Mobilization Site of Lost Battalion
Jacksboro, Jack County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Battery F, 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, 36th Division, Texas National Guard mobilized here November 1940, for active duty. Sailed from San Francisco, November 1941, was at sea when Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Went to defend Java where unit was captured March 1942. Prisoners in many parts of Asia for three and one-half years. Performed forced labor for Japanese, suffering untold hardships and starvation. 8 of original 63 died. Most deaths occurred building Burma-Siam Railway. Survivors returned after Japanese surrender. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In November 1940, Battery F of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery — a Texas National Guard unit — mobilized here for active duty. Shipped out from San Francisco in late 1941, the men were still at sea when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and they were sent to defend Java, where the unit was captured in March 1942. For three and a half years they endured captivity across Asia, forced into brutal labor, much of it on the Burma–Siam Railway, where most of the deaths occurred; the survivors came home only after Japan's surrender.
Why it matters
This is the mustering ground of the "Lost Battalion," whose men vanished into Japanese captivity for years of forced labor and starvation — a searing local link to the Pacific war and the horrors of the Burma–Siam Railway.
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Related events
- · Attack on Pearl Harbor
- · Fall of Java (1942)
- · Burma–Siam Railway
Themes & tags
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