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VALLEY — In a senseless act of vandalism, four monuments in Veterans Park have been overturned. The two monuments containing the names of local men who died during World War II were broken in two when they hit the ground. Two other monuments, one containing the names of local men who died during the Korean War and in Vietnam, do not appear to have been damaged to that extent when they hit the ground but since they landed face down it won’t be known if the front side is damaged until they are lifted.

The monuments had been in the park for several years and were placed there by members of American Legion Post 67. Post Commander Lanny Bledsoe told The Valley Times-News on Thursday that everyone with the Legion is outraged and sickened over it.

“We can’t understand why anyone would do something like this,” he said. “Why would anyone dislike these monuments? They contain the names of local men who died for our country. Was it kids just being reckless or was someone trying to make a political statement?”

Bledsoe said he’s hoping the Korean War monument and the one for Vietnam can both be put back up without too much trouble. Both World War II granite markers will have to be replaced.

“It just makes me sick for some nitwit to do something like this,” he said. “We will have to replace the two broken monuments. There’s just no way they can be put back together. We think the people of the Valley will support us in this.”

Bledsoe said he could remember the impact World War II had on the River View community when he was growing up.

“I was a child at the time, but I can still remember that all the men were gone. They were in service, and people worried for their safety all the time. A total of 181 men from River View served in the war. Other towns in the Valley had more people than River View and had more soldiers than that in service.”

Bledsoe later went to school with sisters of a River View man who had been killed in action and was buried in France.

The monuments tell a remarkable story. Each one has the soldier’s name, his hometown, what branch of service he was in, the day he died and where he was at the time.

“I have always been intrigued by two names on it,” Bledsoe said. “Jack Nealy was from Langdale and Cloyd Brown was from Lanett. They both died on Iwo Jima on March 2, 1945. You can’t help but wonder if they had known each other before the war started or if they had ever come across each other in service. Both were in the Marines.”

There’s another story in the names to wonder about. Four local men all died in the same incident. They drowned in the South China Sea when a Japanese ship they were on was sunk by a torpedo fired from a U.S. submarine.

They were prisoners of war being taken to another location after being evacuated from the Philippines in 1944.

Bradshaw-Chambers County Librarian Mary Hamilton has done a lot of research on their story. Some, if not all, of the men had been taken on the infamous Bataan Death March in 1942. More than 1,700 were aboard, and only seven Americans survived.

The submarine that launched the torpedo that sunk the ship was later sent to a watery grave by a Japanese ship.

“All four of them were killed on October 24, 1944 when the Japanese POW ship Ansan Maru was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine,” Hamilton said. “Burton Mathews, Bishop Terrell and Crawford Tidwell were all captured on Corregidor in May 1942. Jon Sikes was probably captured in Bataan.”

The Maritime Disasters of World War II has an account of the sinking of the Ansan Maru:

“A total of 1,782 American prisoners of war were being transported as slave laborers to work in the mines and factories of Japan. Crowded as [sic] close together they could not sit down, the holds of the ship would soon become a hell-hole as the temperature soared over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The lack of fresh air caused many to go mad as the holds became fouled with stench of sweating bodies, urine and human excrement. As the ship sailed into a typhoon, the odor of vomit from the hundreds of seasick prisoners added to the wretched conditions.

“On October 24th, a terrible jolt shook the ship from bow to stern as there torpedoes from the U.S. submarine USS Shark (or USS Snook – both failed to return from the mission) split the 6,686-ton Japanese freighter in two. Two halves separated but were still afloat for an estimated two hours. Most of the Japanese crew and guards left the sinking ship in lifeboats, leaving a few guards to watch the POWs. The enraged POWs set upon them and killed them, but only seven of the American POWs managed to survive by clinging to wreckage. Two were picked up by a Japanese destroyer and five more by a Chinese fishing boat and taken to China.

“The Ansan Maru was unmarked. There was no way the submarine captain could know it was carrying American POWs. Many other ‘half ships’ were sunk during the final three years of the war and little is known about them. Investigations after the war revealed that the Japanese had destroyed numerous records of such voyages. Records that did survive indicate that 134 Japanese ships made 156 voyages carrying prisoners of war.”