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OJAI MAGAZINE | FALL 2021
The story of Ojai’s WWII Prisoners of War at the entrance to the parking lot at the east end of ojai’s libbey park is an engraved bronze plaque installed by the ojai lions club. The plaque, unveiled on Memorial Day 1947, lists the names of 20 American veterans from the Ojai Valley who died in the service of their country. Two of the men honored on the plaque died while prisoners of war in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. Here are their stories and those of other POWs who called the Ojai Valley home, including some who returned from the war and became friends. Robert Pierpont Robert Pierpont was the grandson of Ernest and Josephine Pierpont, who founded the Pierpont Cottages in the area of what is now Thacher Road. Born in 1916, he was educated in Ojai and graduated from The Thacher School. After attending the California Institute of Technology for a year, he entered the military academy at West Point. Upon graduating, Pierpont was assigned to the U.S. Army Engineers in the Philippines at Bataan and Corregidor until American forces surrendered and he was taken prisoner. He survived the Bataan Death March in April 1942, where as many as 650 American fatalities were reported, and was imprisoned for more than two years in a Japanese POW camp on the island. In October 1944, Pierpont was sent to Japan on a troopship carrying 1,775 American and British prisoners of war, but the ship was sunk in submarine action in the South China Sea. The ship had no markings that it was carrying POWs. Lt. Pierpont was 28.
Lewis Hayes Another Ojai survivor of the Bataan Death March is memorialized on the plaque at Libbey Park, but whether U.S. Army Pfc. Lewis “Skeet” Hayes knew Robert Pierpont is not known. After enlisting in the Coast Artillery, Hayes fought on Bataan and Corregidor, but was captured when Bataan fell and he was forced to march more than 60 miles with very little food or water. An estimated 80,000 American and Filipino troops suffered extreme brutality during the march, including beatings, shootings, stabbings and torture.
by PERRY VAN HOUTEN
Ca
Hayes survived, but later died in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines. He is buried with more than 17,000 other American servicemen and women at the Manila American Cemetery. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 130,201 Americans were captured and interned during World War II. While 14,072 died as POWs, 116,129 returned to the U.S. military. From the U.S. Army and Air Corps, 93,941 servicemen and women were taken prisoner in the European theater, while 27,465 were POWs in the Pacific Ocean theater, the vast majority in the Philippines. John Real John Real of Ojai was another survivor of the Philippine invasion. As told to historian and author David Pressey in “Veterans’ Stories of Ventura County,” Real grew up in Ojai and graduated from Nordhoff High School in 1940. He was sent to Clark Field in the Philippines and, during the battle, went from being an aerial photographer with a squadron of B-17 bombers to an
Right: American POW Donald Betlach shortly after his capture by German forces in 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge. Prior to his being reported missing, Betlach’s mother sent him a letter where she described waking up to the sound of his voice. “My first thought was that there was something wrong,” wrote Anna Betlach Photos: Courtesy the Wall of Remembrance
