BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – An exceptional man was laid to rest Friday afternoon at Bakersfield National Cemetery.
Capt. James T. Murphy, a World War II veteran and survivor of the Bataan Death March, passed away in Arroyo Grande on Oct. 5 at the age of 106.
Murphy enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1939 at age 19. He was among 78,000 U.S. and Filipino soldiers taken captive by Japanese forces in April 1942 and forced to undertake the infamous, 65-mile Bataan Death March, in which those who couldn’t keep up were shot or bayoneted on the spot.
He endured three and a half years of captivity, starvation, brutality and forced labor as a prisoner of war before he was liberated in 1945. 40 percent of American POWs captured by the Japanese did not survive until the war’s end.
Lt. Col. Timothy Sessions, wing chaplain at Edwards Air Force Base, and an officiant at Murphy’s service, said the Greatest Generation continues to slip away.
“That’s why it’s so important for us to honor these men and women when the opportunity arises,” he said.
Murphy went on to serve two decades in the military and wrote a memoir, “When Men Must Live.”
Captain James T. Murphy – thank you for your service.
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