Yunker Map of Camp O’Donnell

Birds eye view of the Headquarters & Hospital Center, Hospital #1 at Camp O’Donnell drawn by Technical Sergeant Harold G. Yunker on January 18, 1943:

Camp O’Donnell was a former Philippine Army training center that the Japanese estimated would hold as many as thirty thousand prisoners or “captives.” However, twice that number would be crowded into the now barbed-wire enclosed facility which would quickly run rampant with malaria and dysentery. Couple this with cruel treatment and near starvation of the American and Filipino captives by their guards and Camp O’Donnell would quickly become a death trap. In just three short months of operations an estimated 35,000 Filipinos and nearly 6,000 Americans would die.

In January 1943, because of the extremely horrible conditions at Camp O’ Donnell, the Japanese began making preparations to relocate the surviving captives to a larger facility at Cabanatuan. This move prompted Sergeant Yunker to produce this map as a record of the original camp’s hospital area. However, knowing that possession of such a document meant certain death, should it be discovered, the map was placed in a tin “coffee” can and buried near the Headquarters structure on January 23rd when the remaining hospital staff were marched away from the camp.

Following the war, Alvin Poweleit returned to the site of Camp O’Donnell, recovered the map, and later donated it to the Military Records and Research Branch, Kentucky Department of Military Affairs.

Image courtesy Kentucky Historical Society.

Information courtesy Tom Fugate.