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Lieutenant Colonel <em>Clair McKinley Conzelman</em> was born in Bristol, Conn, October 26, 1900, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Conzelman. After graduation from Bristol High School he attended Brown University in 1917 and 1918. At Brown he was a member of Delta Tau Delta, and participated in football and other athletic activities. He was a member of the Brown unit of the Naval Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. He was also a member of the Masonic Order.</p>
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He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in July 1922, following Senatorial appointment from Connecticut. At West Point he played both football and lacrosse. Upon graduation, June 12, 1926, he received the degree of Bachelor of Science and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and assigned to the Coast Artillery Corps.</p>
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On October 8, 1927 he married Miss Marjorie Phyllis Smith of Barre, Vermont, a graduate of Skidmore College, whom he had met at a memorable Hundredth Night show. Their two children, Peter Smith Conzelman and Patricia Jane, were born in 1928 and 1930. Peter is now a member of the class of 1953 at West Point.</p>
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Colonel Conzelman served at Fort Totten, N. Y.; Fort Mills, Corregidor, P. I.; Fort H. G. Wright, N. Y.; Fortress Monroe, Virginia, where he took the Battery Officer’s course at the Coast Artillery School; Fort Sherman. Canal Zone; Fort Barrancas, Fla.; and his last station was again at Fort Mills, Corregidor in the Philippines.</p>
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During his service as a Coast Artilleryman he won recognition for his knowledge of both heavy coast defense guns and antiaircraft artillery. His fellow officers respected not only his excellence in artillery but also his record as an enthusiastic and outstanding golfer.</p>
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Arriving in the Philippines in early 1939. Colonel Conzelman served with the 59th Coast Artillery regiment, and later as Assistant Adjutant at Brigade Headquarters. Packed and ready to sail for home in February 1941 at the end of a two year tour of foreign service, his sailing was abruptly canceled when orders were received to “freeze’’ all officers in the Philippines, while women and children were evacuated on all available ships. In the ten months that followed Colonel Conzelman participated in the intensive strengthening of the Philippine defenses in anticipation of possible enemy attack.</p>
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As a member of the staff of the Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays, he was Harbor Defense Inspector and later, during the extensive expansion period, he was also assistant S-l. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Luzon he continued his staff duties as assistant S-3 under the command of Major General George F. Moore.</p>
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The handwritten “log” or “diary” kept in the Operations Office, recording hourly and daily events during the siege of Corregidor from Pearl Harbor until just before the surrender on May 6, 1942, contains daily records in the handwriting of Lt. Col. Conzelman, covering the hours in which he was on duty in the Corregidor Operations office. This handwritten record was preserved by Col. Conzelman’s immediate superior, Col. William C. Braly, S-3, throughout his Imprisonment, and was (in 1949) in the possession of General George Moore.</p>
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Shortly after the surrender at Corregidor May 6, 1942, Colonel Conzelman was taken with many other prisoners of war to Manila and then to Cabanatuan in mid-Luzon. In October of that year he was transferred to Davao, Mindanao, and in June 1944 transferred back to Cabanatuan, Luzon. He was moved to Bilibid prison in Manila in October 1944. As American forces drew nearer in the campaign to take back the Philippines, treatment of American prisoners of war became more cruel, and starvation faced the prisoners in Bilibid. Colonel Conzelman and all others able to walk were in the last group of about 1,200 officers and men to leave the Philippines from Manila on December 13, 1944. This ship, the “Oryoku Maru” was sunk two days later, off the West Coast of Luzon at Subic Bay, but Colonel Conzelman survived, swam ashore and was recaptured by the Japanese awaiting the survivors there. After much privation a second start for Japan was made from northern Luzon on a second Japanese ship. This ship, too, was bombed by U.S. carrier planes in the harbor at Takao, Formosa, due to the Japanese failure to identify ships carrying prisoners of war.</p>
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Colonel Conzelman was injured in the bombing at Takao on January 9, 1945, and died two days later, January 11, 1945. Fellow prisoners were ordered by the Japanese guards to bury the dead on the beach at Takao, and there the body of Colonel Conzelman was placed in a mass grave of about 350 casualties. Recovered in 1946 by American Graves Registration authorities, the bodies of these prisoners of war were taken to Hawaii where identification was attempted. In 1949 partial identification of the remains of Colonel Conzelman was accomplished and he was buried on July 7, 1950 in the Post Cemetery at West Point.</p>
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A Corregidor officer and fellow prisoner who survived, but who had shared with Colonel Conzelman the 32 months in Philippine prison camps as well as the tragic prison transport ship on which so many Americans died, wrote that (during the siege of Corregidor) “Many will recall Conz’s official but friendly visits to their exposed positions while the bombing and shelling were hottest, and always with a word of cheer and an inquiry as to what he could do for them”. He wrote also of the prison years: “We who knew him and cherished his friendship will always remember his devotion to the service of his country and to his friends and comrades whether the going was easy or tough. His quiet, unruffled manner and his dry sense of humor endeared him to all with whom he came in contact. His intimate friends in those hard days at the hands of the enemy will remember his devotion to his family and his great desire to join them back on a farm in Vermont”.</p>
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Concerning his death, the Japanese Government, through the Red Cross, gave erroneous reports of both the date and the cause of his death. Later the Adjutant General of the Army furnished the following corrected information: “Information now available in this office indicates that (Lt. Col. Conzelman) while a prisoner of war of the Japanese Government being transported from the Philippine Islands to Japan, was wounded when the ‘Enoura Maru’, a Japanese vessel, was bombed in Takao Harbor, Formosa, on January 9, 1945, and died on January 11, 1945 at Takao, Formosa as a result of wounds, aggravated by dysentery, exposure and starvation”.</p>
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He was awarded the Legion of Merit (posthumously), this decoration being presented to his son, Peter, in November 1946. The Purple Heart was also awarded posthumously.</p>
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<em>—M. S. C.</em></p>