I had to remove one of his shoes to read his name printed inside the shoe. His body, shredded by the blast, had been riddled with fifty-caliber machine gun fire and his corpse having endured the tropical sun for over a week had been burned, and if he had not had his shoes on, I never would have been able to identify him.
Thomas Wetherington had the unhappy distinction of being the first Marine killed in the defense of the Philippine Islands in World War II.
Burial Information or Disposition
On 11 December, a burial party entered the ruined navy yard to identify and bury the dead. “It was estimated that 750 to 1,000 personnel were killed, the majority of those being Filipinos,” noted a post-war report. “Identification was impossible in most all cases. The remains of all casualties were buried in crater holes on the lawn along the Commandant’s Office, 16th Naval District. There were seven of these crater holes…. It is estimated that approximately 500 of the deceased were interred in this manner. No means of identification was buried with the remains. The few who were identified were reported to the Navy Dept. as buried on the station.”
One of those identified was Thomas Wetherington – as Newman recalled, by a name on his shoes. While most Navy dead were evacuated to the Post Cemetery at Fort William McKinley for burial, some servicemen were buried in the craters, along with hundreds of Filipino civilian workers, “due to the lack of identification tags or clues. Wetherington – described as a “dead piece of blackened carbon” by PFC Newman – was probably among them.
In 1948, Graves Registration personnel arrived at Cavite to look for the craters. The Navy Yard had been rebuilt after the war; some old burial sites were obliterated by heavy machinery, and buildings stood atop others. With the help of Filipino and American eyewitnesses, the GRS team located the old “Commandacia” –and found a large warehouse being used by the Philippine Naval Patrol. “Upon arriving at site of mass burials, it was discovered that a large building approximately 90 feet long and 58 feet wide, the base or floor is constructed of concrete approximately 8 inches thick,” noted their report. “This building was probably constructed by Japanese forces and covers the entire site of the mass burials.”
It is likely that Thomas Wetherington’s remains, along with hundreds of others, still lie somewhere beneath the modern Naval Base Cavite.
Memorials
Next Of Kin Address
Address of mother, Mrs. Lucille Nadine Page.
Location Of Loss
Wetherington was killed near the main gate of Cavite Navy Yard.
