PGR_NTX Patriot Guard HOTH: Honoring the "Lost Battalion", Farmers Branch, TX, 16 AUG 08

[Mission Information For North Texas PGR]

Updated  Preliminary Itinerary 

Honoring the  World War II “Lost Battalion” 

All Former  Prisoners of World War II 

Saturday,  August 16, 2008  
Ride  Captain:      William (Bill) Crow (LASER)  
817 360-1819, _aqsi6 at msn.com_ (mailto:aqsi6 at msn.com)  
Co-Captains:        Don  Massey (Eagle) 
Mike Brown (Choo-Choo) 
Mission Profile:  NTX Patriot Guard Riders HOTH:   
Lost  Battalion Association Annual Reunion, Saturday, August 16, 2008, 10:00 
a.m.  through 12:00 p.m. at the Omni Hotel at US Highway 635 at Luna Road in 
Farmers  Branch, Texas.  
Map:  _http://tinyurl.com/6lzyae_ (http://tinyurl.com/6lzyae)   
__________________________________________________________________  
Staging  Information:  There are four (4) important Stage  requirements as 
follows: 
(1) No  later than 0900 (9:00 a.m.) The Traveling Liberty Bell (David Hall) 
in-place  under the main lobby drive through in the outside lane at the Omni 
Hotel at US Highway 635 at  Luna Road in Farmers Branch, Texas. 
(2) No later than 0915 (9:15 a.m.) The  Patriot Guard Riders will stage and 
park their bikes just south of the Omni  Hotel main entrance drive through (in 
an area designated) adjacent to the main  hotel entrance.  Parking may be  
limited at this location and others may have to park at another (yet to be  
designated) location. 
(3) No later  than 0915 (9:15 a.m.)  The PGR Flag  Masters truck will be in 
place in designated area with 100 flags.  As the PGR Riders arrive all riders  
proceed to the Flag Master vehicle and receive a flag.  Please leave the flag “
furled” until at  your posted location.  PGR personnel  will be available to 
direct you to your post location.  Once at your post, please un-furl the  flag 
and begin doing what we do best, “Stand Tall and Silent with Honor and  
Respect”. 
(4)  No later than 0915 (9:15 a.m.) The  Bagpiper (Mr. Steven Creed) will be 
in place at the location of the Traveling  Liberty Bell at the main entrance 
to the  hotel. 
We should  have time to assemble, brief and post as the Heroes will emerge 
from the hotel  at 1000 (10:00 a.m.) 
 
Please  remember, the Patriot Guards Riders attendance is a complete surprise 
to the  Heroes and family members.  In that  regard, when you arrive please 
be as quiet as  possible.
 


Order of  Service (What we are going to do) 

Patriot Guard  Riders (PGR) will form two lines of flags (9’ spacing) from 
the main lobby  elevators to and out of the main entrance to the hotel.  
Additionally we will form a circling  line to the left of the Traveling Liberty  Bell 
(as you are looking at and or facing the  Traveling Liberty Bell) to the edge 
of the drive through.   
On the right of the Traveling Liberty Bell, we will form a flag line to the 
auxiliary  entrance just to the south of the hotel main entrance.  Depending on 
the number of participants  we may continue the flag line in a corridor in 
the hotel.  (Best hope is we will have near 100  riders).  We  must be in place 
and have flags posted no later that 0945 (9:45 a.m.) to ensure  we are posted 
prior to any early arrival of the  Heroes. 
The Bagpiper  will proceed to the elevator in the main lobby and on signal 
will begin to  “pipe”.  The elevator doors are  expected to open at 1000 (10:00 
a.m.) sharp with the Heroes and family members  ready to begin the walk to 
the Traveling Liberty  Bell.  The Bagpiper will” pipe” and begin a  slow dirge 
walk to the Traveling Liberty Bell and will curl around to the bell’s  left 
(south) side of the flag line allowing all of the Heroes to stand or sit  
directly in front of the Traveling Liberty Bell.  The Heroes families will be behind 
 them.  (We are expecting 100-125  family members in attendance).  
When all  Heroes and family members are in place Mr. Hall will begin to toll 
the Traveling  Liberty Bell an appropriate number of times (7  indicating 
completion) and then inform the Heroes and families about the meaning  of the 
bell. (3-4 minutes) Following that time, Mr. Hall will invite the Heroes  (as many 
as will and can) to salute and ring the bell.  Following the Traveling 
Liberty Bell  activity, The PGR Ride Captain will share a moment of information 
regarding the  PGR Challenge Coin and will ask 15-18 PGR Riders to step forward 
and present the  Challenge Coins to the Heroes.  
Following the  challenge coin presentation, The Traveling Liberty Bell will 
once again toll the  number of times representing the number of Heroes that 
have past since the Lost  Battalion Reunion last year.  Immediately following the 
tolling of the bell the Bagpiper will begin to  “pipe” and lead the 
departing Heroes and family members along the PGR flag line  into the auxiliary 
entrance doors just south of the main lobby entrance, along  our flag line and into 
the conference room for the memorial service.  The Heroes and family members 
will  proceed to the conference room on the first floor for a 30-40 minute 
memorial  service dedicated to those POW that have passed since the last  reunion. 
The Patriot  Guard Riders have been invited to bring the flags and form a 
circle around the  memorial service room and remain for the memorial service.  
After all Heroes and family members have  made their way into the memorial 
service room the PGR should enter silently and  proceed to circle around the walls 
to provide walls of flags for the  service. 
Following the  memorial service the Patriot Guard Riders have been invited to 
meet and greet  and share light finger food and drink with the Heroes and 
families on the  12th floor meeting area.  I think the outside PGR activities  
will take approximately 15-17 minutes if we move along  appropriately. 
This is an  opportunity to see and meet some of the last living Heroes of 
World War  II.  All were POW incarcerated by the Japanese.  This HOTH may be (is) 
 a once in a lifetime privilege for our North Texas Patriot Guard Riders as 
these  men are survivors of the harshest form of human abuse ever recorded and 
are true  living American Heroes. 
 
“Please be  flexible as we honor these Heroes”.  “Things do not always 
happen according to best laid  plans”. 
William (Bill) Crow,  (LASER) 
Don Massey  (Eagle) and Mike Brown (Choo-Choo)  
North Texas Patriot Guard Ride  Captains 

The following  is a brief synopsis of the history of the Lost Battalion and 
the men of the USS  Houston that we are supporting.   

History of the Lost  Battalion: 

2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, 36th  Infantry Division, 
Texas Army National Guard 
And  
Survivors of the USS Houston, “The  Battle of the Java Sea” 
It is  with  great pride and historical interest, the 2nd Battalion 131st 
Field  Artillery, 36th Infantry Division, Texas Army National Guard is the "Most  
Decorated Unit" in Texas War History and the Heavy Cruiser USS Houston is the 
 "Most Decorated Vessel" of its class in the US Fleet. 
The Lost Battalion Association  is composed of the men of the 2nd Battalion, 
131st Field Artillery, 36th  Infantry Division, Texas Army National Guard  and 
those men  who swam ashore from the Cruiser USS Houston (CA-30)  during  the 
"Battle of the Java Sea", when she was heavily battle damaged  and sank, and 
those who survived 42 months of "Hell" as prisoners of the  Japanese during 
World War II. 
The Japanese incarcerated all of the  American prisoners from the 131st Field 
Artillery (less E Battery) and  the USS Houston together in the 10th 
Battalion Bicycle Camp, a  former Dutch installation in Batavia (Jakarta) Java.   
Battery E remained in the Soerabaja area until moved to Nagasaki and other areas 
in Japan via Batavia  and Singapore in Nov and Dec, 1942.   Thus, two units 
(Army and Navy) of the American Armed Forces consisting of 902  men, disappeared 
from the face of the earth, seemingly sacrificed in hopeless  effort to save 
the Netherlands East Indies from overwhelming numbers of the  Japanese Army and 
Navy. 
What was to become an unbelievable string of  events which, for some, would 
last for three and a half years and was to mold  the Prisoners of War (POW) of 
the 2nd Battalion 131st Field Artillery and the  USS Houston together in a 
bond closer than blood.  This Army and Navy  group of POW suffered together 
through 42 months of humiliation, degradation.  physical and mental torture, 
starvation, and horrible tropical diseases with no  medications.  Many have said the 
hardest part was watching friends die  slowly, day by day, with the survivors 
often thinking, fleetingly, that maybe  they (the dead) were "the lucky 
ones". 
The men were brutally treated and  forced to work in hot steaming jungles and 
the monsoon seasons of Burma  chopping down trees, hand building road beds 
and bridges, laying ties and rails  with primitive tools in construction of the 
now infamous "Burma-Siam  Death Railway"  Some of the men were mining coal 
and/or working on  the docks in Japan while living in horrible conditions without 
heat or  sufficient cover during two Japanese winters, where real starvation 
was a daily  companion.  
Of the 902 men taken POW, 668 were sent to  Burma and Thailand and  worked on 
the "Death Railway" (Bridge on River Kwai of historical  fame).  Of the total 
163 who died in POW camp, 133 died working on  the railroad.  After 
completion of the railroad, 236 of the men were  disbursed to Japan and other South 
East Asian countries to work in coal mines,  shipyards, docks etc and a few 
remained at "Bicycle Camp" in  Java. 
Moving from Java to Singapore by Japanese  transport ship and then to Burma, 
Thailand or Japan, the men were packed like  cattle in the ship lower holds, 
taking turns sitting, standing, squatting, or  laying down while suffering from 
sea sickness, dysentery, malaria and or other  tropical diseases.  They stood 
in their own or their neighbor's filth,  because it was impossible or not 
permitted by the Japanese to get to the ship  side latrine on the main deck.  
During the Japanese transport of the  prisoners of war, many of the men were 
killed by American submarines  and American bombers attacking the Japanese 
transport ships while they were  en-route to Singapore and  Japan..  When 
liberated, the men  were found to be scattered throughout many locations in South 
East Asia,  Java, Singapore, Burma, Thailand, French Indochina, Japan, China and 
Manchuria, and other  locations. 
Since the Battalion had disappeared when the  island of  Java had 
surrendered, no  one knew where they were, the War Department knew nothing and nothing 
was heard  from them for 42 months.   
So each year since 1945, the survivors of  the POW "Hell", along with their 
families, meet each August to keep their  “Bond of Brotherhood” strong and to 
remember and pay honor  to those who died in Prison Camps and the 575 who have 
died since liberation and  the 646 who died in action, in a futile effort to 
save  Java.  






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