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<em>Leo Clement Paquet</em> was born 9 July 1897 at Cohoes, New York, of French-Canadian parents.</div>
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He entered West Point in 1918 with the original 1920 class, was found in mathematics in June 1917 and turned back to the original 1921 class. Leo took his turn-back status very seriously, and while making many friends in both classes, achieved a standing of 84 in the class of 284. Both classes were graduated and commissioned on 1 November 1918, and when World War I suddenly ended on November 11, the original 1921 class returned to West Point as student officers. It was again graduated on 11 June 1919 and has since been known as the class of 1919.</div>
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Following graduation, Leo made the tour of the World War I battlefields in Western Europe and upon return, reported as a student to the Infantry School at Camp Benning, Georgia.</div>
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This newly acquired military reservation was starting from scratch. While instructors and equipment were outstanding and plentiful, living accommodations were of the crudest. Still it was a memorable year.</div>
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Upon completion of the course in 1920, Leo was assigned to the 5th Division at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. When this unit was disbanded two years later, he was transferred back to Benning and joined the 29th Infantry Regiment, a superb demonstration outfit.</div>
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Then came a foreign service tour in Panama and return to the States with station at Fort Hamilton, New York, with the 1st Division. At both these stations, Leo played polo on the Post teams; the Camp Gaillard team won the Canal Zone championship in 1925.</div>
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Leo had become interested in tanks, which the Infantry had begun to develop, and was especially selected for duty at the Infantry Tank Center at Fort Meade, Maryland. This assignment ended when the Civilian Conservation Corps got under way during the depression, and Leo was sent to Pennsylvania to help with the program.</div>
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This turned out to be a short tour when Leo was designated as an escort officer for the Cold Star Mothers’ Pilgrimage to the American Military Cemeteries in Europe. The detail seemed a glamorous one—a trip to Paris, but in fact required great patience, understanding, and compassion in leading groups of Mothers, who had never been on an ocean voyage, to a reunion with their sons at graveside, where emotional reaction was varied and unpredictable.</div>
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Then Leo spent a year with the 17th Infantry at Fort Crook, Nebraska.</div>
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From 1935 to 1939, Leo was a member of the Military Department at the University of Iowa. His work with ROTC students was probably the most rewarding duty he had experienced.</div>
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In the fall of 1939, he went on foreign service to the Philippines, and was assigned to the 31st Infantry Regiment which garrisoned the Post of Manila. With the gathering of war clouds in 1941, military dependents were sent home and the overseas tours of military personnel extended and frozen. So Leo was still in Manila when the Japanese attacked in December 1941.</div>
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The 31st Infantry, as the only American Infantry regiment in the Philippines, was held in GHO reserve. It went into combat in January 1942 in the final phase of the retreat to Bataan, near Lyac Junction, where it joined other units in stopping the Japanese from entering Bataan close on the heels of the retreating Philippine Army, and gained time for the construction of defensive positions. Later in the month, the regiment was heavily engaged at the Abucay Hacienda in the fight for the main battle position in Bataan.</div>
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The January fighting had exhausted both antagonists; but the Japanese were reinforced while the Americans were surrounded.</div>
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The battle for Bataan was renewed in March and early in April fhe 31st Infantry was practically destroyed in desperate combats on the slopes of Mt. Samat, along the jungle trails and at the San Vincente River.</div>
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Leo was a combat Infantryman who, in the course of this campaign, had moved up to become Executive Officer of the Regiment. He was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious leadership in the San Vincente battle.</div>
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With the few survivors, he made the Death March to the O'Donnell Prison Camp and was later moved to the Cabanatuan Camp.</div>
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It was the deliberate, planned policy of the Japanese to humiliate, starve, and reduce to the lowest coolie level prisoners captured by their army. In these circumstances, American soldiers were reduced to surviving on character, integrity and a belief in a Supreme Being. The captors eventually recognized these traits as helpful to them and designated Leo as a leader who, because of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow prisoners, was required to transmit the Japanese orders to the camp.</div>
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Finally, in December 1944, Leo along with 1700 other prisoners were put aboard a ship in Manila that sailed for Japan at the height of the Leyte campaign which saw General MacArthur return to the Philippines. This ship, and a second one to which he was transferred were targets of American aircraft. Leo was fatally wounded in one of these bombing and strafing attacks and died aboard a Japanese ship in Taku Harbor, Formosa in 1945.</div>
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In 1922, Leo married Louise Wallace at Columbia, South Carolina. They have one child, Helene, more popularly known as Winky, who is married to Colonel James E. Wirrick, Artillery, of the class of 1946. They have three children. Colonel Wirrick retired in January 1971.</div>
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<em>—A Classmate</em></div>