George Everett Chumley
Staff Sergeant
Staff Sgt. George Everett Chumley (Harrodsburg Tankers Survivor, WW II) 1921–1988 BIRTH 24 MAY 1921 • Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky, USA DEATH 21 MAY 1988 • Blue Grass Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum, Nicholasville, Jessamine County, Kentucky, USA MEMORIAL ID, 58143008 Highest Grade Completed; High School, 2nd year Occupation; Waiter (He was married 2 times with no children.)
-- ReferenceHe worked as a plumber and was a partner in the company of Cannon & Chumley Plumbing.
-- ReferenceGeorge Everett Chumley
BIRTH, 24 May 1921, Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky, USA
DEATH, 21 May 1988 (aged 66), Nicholasville, Jessamine County, Kentucky, USA
BURIAL, Blue Grass Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum, Nicholasville, Jessamine
County, Kentucky, USA
MEMORIAL ID, 58143008
(He was a) twin to Georgia "Georgie" Chumley.;
Pfc. George Everett Chumley
(The following Biography provided by & credit given to: the BATAAN COMMEMORATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT... Many thx!!)
Pfc. George E. Chumley was born on May 24, 1921, to Wiley Chumley & Lola TaylorChumley. He was known as "Everett" to his family. It is known he had two sisters and a
brother and grew up on Greenville Street in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. He worked as a
waiter at a restaurant.
Sometime in the late 1930s, George joined the Kentucky National Guard as a member of
the 38th Tank Company headquartered in an armory in Harrodsburg. He was called to
federal service when the tank company became D Company, 192nd Tank Battalion.
George spent nearly a year training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he became a tank
commander. In the late summer of 1940, he took part in maneuvers in Louisiana, it wasafter these maneuvers at Camp Polk, Louisiana, that the tank battalion learned they were
being sent overseas.
Sailing from Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, George with the battalion arrived in the
Philippine Islands. He and the others tankers spent the next two weeks loading
ammunition belts and readying their tanks for use. It was at this time that D Company
was attached to the 194th Tank Battalion. The official transfer of the company to the
battalion never took place as expected.
George recalled that the morning of December 8, 1941, the tankers were at their tanks
around the perimeter of Clark Field. American planes were in the sky. Around noon, the
planes landed and lined up along the edge of the airfield. According to George the all
clear signal was given and everyone went to lunch.
George was in the Non-Commission Officers Canteen when planes appeared over Clark
Field. He was eating chicken and looking out a window. As he looked at the airfield,
bombs began to explode. As the bombs got closer to where he was, he went out and hid
behind a tree. When he got up, he saw that everything was a mess.
George saw several dead bodies. Many of the bodies had been burnt. He stated that the
worst thing that they had to deal with after the attack was the smell coming from the
burnt bodies. It was so bad that he was unable to eat for a week.
When the tanks were given orders to pull out, they soon discovered that without air cover
it was unsafe to move during the day. The tanks were moved at night to prevent them
from being attacked by Japanese planes.
George felt that driving a tank at night was never safe, but something that a tank driver
learned to do. One reason doing this was unsafe was that the tank crews never knew what
lay ahead.
Not every moment was hectic. During calm moments the tankers would turn on the tank's
radio and listen to Tokyo Rose. Doing this violated a standing order that they had
received not to listen to enemy broadcasts. George said that they ignored the propaganda
she broadcast, but they enjoyed the music. In many cases, she played the latest songs.
George believed that anyone who said that they were not afraid was lying. He believed
that everyone was always afraid. With time, what happened was that the person got to the
point that he didn't care. George felt that part of the reason for this was that the soldiers
were always hungry, sweaty, nervous, tired and thirsty.
On his last day in a tank, George was driving along a mountain road. In the turret was a
young lieutenant who was pretty nervous in George's opinion. George stated that a tank
driver drives the tank according to where the commander touches the driver with his foot.
If the commander taps the driver on the right shoulder, the driver turned the tank to the
right. The same for the left shoulder. There were a series of signals like this.George said that this young lieutenant kicked him pretty hard in the shoulder causing him
to make a hard turn. The result was one track hung out over the edge of the road. The
tank was stuck with no hope of moving it. Knowing the Japanese were approaching, the
tankers destroyed the tank and made their way on foot. As they walked they saw the tank
hit by enemy fire and go over the cliff.
George was walking with another member of the tank crew when they were spotted by a
Japanese plane. As the plane came in to attack them, he dove to one side of the road. The
other tanker dove to the other side of the road. The plane released a bomb which hit near
George. After it was clear, George got up and went to find the other tank crew member.
He discovered that the bomb the plane had dropped had blown the man to bits. George
could not find anything of the man.
By himself, George made his way to a pygmy village. The villagers fed him and hid him
from the enemy. When it was safe, he made his way south. At one point, he saw 150
Filipinos laying in a field. He thought they were resting. He made his way into the field
and discovered that they were dead. Not too long after this incident, George caught up to
his company.
George recalled that on Christmas Day his Christmas Dinner consisted of a can of pork
and beans and a coconut that a Filipino boy climbed a tree to get. He shared both with
another tanker.
For the next four months, George took part in many of the major engagements against the
Japanese. On April 8, 1942, he and other members of D Company learned that they were
supposed to surrender the next morning. He and a number of other tankers made the
decision that they would attempt to escape to Corregidor.
After arriving there, George spent a great deal of time in Middleside Barracks, hiding
under a pool table during air raids. He decided it was safer to be in a tunnel on the island.
When George was given the opportunity to go to Fort Drum, he jumped at the chance.
There, they fought on for another month until the island was surrendered on May 6, 1942.
George and the other Prisoners of War had heard of the march made by the Filipinos and
Americans made on Bataan. When they were taken by barge to an area near Manila, they
feared that they would have the same thing done to them. They marched ten miles
through Manila toward Bilibid Prison.
After being held at Bilibid for several days, George and the other prisoners were taken to
a railroad station. There, they were packed into boxcars and taken to Cabanatuan.
At Cabanatuan, George worked at the camp farm. The food was supposed to go to the
prisoners but much of it went to the Japanese. George recalled that the Japanese did not
like the POWs talking to each other. If they caught a man talking when they were
supposed to be working, the Japanese would tie the man to an aunt hill and let the red
aunts bite the man.
He also said that if a POW was caught stealing the Japanese would put the man into a
four by four box until he died. Knowing this was the punishment, the POWs came up
with their own punishment. When a member of George's barracks was caught stealing, he
was made to run a beltline. It may have seemed harsh, but at least the man was still alive
when he had finished.
As his time as a POW went on, George began to wonder if his effort to stay alive was
worth it. Because the diet in the camp was so bad, he lost his vision. Another POW led
him around. George said that he got his vision back after he was given cod oil that the
Filipinos outside the camp smuggled into the camp. Ironically, the man who had helped
George when he was blind, lost his eyesight and never got it back.
George was selected to be sent to Japan on one of the first ships of POWs sent there. The
ship that George was on was the Clyde Maru. The ship left Manila on July 23, 1943 and
arrived at Moji, Japan on August 7, 1943. During the trip to Japan was the time that
several of the ships in the convoy had been sunk by American submarines. In Japan,
George was sent to Fukuoka Camp #17. The POWs in the camp were used to extract coal
from a coal mine that had been condemned because it had become unsafe.
George believed that one of the major problems between that Japanese and Americans
was that they did not understand each other. The Japanese army allowed physical
punishment. The lowest ranking Japanese soldiers could be hit by those soldiers who
outranked them.
These soldiers with the lowest ranks took great pleasure at hitting the POWs because the
POWs were the only ones that they could hit. In one incident, George had a small
Japanese private hit him in the face with a board while George stood at attention. The
result of this was that George's nose was broken. The thing that bothered George was that
he had no idea why he had been hit.
In a different incident, George was made to do pushups in the snow until he collapsed
from exhaustion. The Japanese then beat him. George was the only prisoner made to do
this. Again, he had no idea why he was being punished. He concluded that the reason was
that since the Japanese guards had the power to do this to him, they did.
George and the other POWs worked in the coal mine. Since it was unsafe, the men lived
with the knowledge that any of them could be killed at any time. Another member of D
Company, Heze Sallee, died in the mine when the section of the mine he was working in
collapsed.
While working in the mine, George broke his foot in a mining accident. In reality, his
foot was almost cut off. Despite his injury, George had to walk two miles from the mine
back to the camp to receive treatment from a Japanese doctor.Life in the camp was extremely hard, especially during the winter. The POWs had only
straw mats to sleep on and a couple of military blankets. At night, the wind come up
through the floorboards of the barracks and through the mats. George said that working in
the mine actually became one of the few places where the POWs were warm. They were
warm enough to work only in G-strings.
Being superstitious, the Japanese made the POWs stop at a Shinto Shrine before they
entered the mine. The POWs had to bow, clap their hands three times, and say a prayer to
the mine gods to keep them safe. One day when the POWs left the mine, they found that
while they had been working American bombers had leveled the shrine. He and the other
POWs never had to stop there again.
To get out of working in the mine, prisoners paid other POWs to break their arms. The
payment usually was several bowls of rice. He was asked on several occasions by other
prisoners to break their arms.
At Fukuoka #17, the POWs very seldom got mail. During his time there, George received
one letter and one package from home. The letter was from his sister-in-law, and the
package was from his mother. In the package was a note saying that his mother was
sending him razor blades, a comb, vitamin pills, tobacco, rolling papers, swimming
trunks, and shoes. The reason she sent the swimming trunks was that the Japanese
claimed that the POWs swam at the beach every day.
When he got the package, it had already been gone through by the Japanese. They kept
what they wanted which included the shoes. The shoes were the one thing that he needed
since his had worn out and the Japanese refused to give him new ones.
During his time in the camp, George received very little news on the war. George said
that the one piece of news that the Japanese did tell the POWs was that President
Roosevelt had died. He believed that the Japanese hoped that the POWs would become
depressed hearing of it.
George was in camp the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. When the
POWs saw the mushroom cloud, they had no idea what they were looking at. They went
to work and the Japanese workers were talking about the incident.
George and the other POWs came out of the mine and found that the next shift of POWs
was not waiting to go to work. That night, the POWs were made to stand at attention for
two hours. They all had their blankets because they believed they were going to be
moved. Instead, they were returned to their barracks.
The next day, when it was their turn to go to work, they were told it was a holiday, and
they had the day off. George knew something was up because they had never had a
holiday off before this.Finally, the POWs were gathered in the camp and told that Japan and the United States
were now friends. They were also told to stay in the camp. Although they were told to
stay in the camp, four men left the camp and took a train to Osaka. There, they met
American troops.
Before the four left the camp, they found a warehouse which was full of Red Cross
packages that the Japanese had kept from the POWs. The POWs distributed the packages
among themselves.
When asked if he thought that using the atomic bomb was wrong, George said the bomb
saved his life and the lives of the other POWs. Expecting an American invasion of Japan,
the Japanese had received orders to kill all the POWs. The Japanese had already dug out
the machinegun placements to be used to execute the POWs.
After liberation, George returned to Harrodsburg. He was discharged, from the army, on
May 2, 1946. He married Lonnie East, and moved to Nicholasville, Kentucky. He worked
as a plumber and was a partner in the company of Cannon & Chumley Plumbing. George
E. Chumley passed away after an extended illness on May 21, 1988 in Nicholasville, Ky.
He was survived by his wife Lorene, a daughter and two step children and two sisters
Staff Sergeant George Everett Chumley joined the Harrodsburg National Guard unit sometime in the late 1930’s. After the fall of Bataan he made his way to Corregidor in Middleside barracks and later Fort Drum until it was surrendered on May 6, 1942. He was first sent to Bilibid Prison and later to Cabanatuan working on the camp farm. He was put aboard the Hell Ship Clyde Maru for Moji, and to Fukuoka Camp #17 where he worked in a coal mine where ne nearly lost his foot. After liberation he returned to Harrodsburg. He died on May 21, 1988.
-- Reference