Bio: Schade, Capt. Lester A. #3 (WW2 POW - 2010)

Contact: Robert Lipprandt

Email: bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Schade

----Source: The Tribune - Phonograph (Abbotsford, Clark Co., Wisconsin) Wednesday, August 4, 2010, page 2

Capt. Lester A. Schade, 26, of the United States Marines, who has been a Japanese prisoner of war since the invasion of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, was lost at sear on a Japanese boat that was sunk last Dec. 31 while he was being removed from the Philippines to Japan, according to a telegram received from the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.., by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Schade, town of Holton. 

The Schades has previously learned from the mother of one of their son’s buddies that the latter has left Cabanatuan Japanese prison camp No. 1 in the Philippines with Capt. Schade last October, when they were moved to Billibid prison camp, also in the Philippines. 

He also said that late in December when the Japanese were removing the prisoners from the Philippines to Japan, Capt. Schade was lost at sea in the journey. His buddy arrived in Japan and managed to send a letter to his parents through an "underground" route, it was said. 

Capt Schade had kept his parents informed of his health by postcard about every six months, they said. The last of these form postcards, furnished by the Japanese, was receive by the parents last Christmas and was dated in July 1944. It states that he was in excellent health and sent his regards.

Word of Schade’s promotion to captain was received by the parents after he was reported missing in action on April 24, 1942. He was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.