Over the last few years, Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division have put an emphasis on history. But often times that history is shared through stories or photographs.<\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s one piece that is alive and well for the division to see, except it\u2019s so important, it only comes out for very special occasions and it is heavily secured.<\/p>\n
Most of us of a certain age remember \u2014 back in the day \u2014 a big dinner, Thanksgiving, Christmas, our parents, maybe our grandparents going to the cabinet and bringing out the good China.<\/p>\n
Well, here on Fort Drum, believe it or not, there’s a unit that does that as well. The difference is our China growing up probably wasn’t worth some $5 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went over to protect the international settlement in Shanghai at the time,\u201d Sgt. Major Brody Hall said.<\/p>\n
It sits in this display inside the headquarters of a 10th Mountain Division unit known as the Polar Bears. And that case, by the way, is not only locked, there’s pressure sensors.<\/p>\n
A handful of Chinese silversmiths in the community there took about $1,500 worth of U.S. trade silver coins from the officers of the regiment,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
They took that silver and melted it down, creating this, the Shanghai Bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if you were to tap that glass vigorously, it would ping over it. Our Department of Emergency Services and the MPs would be dispatched out here to see what is going on with it,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
That silver, now a bowl and cup set, is worth millions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth handles are essentially dragons, such as are the the the feet at the bottom of it,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
But its history, its journey to get here. Well, that’s priceless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was buried to keep it out of the hands of the Japanese,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
1942. World War II.\u00a0\u00a0The polar bears in the Philippines. They were in trouble.<\/p>\n
Captain Earl Short buried the bowl and cup on a hillside in. Four days later, he and his unit were taken prisoners of war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could still be sitting in a remote corner of Corregidor Island in Manila Bay in the Philippines right now,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
Captain Short was held captive for four years until the end of the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen most people were thinking about going home, seeing family, I mean, he immediately started petitioning the chief of staff of the Army to be able to go back during his convalescence to retrieve,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would take two months of digging \u2014 with heavy equipment \u2014 before Captain Short and his team found the bowl. However, it and the cups though, would stay in Korea with the polar bears for another 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the cups throughout the years have been engraved with, you know, you know, officer organization within the 31st Infantry Regiment,\u201d Sgt. Maj. Hall said.<\/p>\n
The bowl finally made its way to the U.S. and Fort Drum a little more than 30 years ago. And yes, every once in a while, maybe once or twice a year, it does come out for special occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the link to our past. You think of all of the hundreds of officers, noncommissioned officers, soldiers since, you know, it was created in 1932 that have touched this.\u201d<\/p>\n
About a month before the bowl was buried, a number of Polar Bear prisoners of war, were forced to march 100 miles to a Japanese Camp \u2014 where its believed some 18-thousand Filipino and American soldiers died from a lack of food & water, conditions and executions.<\/p>\n
That event was known as the Bataan Death March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the last few years, Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division have put an emphasis on history.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3477,257,7473,9,11,10,49,51,50,200],"class_list":["post-372414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-brian-dwyer","tag-central-ny","tag-ctv","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}