Joe R. Vaughan - Sanger, TX
N 33° 21.561 W 097° 09.680
14S E 671072 N 3692635
Besides serving as the headstone for Joe W. Vaughan in Sanger Cemetery, this grave marker is also a memorial to his son, Joe R. Vaughan, who was a victim of the Bataan Death March, dying on April 12, 1942, just days after his capture.
Waymark Code: WM19KN0
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 03/14/2024
Views: 0
The monument is made of granite, standing about three feet tall, and the inscriptions read:
Joe W.
Vaughan
Feb. 12, 1896
Feb. 19, 1928
---------
In Memory
of Son
Joe R. Vaughan
Born July 24, 1920
Died on Bataan
Apr. 12, 1942
---------
Sergeant Joe R. Vaughan served in the Antitank Company of the 31st Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army, a member of the defense forces that General Douglas MacArthur moved to the Bataan Peninsula after Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in late 1941. The hope was that these forces could hold out until relief could be sent, but unfortunately, a Japanese siege squashed those hopes, and 60,000 Filipinos and 15,000 Americans were captured. Sergeant Vaughan has a profile at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (see website, below), and it provides some background as to his fate:
Sergeant Joe R. Vaughan, who entered the U.S. Army from Texas, was a member of the 31st Infantry Division. He was taken prisoner of war following the American surrender in the Philippines. He died of dysentery on April 12, 1942, while on the Bataan Death March en route to Camp O'Donnell. He was reportedly buried near the prison gate near Lubao, but efforts to locate his remains or a possible burial site after the war have been unsuccessful. He is still unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant Vaughan is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.