Description:

Mr. Vater served in the US Army Corps of Engineers, 803rd Engineer Battalion (Aviation), Company A, until the surrender of Corregidor.  He was held as a prisoner of war until the end of the war in the following camps: Billibid, Cabanatuan Number 3 and Hoten. He survived a "hell ship" voyage on the Tottori Maru from the Philippines. to Formosa, Pusan, Korea, and, finally, ending in Mukden, Manchuria. Throughout, he endured years of subjugation as slave labor.