| 43. | John Finzer Presnell, Jr.  (21.John3, 7.Granville2, 1.Mira1) was born in 1914 in Portland, Cumberland, Maine, USA; died on 19 Jan 1945. Notes:
The Bowdoin Orient Online
Volume CXXXII, Number 15
February 14, 2003
The early offensive in the Pacific
KID WONGSRICHANALAI
STAFF WRITER
John Finzer Presnell, Jr. was born in Portland, Maine in 1914 when, across a great ocean, the First World War was being waged on the fields of France and on the beaches of Italy. Nine days after Presnell turned four years old, Germany surrendered. As the boy matured and attended Portland High School, the defeated Germany birthed the Weimar Republic, which attempted to grow with the rest of the European continent, only to be reminded at every turn of its troubled past.
The Treaty of Versailles had bred such hatred and animosity-as it laid the blame for the entire war on the German people-that elements of the community never forgot nor forgave the outside world. Some dreamt of sciences and new ways to live peacefully while still others dreamt of a new empire-a new dawn-for Aryan peoples. It was this latter element that soon gained strength and power in the gathering storm that was fed by weakness and U.S. inaction.
As a withering and weak League of Nations failed-thanks to the refusal of the U.S. to abide by its laws-a new Germany was born out of the fires of anger and human hatred. It was a new Reich that would soon spread its evil across a continent and change the world forever.
In Maine, John Presnell grew strong and, after graduating from high school in 1932, attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick. The youth worked hard in his undergraduate career, enjoying the delights of Kenneth Charles Morton Sills' small New England college. Presnell did well in his academic career-graduating Phi Beta Kappa in the Class of 1936. Then, following in the proud tradition of many great characters of history, John F. Presnell, Jr. went on to attend the Military Academy at West Point.
From the Hudson, he wrote back to the College, simplifying his experience for the Bowdoin Alumnus: "When…a West Point Cadet has received his diploma and his degree of Bachelor of Science, he has not only the same sort of sheepskin as the Bowdoin graduate, but also a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army, and a motto that will be part of him for the rest of his life: 'Duty, Honor, Country.'"
It was in the pursuit of "duty, honor, country" that Presnell accepted his first assignment to the Philippines after graduating from the Point with the highest rating in mathematics-earning for himself the Robert E. Lee Memorial Sword. Aside from his Second Lieutenant's commission in the prestigious Corps of Engineers, Presnell also received the Sons of the American Revolution Cup for military efficiency and the General John J. Pershing Sword for his position as a cadet captain and a regimental commander. Presnell set sail for the Philippines in August, 1940. He continued his good record and, a year later, had almost earned the rank of First Lieutenant.
In recognition of his achievements and to note his alma mater's pride at an excellent record, President Sills wrote to the young officer on December 1, 1941:
I thought since it takes about a month for a letter from Brunswick to reach the Philippines I would just send you a line to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Our thoughts at the college often go out to those of you who are in distant parts of the world. We are always glad to hear what you are doing, always hope that you will feel we are deeply interested in the men in the service. Allow me to congratulate you on your promotion so soon to a first lieutenancy; that seems to imply you are doing fine work.
Presnell probably never read this letter. Six days after it was written Imperial Japanese warplanes bombed the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor and seven days later, on December 8, 1941, they began their invasion of the Philippines.
The Japanese struck swiftly. As Franklin Roosevelt was telling the nation that the U.S. was finally entering the war and Bowdoin officials learned that two of their own had been killed at Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes knocked out a large number of the American aircraft stationed in the Philippines under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur. By December 22, MacArthur's airforce was reduced to only a few fighters and long range B-17 bombers-not nearly enough to halt the swarms of Japanese planes, which patrolled the skies in support of General Homma Masaharu's Fourteenth Army, comprised of approximately 57,000 troops.
MacArthur commanded a total of about 31,000 regular American and Filipino troops along with 110,000 "low-grade" Philippine troops. The Japanese moved up from their Luzon landings on December 22, pushing MacArthur's troops before them. Two days later, General MacArthur shifted his headquarters to the mouth of Manila Bay-Correigidor Island two miles off the coast of the Bataan Peninsula. A day after Christmas, Manila fell and a few days after the turn of the year, MacArthur and his command were established on Bataan, which was about twenty-five miles long and twenty in width.
Here a state of siege began. American supplies ran low in very short time, having to feed over 100,000 soldiers and civilians. Tropical diseases such as malaria took their toll, both on the fighting men and the officers who commanded them. Both U.S. and Japanese forces suffered in agony-the Japanese having about 10,000 troops down with malarial fever. The situation, however, favored the Japanese, who were able to bring in fresh reinforcements-Washington had decided early on that an attempt to rescue the American forces here would not be undertaken.
When attacks against the American lines were resumed in spring of 1942, both sides knew that the fight was basically over. To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, U.S. General King-MacArthur having already left for Australia-surrendered the Bataan survivors on April 9, 1942. Less than a month later, Correigidor-the great fortress-also fell.
In the fighting that followed the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, Lt. Presnell fought gallantly and earned the Bronze Star, as well as a promotion to Captain. He was interned in prison camps although the army did not confirm this POW status to his parents until December, 1942. Also captured on Bataan was another Bowdoin man: Major Robert T. Phillips-Class of 1924-a member of the U.S. Army's Medical Corps. Both were captured when the Bataan troops surrendered and managed to survive the horrific Bataan Death March. Phillips, however, did not survive long in the inhumane camps, which the Japanese set up. He died there on June 11, 1943. Presnell was stronger and younger, but he too did not live to see his country victorious. On January 19, 1945, weakened by years of imprisonment and by wounds sustained in several POW ship sinkings, he died.
Captain Presnell died without knowing that within less than a year, Allied troops would defeat the Axis after the bloodiest war in human history. That victory was gained by both skill and intrepidity. In the Pacific, the bloody island hopping campaign, which would eventually end with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, began in the summer of 1942 when elite troops of the First Marine Division-known as "the Old Breed"-entered the war and began the reversal of the Japanese tide of conquest.
Following the Fall of the Philippines and the victory at Midway, U.S. commanders began a new campaign, hoping to halt the Japanese as they attempted to spread and solidify their defensive parameter in the middle and southern Pacific Ocean. The target for this, the first offensive by the U.S. Marines, was a little known island named Guadalcanal.
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1827 - 1871 (43 years)