Private Evans Ernest Overbey

Early Life

In 1917, Evans Ernest Overbey was born in McDowell, West Virginia, to William and Mary Overbey. He had two older brothers, Jacob and Howard, and an older sister, Lillian. The family later moved to Wise County, Virginia, where his father worked as a sewing machine salesman to support the family, and Overbey attended two years of high school.

By 1940, as the Great Depression continued, Overbey was unemployed and living with his cousin, Dora Lewis, and her family in Carter, Tennessee. In June 1941, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces in Roanoke, Virginia at age 24.

Military Experience

Overbey was assigned to the 19^th Bomber Group (Heavy) of the 93^rd Bomber Squad. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Eubank, the squad deployed from California in 1941, flying B-17C bombers 2,400 miles to Hawaii. These were the first long-range bombers. The squad then moved to Clark Army Air Field in the Philippines as part of the Far East Air Force (FEAF).

On December 8, 1941 (December 7 in Hawaii), the Japanese attacked Clark Field and other areas of the Philippines. Within two days, elements of the 19^th Bomber Group responded by hitting two Japanese troop transports, damaging one and destroying the other. After two weeks of continued conflict, the working B-17 bombers of the 19^th Bomber Group withdrew to Australia, carrying General Douglas MacArthur with them and eventually took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.

The members of the 19^th Bomber Group who were left behind, including Overbey, fought valiantly in the Battle of Bataan but were captured by the Japanese after General Edward P. King, Jr., surrendered on April 9, 1942.

Overbey was reported as a prisoner of war on May 7. He and 75,000 American and Filipino service members were forced by the Japanese to march 65 miles across the peninsula. The treatment of American and Filipino prisoners was deplorable. Soldiers marched for up to 24 hours without food or water. Those who fell behind risked attack by their Japanese captors. There are accounts of prisoners being crushed by Japanese vehicles, buried alive, bayoneted, and beheaded. Ten thousand prisoners perished during what is now referred to as the Bataan Death March, which lasted up to two weeks.

Conditions did not improve once the survivors reached the camps that served as their prisons, Camp O’Donnell and Camp Cabanatuan. Prisoners were beaten and tortured and subjected to crowded, unsanitary conditions. Moreover, prisoners suffered from malnutrition and received minimal medical treatment of numerous diseases including malaria, dysentery, and beriberi.

Eulogy

Evans Overbey died on November 19, 1942, in Cabanatuan Camp #1 as a result of pellagra, a disease caused by a lack of Vitamin B and compounded by severe malnutrition. He was buried in a mass grave (later referred to as common grave 717). He was 25 years old.

In 1949, the remains listed as X-815 Manila #2 and, later, X-4857 were temporarily identified as Overbey, but the Memorial Division determined there was insufficient evidence to make a positive identification. Overbey was memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

In 2015, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System’s Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory positively identified Overbey’s remains, and he was returned to his family’s home state of Tennessee. On July 15, 2016, he was buried at Mountain Home National Cemetery in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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