TWO TANK CREW OF 603 TANK CO.

16 Feb 1945

Black Beach, Corregidor

Homer Bigart of the Chjicago Herald Tribune landed with the last (5th) wave. Finding himself caught in a crossfire perilously close to an ammunition truck, he dashes fifty yards to a position of perceived safety adjacent a disabled tank.  "Huffing and puffing, Bigart flopped down beside the tank. The first thing he saw there was one of the tank crewmen topple over dead after getting hit by a stream of machine gun bullets that tore into his back and came out his chest. Bigart was still staring wide-eyed at the dead man when a mortar shell exploded only twenty feet from him, killing another member of the tank crew." 

BACK TO CORREGIDOR - Gerard M. Devlin, p.69.

A limitation on the general utility of the American Battle Monuments Commission database is that it does not extend to KIA's buried privately at the request of the next of kin, only to those buried under its jurisdiction. Thus the number and names of casualties suffered by the 603d Tank Co. on Corregidor cannot be ascertained short of locating a document or list published by the unit itself. It is a pity that no extended database exists which gives the ease of use of the ABMC search to cover so many men who will be entirely forgotten.