George Dorrell Davis

Private First Class George Davis served with Mike Company, Third Battalion, 4th Marines during the defense of the Philippine Islands and the siege of Corregidor. He was captured when the garrison capitulated on 6 May 1942, and after a few days sweltering in the 92nd Garage, was shipped off to Palawan for imprisonment in “Camp 10-A.” There, Davis and his fellow prisoners worked as slave labor building an airstrip with hand tools.

On the night of 10 August 1942, Davis and four other prisoners – two sailors and two other Marines – jumped the compound wall and scrambled down the nearby cliffs to a beach where they found an abandoned banca. Sixty miles of sailing took them to Brooke’s Point and temporary safety in the home of American civilian Thomas Edwards.

For the next several months, the five Americans operated with local Filipino guerilla outfits before moving on to other islands. Historian Stephen Moore records that Davis and company arrived at the island of Tawi-Tawi on 10 August 1943. While there, Davis and S1c Robert “Bobby” Hodges (USS Gennessee) decided to sail for Australia by themselves. They departed late that year in a well-stocked boat, but never arrived at their destination.

Captain Damon J. Gause, one of the few men to survive the incredible journey from the Philippines to Australia, informed authorities that:

This man [Davis] escaped from the Jap prison farm at Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan, and is now at large. Capt. Gause sends snapshot of Davis with two other Marines taken after their escape.

A final offical report of George Davis’ whereabouts comes from his Marine Corps casualty card: “Left Tawi Tawi in Dec ’43 for Australia, not heard of since.”

Exact circumstances of Davis’ fate are not known: he may have been recaptured and executed, run aground on a remote island, blown off course in a storm, or drowned at sea. He was officially declared dead on 6 January 1946.