Robert Ervin Schmidtman
First Sergeant Robert E. Schmidtman served with Headquarters Company, 4th Marines.
He was captured at Corregidor and died while a prisoner of war on 8 May 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 240257
Current Status
Remains not recovered.
Pursuit Category
This case is under Active Pursuit by the DPAA.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
November 19, 1905
at Pasco, WA
Parents
Bernhard Nickolaus Schmidtman
Dorothea (Meyer) Schmidtman
Education
Auburn High School (1923)
Griffin Murphy Business College
Occupation & Employer
Engine crew caller
Northern Pacific Railroad
Other Details
Robert’s older brother, Bernard, was killed in World War I
Service Life
Entered Service
October 3, 1933
at Seattle, WA
Home Of Record
Kent, WA
Next Of Kin
Parents, Bernhard & Dorothea Schmidtman
Military Specialty
Personnel Sergeant
Primary Unit
HQ Company / 4th Marines
Campaigns Served
Philippine Islands / Corregidor
Individual Decorations
Good Conduct Medal (twice)
Prisoner of War Medal
Additional Service Details
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Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
Robert Schmidtman, a pre-war recruiter and China Marine of many years service, was a member of Headquarters Company, 4th Marines. He had built a life for himself in Shanghai; when his regiment pulled out of China to fortify the Philippine Islands, Schmidtman left his pregnant wife, Claudia, behind.
“Top” Schmidtman served as the personnel sergeant of HQ Company through the Philippine campaign and the siege of Corregidor. He was captured with the rest of the garrison on 6 May 1942, and held at a vehicle facility belonging to the 92nd Coast Artillery – which became known as “92nd Garage.” Thousands of men were confined here without adequate shelter, food, or medical treatment; the only source of water was a single trickling spigot allowing one man a mouthful at a time.
Men began to die in short order, and Schmidtman was one of the first to go. He succumbed to heat exhaustion on 8 May 1942. “Sergeant Robert Schmidtman was my boss,” wrote W. Pat Hitchcock in Forty Months In Hell. “After we had been held in the 92nd Garage Area for one day, Schmidtman lay down and died; no groaning, no thrashing about, he just stretched out beside the shelter half….”
Sergeant Major Charles R. Jackson also witnessed Schmidtman’s end.
Doctor Wade, stethoscope around his neck, [was] kneeling over a still figure on a stretcher. He arose, dropped his head to his chest, and shook it slowly from side to side. A stretcher party picked up its burden and headed for the main gate. I knew who they were carrying; I had known that now lifeless clay for many years. First Sergeant Schmidtmann [sic], the personnel sergeant major from Headquarters Company, Fourth Marine Regiment, lay dead on that piece of canvas. Doctor Wade now bent over the next case, taking care of a gasping man.
Schmidtman would officially be carried as missing in action until evidence of his death was received in 1945.
Burial Information or Disposition
Robert Schmidtman’s body was buried somewhere on Corregidor. A burial roster compiled by the 4th Marines while in captivity gives the location as Corregidor’s Station Cemetery – however, his remains were not recovered or identified after the war.
Memorials
Next Of Kin Address
Mailing address of parents, Bernhard & Dorothea Schmidtman.
Robert’s wife (Claudia) and son (Robert Junior) lived in Shanghai.
Location Of Loss
Approximate location of the 92nd Garage, Corregidor.
Comment from Rose-Marie Fisk
12 May 2015
This is my grandfather. Robert Ervin married a Russian lady in Shanghai called Claudia she is my grandmother. They had two children, a daughter called Christina who died at 18 months of age and a son called Robert Schmidtman who is my father. Robert was born in August 1942 in Shanghai, sadly his father died in May just before he was born. After WWII ended my grandmother Claudia tried to leave China and requested the assistance of Roberts parents Bernhard & Dorothea in the USA however they refused to acknowledge that she was ever married to Robert Ervin. My father Robert is the exact image of his father Robert Ervin, my father has one photo of his father and that is all he has as a memory of him. Claudia and her son Robert immigrated to Australia, strangely enough via the Philippines in 1949, they were in a Displaced Persons’ Camp on the uninhabited Philippine island of Tubabao for 2 years before arriving in Australia.