Oklahoma WWII

We are saddened to report that another of the veterans we met last fall during our Oklahoma World War II Stories series has died. Army Sergeant Alexander Mathews of Cache, Oklahoma, died of pneumonia on March 14, 2008 at the age of 88.

Mr. Mathews was a full-blood Pawnee indian, born in Pawnee, Oklahoma on May 11, 1919. He attended Haskell Institute before joining the Army and serving in the Phillipines. Mathews was one of almost 80,000 American and Filipino soldiers who became prisoners of war when the American General surrendered to the Japanese at Baatan, shortly after the start of World War II. Mathews and his fellow POW’s were forced to walk more than 70 miles to the Japanese prison camp, Camp O’Donnell. More than 10,000 of the prisoners died or were executed on the way, in what became known as the “Baatan Death March.”

Mathews was shuttled from camp to camp throughout the war, performing slave labor, and later being transported to Japan on the so-called “hell ships,” where prisoners endured inhumane treatment and unimaginable living conditions. Mathews spent the entire length of World War II, four and a half years, as a prisoner of war.

After the war, Mathews returned to the United States and began a career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also served as Chairman of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. In his later years, he was a frequent speaker at schools in Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest, where he discussed World War II and his experiences on the Baatan Death March as part of a Living History Project.

Mathews is survived by his wife, Joyce, and two sons and daughters from a previous marriage.

(Above: Alexander Mathews looks over a gun at the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City. Mathews served in artillery in the U.S. Army. Below: Mathews during his interview with OETA’s Dick Pryor and Boots Kennedye on August 23, 2007 in Oklahoma City.)

Posted in Army, Bataan, OETA, Oklahoma News Report, South Pacific, The Oklahoman, The War, World War II | 18 Comments »