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West of Capas, Tarlac Province, along the dusty road once trod by the faltering Bataan death marchers and now by lumbering carabao, are rolling fields studded with the graves of an estimated 30,000 Filipinos and Americans—all that the Japanese Imperial Army left of Camp O’Donnell.</p>
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No, not quite all: In the center of the American prisoner of war cemetery, enclosed in bamboo, is a rough concrete monument to the row on row of identical mounds there, in each of which lie ten Yanks who died for freedom and full-measure support of their soldier’s oaths. The monument once bore the legend “Erected by the Japanese Army” but that has been chiseled out by the grave’s registration men.</p>
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In one of these mounds lies Major <em>William Harris Ball</em>, thirty-two years old when he died in the one way out dysentery ward under Jap domination, May 20, 1942. The popular member of the West Point Class of 1933, and equally popular officer with the Philippine Scouts, is a long way from his wife and daughter in Redding, California and his home town of Saginaw, Michigan. Before his death, the redheaded cool-as-a-cucumber daredevil won the Silver Star on Bataan and the personal concession to this writer from Major General William F. Marquat that Major Ball’s Philippine Scout battery of 155’s earned the credit for covering the final retreat on Bataan down to their last shell.</p>
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The Major was known by the maternal family name of Harris back in his home town, where he was born February 6, 1910, was an honor student in Saginaw High School, and won the W. B. Merill scholarship to the University of Michigan. He became Bill at the university, where he was a second-year chemical engineering student when he topped twenty-one entrants in a civil service examination with a 98 score and won his appointment from U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg. Overseas, with or without his bristling red mustache, he was “Bounce”.</p>
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Cadet Ball was credited in the <em>Howitzer</em> with doing his studying “by dealing bridge hands” and helping slower students with their “math” and “trig” and yet he was 28th man in the graduating class. Equally well known in the Philippines for his bridge “slam” bids and his ability on the badminton and tennis courts, the young lieutenant had no trouble making friends among his fellow-officers or with his men. He was as much at ease in a native hut in the mountain province, drinking a bottle of “tuba” with Filipino acquaintances, as if he were home with lifelong friends.</p>
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The details of his last days are obscure as were all details of the last days on Bataan, prison camps and prison casualties. The Japs who fell back before his battery’s murderous 155’s knew he was on the tip of Bataan. The official record lists him as a casualty, probably of dysentery, May 20, 1942, at Camp O’Donnell.</p>
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Hopes that he might have survived were held in the States by his wife, the former Miss Frances Rose of Redding, CA, and his mother Mrs. Edith V. Ball of Saginaw. MI., who had three other sons in service.</p>
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The Japanese capitulation and return of U.S. prisoners cancelled all hope. His daughter, Barbara Frances, was born December 21, 1940, at Ft. Mills, Corregidor, and his wife and daughter returned to the States in May, 1941, aboard the transport Washington.</p>
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In his boyhood, he was a mixture of scholar and outdoor boy, curled up with DeMaupassant or Einstein on rainy afternoons or hunting bullfrogs on sunny ones. A better than fair athlete, he never competed for a post on a varsity because there were too many other things to be done, jobs after school in Saginaw and at the university and the multitude of Point activities. His home was headquarters for scouting activities and his father, William Henry Ball, who headed Saginaw’s Scout Troop No. 1, owned one of the city’s first radios, a center of neighborhood interest. Somewhere in the Scout activity the ambition to attend the U.S. Military Academy was planted early and the idea grew to fulfillment.</p>
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The major-to-be must have had a plan for the day when he would be figuring range and traverse calibrations in his head to make one battery do the work of three against the Japs, for he laid the groundwork during summer vacations from the university. One summer was spent making calipers and other precision tools in Saginaw’s Lufkin Rule Co. and another—as a Pere Marquette railroad bridge-tender—gave him ample time for mathematical study.</p>
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His bridge post was a popular stopping-point for railroad construction, equipment and maintenance engineers who soon found the young bridge-tender was a master of figures and brought him their problem “sticklers” to solve. When no one could stump him, from the division engineer—in whose office his father worked—on down they joined in a move to boom him for West Point.</p>
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Two railroaders sons, Ball and his cousin, Phineas B. Adair, son of the Saginaw trainmaster were attending West Point during the same period, Ball entering July 29, 1929.</p>
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Upon graduation, Lieutenant Ball might have become an army flyer but for one thing—an airplane was to him just an automobile with wings, to be driven fast and furiously. He explained his training at Randolph Field, Texas, away by saying “I guess I bounced them too many times”. That may have started the nickname “Bounce”.</p>
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His first assignment was at Fort Sheridan, I., where he had taken his physical examination for the Point. Afterwards was sent to the Philippine Islands. Two years later, upon his return to the States, he put in a tour at Fort Sheridan, IL, at Fort Winfield Scott and the Presidio in San Francisco.</p>
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While stationed at Fort Stotsenburg in 1935 and Corregidor in 1936, he headed many engineering parties in the islands of the Philippine Archipelago to re-open small army posts and perfect communications which were to prove so vital to the U.S. Army when the Japs struck in 1941. Other duty took him to Olongapo and Grand Island.</p>
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Back to the States in 1937 and 1938, he attended school at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and won his bride, who accompanied him overseas for his second Philippine tour in 1939. A captain when the war broke out, he was given added responsibility and the major’s gold leaf.</p>
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In the finest traditions of the Coast Artillery Corps, the Philippine Scouts and the United States Military Academy, he gave his life as a soldier wishes—in the service of his country.</p>
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<em>—Neil A. Ball</em></p>
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