<div>
“Ever since finishing The Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, Stan had requested assignment to the Philippine Islands. (His sister, Ann Capitolo, reports.) He finally made it-in 1941.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<em>George B. Moore</em>, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army Retired, was commanding officer of Company I, 45th Infantry, (Philippine Scouts), and knew Stan. “Prior to the war I was in the same battalion as Major Holmes. I got to know him fairly well when we made a reconnaissance patrol into unknown territory in Luzon. He was the patrol leader. He impressed me as being very much a gentleman, quiet, modest, and a pleasure to be with.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Paul L. Ashton, Major, Medical Corps, Army of the United States, was with Stan for a few days before the fall of Bataan. “In his work in Bataan he was most courageous. His outfit was considered the best of the Philippine Army regiments, under Stan's excellent and very energetic leadership You can be very proud of him as a soldier and a good strong character.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Louis D. Hutson, Colonel, United States Army Retired, former commanding officer of the 33d Infantry, Philippine Army, said, “I had the pleasure of having Stanley serve in my regiment in the Philippines just before and during the war, He was executive officer of my regiment and a most excellent one. After I was wounded in January 1942 Stanley took command of the regiment and from reports I received later, he performed his duties in a superior manner. At the time of surrender Stanley and several other officers of my regiment escaped to the mountains of Bataan where they remained until they were captured (about June 1943).” For the period Stan had the regiment he received the Legion of Merit posthumously. Citation reads: “Major Holmes distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services from January to April 1942 on Bataan...The services he rendered were in keeping with the highest traditional values of the military profession.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In addition to the Legion of Merit Holmes received: The Presidential Accolade and Purple Heart; the American Defense Service Medal with Foreign Service Clasp; the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two Bronze Service Stars for the Philippine Islands and Luzon Campaigns; the World War II Victory Medal; the Distinguished Unit Emblem with two Oak Leaf Clusters; the Combat Infantryman Badge; the Philippine Defense Ribbon with one Bronze Service Star; and the Philippine Liberation Bibbon.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
As Bataan fell, Stan escaped to the north through enemy lines right into the current of an ever-increasing flood of Japanese troops pressing southward toward Bataan and Cor-regidor. Stan, his executive officer, and three others existed for more than a year in the jungles, raiding the Japanese communication lines and installations. But there are no witnesses nor testimonials as to what Stan s gang did from April 1942 to June 1943. All died before, with, or just after Stan died.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
But following his capture others give some information of his life. Benson Guyton, National Adjutant of “American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor” writes, “It was my pleasure to get to know Stanley Holmes at Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp No. 1. I recall when he and Major Pheny Crane came into camp as recently captured guerrillas in June 1943, Holmes told me that he and his exec, Major Crane, and three others were cut off by the Japanese at Bataan and were not able to move south to join United States forces, so they moved north through the Japanese lines to the mountains of northern Bataan where they lived with the Filipinos until they were finally surrounded and trapped. He told me that when the trap finally closed in on him and they had no choice but to give up, a Japanese soldier relieved him of his West Point ring. When Holmes finally reached a Japanese officer he exploded his wrath on him, and the officer retrieved Stan’s ring and returned it to him. Holmes frequently and proudly displayed his ring at Cabanatuan.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Charles T. Brown, Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Corps, picks up Stan’s path. “In the early days of December 1944, a draft left Bilibid Prison (Manila) including Major Holmes. They were a draft from the prison camp at Cabanatuan and were hastily assembled as the Americans were landing in the Philippines. On 13 December they were marched seven miles to the water front and herded into the manure-filled holds of the <em>Oryoku Maru</em>.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Major General Chester L. Johnson, United States Army Retired, one of the very few survivors of the trip said, “The Japanese prisoner of war ship we were on when we departed Manila late on 13 December 1944 was the <em>Oryoku Maru</em>, a passenger-freight vessel of about 7500 tons. In all 1867 of us were jammed into the three ships’ holds. The ship’s regular passenger accommodations were crowded by Japanese civilians—men, women, and children—whom the Japanese were evacuating from the Philippines. We were so tightly jammed into the holds that only one in three men could find room to sit down, the others stood. These cargo holds had no ventilation, no sanitary facilities. After a short time our hold was stifling and men suffocated; some were crazed to the point that they drank their own urine.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“At daylight on 14 December we passed Corregidor and moved northward, quite close to the western shoreline of Bataan Peninsula...United States Navy planes attacked us at 8 am. During the day we were attacked 12 times. Our ship suffered only minor damage until a bomb damaged our steering mechanism on the last attack...Under cover of darkness we moved into and anchored off our old naval base (Olongapo) in Subic Bay. Many of us were able to swim ashore about 8 am, 15 December. Others were so ill that they could not, and some were not permitted to do so. At about 10 am. United States Navy planes returned and destroyed the <em>Oryoku Maru</em>. This is probably when Stan died.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Stanley Holmes was born 14 July 1910 in New Castle, Pennsylvania. He was a hard working member of a hard working family in a hard working community. In his youth he started earning his own money. The first thing he bought with it was a harmonica, the second a bicycle. He still had both many years later when he entered the Academy. Maurice Chevalier was his favorite movie star, and Stan borrowed two tunes from him, “Mimi” and<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Louise.” With<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>his<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>harmonica Stan kept<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>their<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>popularity<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>in<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>New Castle long beyond the tliird run of the films. He had to<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>leave<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>his bicycle behind when he came to<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>West<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Point, but<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>harmonica, “Mimi” and “Louise” were with him, and soon any cadet who could whistle or sing was following Stan’s tunes.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Stan was a Boy Scout. The uniform hooked him. He split his summer vacations between working on the farm to gain some extra money, and attending Civilian Military Training Corps camps to gain military experience. He left high school, joined the Army, and was sent to Fort Clayton, Canal Zone, where he completed his high school education at the West Point Prep School, and was selected from a field of several hundred hopefuls to attend the Military Academy. Like so many of us who entered with him on 1 July 1930, Stan threatened to resign every week of plebe year to go to New York City to become a millionaire. But when he came home with the cows at the end of yearling furlough he was committed to kaydet gray until he could change it for army blue. The uniform won over Wall Street.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
His sports were baseball, lacrosse, swimming and canoeing. He loved to paddle up the Hudson with his roommate in a spurt of zeal and determination and then, rounding Bannerman’s Island, stow the paddles and lay back for a rest as the current moved them slowly back towards the Academy. They mapped the shore line of Constitution Island and studied the terminal points of the Great Chain that stretched between the Island and West Point to prevent blockade-running during the Civil War.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Stan also played tennis, and his coach at West Point metamorphosed years later into the brother-in-law of the girl Stan married, Jo Fraser, whom he met on his first assignment, Camp Dix, New Jersey.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Beth Ann, their only child, was born 30 June 1937—the first baby ever born at Camp Dix. An orange crate served as a basinette. From Dix they were sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, then to Fort McClellan, Alabama, then to their last stateside post, Fort McPherson, Georgia. Finally Stan’s request was granted and he got the post he wanted—the Philippine Islands. No sooner had he and his family gotten off the boat and into quarters than the Emperor of Japan began to roil the waters in the China Sea. Jo and Beth Ann were quickly evacuated back to the States, leaving Stan alone.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Stan’s wartime life was lived and lost in three years from 7 December 1941 to 15 December 1944. He arrived in the Islands as a first lieutenant. He died as a lieutenant colonel, though he never knew of his last promotion. Eleven of Stan’s classmates were in the Philippines, but he was never together with any of them. Stan’s service was in the loneliest and busiest spot in the world. It is doubtful that Stan knew that his classmate, Brooke Maury, sank on the same ship with him, as they had no opportunity to meet. Only one classmate, Russ Volckmann, of the 12 members of 1934 that were there, made it back home.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
From April 1942 to July 1945 Jo and Beth Ann in Connecticut, and his sister Ann in Pennsylvania, kept alive their conviction he would return. But all hope was shattered by a War Department telegram of 24 July 1945: “After considerable delay there has been received from the Japanese government a confirmatory report of this sinking (15 December 1944). Nine hundred and forty-two of the prisoners-of-war, among them your husband, are officially reported by the Japanese to have lost their lives at the time. Of the survivors remaining in the hands of the Japanese, fifty-nine are reported to have died and others to have been later transferred to Japan. Only two of the prisoners-of-war aboard are known to have evaded recapture and returned to our forces.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Jo Holmes died in 1969. Beth Ann (Holmes) Schucker and her husband are psychologists with the National Institute of Health, and live in McLean, Virginia. They have given Stan three granddaughters, Karyn Lynd, 20, a sophomore in graphic design at Iowa State University; Kristin, 17, and Rachel, 10, at home with her parents.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Stan’s sister, Ann Capitolo, still lives in the old home town, New Castle, Pennsylvania, from where Stan started his life—a life that is a symbol to all of us, and to the long gray line that is treading where they of the Corps have trod. And our hearts are standing attention while we wait for their passing tread.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
At the Academy we classmates called him “Stan, the man.” At the time we never knew how accurate our appraisal was. The whole soul of the Corps is consecrated to producing those like “Stan the man,” who lived, served, and died, West Point, for thee.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<em>—Dud, a roommate</em></div>