Staff Sergeant
United States Army Finance Corps
Joseph E. Wilkes, the son of William Attless and Mary Josephine Trackwell Wilkes, was born on 3 April 1920, in Mesa, Arizona.
He attended schools in the Mesa area, eventually graduating from Mesa Union High School in 1939. Joseph was a member of the Phoenix Order of DeMolay.
While attending Phoenix Junior College, Joseph decided to enlist in the U.S. Army on 20 November 1939. He received his training at Marsh Field, California. In January 1940, Joseph received orders for the Philippines, with an ultimate assignment to the Finance Department in Manila. After the Japanese attacked the Philippines in December 1941, Joseph made his way to Corregidor, where the Japanese eventually took him as a prisoner on 7 May 1942. In August 1942, his parents received a letter from Joseph dated 3 May 1942. Then in January 1943, Joseph’s parents were notified by the War Department that his duty status was changed from Missing in Action to Prisoner of War. On 13 December 1944, Joseph and 1,618 other Prisoners of War were herded aboard the Japanese hellship Oryoku Maru for transfer to labor camps in Japan. While anchored in Subic Bay, about 300 yards offshore from Olongapo Naval Reservation, the Oryoku Maru came under attack from U.S. Navy diver bombers from the USS Hornet. During the mass confusion to evacuate the ship, Japanese guards fired into the ships hold killing the helpless prisoners or by Japanese soldiers on shore firing at the prisoners in the water. In a July 1945 War Department telegram, Joseph’s parents were notified that he was killed on 15 December 1944.
Joseph was preceded in death by two brothers Wray and John; and one sister, Maude. In addition to his parents, three brothers; William of Eugene, Arizona, Walter serving with the U.S. Navy in San Diego, and Bruce of Barstow, California; and two sisters; Mable Lester of Phoenix and Mary Jo serving with the U.S. Navy in St John’s, New York survived Joseph.
Staff Sergeant Joseph E. Wilkes, United States Army, is listed as Missing in Action. His name can be found on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines.
Source of information:
1. Phoenix (Arizona) Gazette, 21 January 1943, Section 2, Page 2.
2. Phoenix (Arizona) Gazette, 26 July 1945, Section 2, Page 1.
3. Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona), 27 July 1945, Page 7.
4. National Archives and Records Administration. World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2000. Original data: National Archives and Records Administration. Register, World War II Dead Interred in American Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil and World War II and Korea Missing or Lost or Buried at Sea. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
5. American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) web site (http://www.abmc.gov/home.php).
6. Mark Kelso’s Oryoku Maru web site (http://www.oryokumaru.net).