From Dry Flat to the Manila American Cemetery

I happened upon the story of the Sutton brothers, Orville and Warren, in a brief paragraph headlined "Two Brothers Die in Japanese Prisons," published on the front page of the Russell Union-Tribune of Aug. 2, 1945.

The Suttons hadn't lived in Iowa for 20 years when World War II erupted, and it seems unlikely many subscribers would have remembered them. But the fact that they lived as boys in the Goodwater Creek neighborhood just south of the Lucas-Wayne county line, south of Russell, caught my attention. I grew up not far away. And they attended Dry Flat School. So did I.

Here's the text of the article:

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Word was received by friends here last week from Harold Sutton of Elgin, Oregon, that both his brothers, Orville and Vernon, were declared officially dead by the War Department. Orville, the eldest brother, was first reported missing following the Battle of Bataan May 8, 1942, and later was reported killed, but in the letter from Harold Friday, July 27, he wrote that Orville died of dysentery in the Japanese prison at Camp O'Donnell May 15, 1942.

Vernon died July 19, 1942, in the Japanese prison Camp Cabanatuan of malarial fever.

Orville, Harold and Vernon, sons of the late Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sutton, lived in the Goodwater neighborhood when the boys were little and attended Dry Flat School.

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Robert Sutton was native to northern Wayne County --- son of Greenleaf N. and Catherine (Church) Sutton, who are buried in the New York Cemetery. He married Viola Hancock, a dozen years his junior, during December of 1910 in Idaho and they returned to Iowa to farm. Their sons were born during the next 10 years in the Goodwater neighborhood --- Orville during 1911; Harold, in 1913; and Vernon, during 1916.

Soon after 1920, the family moved south to a farm near Rogersville in Greene County, Missouri, but Robert died very soon thereafter, on Feb. 23, 1922, of a stroke, leaving Viola a widow living in an unfamiliar place with sons ages 10, 8 and 6. Her family lived in Oregon, so she took the boys there to live.

Nine years later, as World War II loomed on the horizon, Orville and Vernon were working together in northern California. Orville enlisted in the U.S. Army at San Francisco on May 3, 1941, and Vernon enlisted three days later.

After training, both were assigned to the 31st Infantry Division, Orville to Company L and Vernon, to Company D, and deployed soon thereafter to the Philippines.

The Japanese invasion of the Philippines commenced during January of 1942 and the 31st Infantry and other U.S. units were consolidated on the Bataan Peninsula for a battle that raged until surrender of U.S. and Filipino forces on April 9.

Both Orville and Vernon survived combat --- and what we now call the Bataan Death March, but barely. Orville died at the Camp O'Donnell prison of dysentery on May 15, 1942. Vernon, transferred to the Cabanatuan Prison Camp, died there of malaria on July 19.

After the war, Orville's remains were recovered, identified and reinterred at his brother, Harold's, request in the Manila American Cemetery. Vernon had been buried in a mass grave and his remains could not be identified, so he rests nearby among the unknowns --- brothers together still, but half a world away from Goodwater Creek and Dry Flat country school.