Staff Sergeant
United States Army Finance Corps
Robert James Ashdown was born in Geneva, New York, on July 30, 1915. He was the second son and middle child of three children born to Richard James Ashdown and Ethel Munson Guilford. He graduated from Geneva High School and completed the Accounting Program at the Rochester (NY) Business Institute before enlisting in the U. S. Army in October 1937.
In the fall of 1939, Bob graduated from the Army Finance School at Fort Holabird, MD, and when given the opportunity to select the location of his first assignment, he chose the Philippines. He departed New York City on the U. S. Army Transport Ship U. S. Grant on December 28, 1939, and after several stops to discharge troops, arrived in Manila in mid-February 1940. He was assigned to the Finance Office at Headquarters of the Philippines Department and lived and worked in the “Port Area”.
Bob was first introduced to Lourdes Sideco in November 1940, but it wasn’t until January 1941 that they discovered their similar ages, and more importantly, their mutual interest in each other. After that, Bob became a regular weekend guest in the large home of her parents, Crispulo and Angela Aznur Sideco, who lived in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. Crispulo Sideco, who owned a sizable amount of land, had been a Senator and Provincial Governor, and counted Philippine President Manuel Quezon as a family friend. Former U. S. President William Howard Taft, when he was Commissioner-General of the Philippines (1901-03), had been a frequent guest in the Sideco home. In February 1941, Bob was put in charge of the pay and allowances for all 350 officers in the Philippines, and he was promoted to Technical Sergeant in May 1941. On July 6, 1941, Bob and Lourdes were married in the San Isidro church, and they made their home in the Ermita District of Manila, which, at that time, was the most fashionable area of the city.
On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, they bombed Manila. Since Bob was in charge of all officer pay, it is thought that he moved with Army Headquarters to Corregidor, and was captured by the Japs on May 6, 1942, when the fortress island in Manila Bay, the last bastion of U. S. Forces in the Philippines, surrendered. At the time of his capture Bob knew Lourdes was pregnant, and later, family members believe that he found out he had a son, although he never got to see him. Lourdes and Bob’s son, Richard James Ashdown, was born on June 1, 1942, in San Isidro, and baptized on June 4th.
On the few post cards that the Japs allowed the prisoners of war (POW) to send through the Red Cross, Bob is shown as being in Philippine Military Prison Camp #2 (later determined to be the old Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao). Since his rank on the post cards was always listed as ‘Captain’, it is believed that Bob was able to fool the Japs into believing he was a Captain/officer, as others reportedly did, in order to receive better treatment. Two years later, in August 1944, Bob was among 750 POW’s chosen for shipment to Japan as slave laborers. He was with 500 POW’s crammed into the forward hold of a ‘Hell Ship’, the unmarked Jap freighter Shinyo Maru, at the port of Davao on August 20, and they slowly sailed to Zamboanga, Mindanao where the ship left in a convoy for Manila on September 7, 1944.
Bob died aboard the Shinyo Maru on that same day when it was torpedoed by the USS Paddle (SS 263), 10 miles north of Sindangan Point near Liley, Mindanao, Philippines. [Source – Philippines Unstated 14-12] Japs in lifeboats shot many POW’s who survived the sinking as they swam for shore. Only 85 of the 750 POW’s escaped and were subsequently rescued by the Philippine Guerrillas. After the war, three survivors met with Bob’s sister, Ruth Ashdown Harter, in New York City and confirmed that Bob was killed in the torpedo explosion.
Equally sadly, on February 13, 1945, during the U. S. invasion of the Philippines and the battle for Manila, the retreating Japs killed Lourdes and their son, ‘Dicky Boy’, along with her brother Jesus and several others in a shelter in the Ermita District. After the war, the bodies of Lourdes and ‘Dicky Boy’ were recovered from a temporary grave and re-buried in the San Isidro church graveyard on October 30, 1945. (We only have one photo of Lourdes and no photo of ‘Dicky Boy’.)
Source of information:
1. Biography provided by Samuel G. Ashdown, Jr. Robert James Ashdown is Samuel’s uncle.
2. National Archives and Records Administration. World War II Prisoners of War, 1941-1946 [database online]. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2005. Original data: World War II Prisoners of War Data File [Archival Database]; Records of World War II Prisoners of War, 1942-1947; Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 389; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
3. National Cemetery Administration. U.S. Veterans Cemeteries, ca. 1800-2004 [database online]. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2005. Original data: National Cemetery Administration. Nationwide Gravesite Locator.
4. Center for Research Allied POWS Under the Japanese (http://www.mansell.com/pow-index.html).
5. Syracuse Herald Journal (Syracuse, New York), 1 November 1945, page 45.
6. 1920 Federal Census for Ontario County, New York (Geneva Ward 5, Sheet 15A).
7. 1930 Federal Census for Ontario County, New York (Geneva Ward 4, Sheet 9A).