William Cummings

Technician Fourth Class • U.S. Army Air Forces • Serial 06719349

440th Ordnance Company, Aviation

Entered service from New Jersey • Died October 24, 1944

Missing in action or buried at sea — Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines

Awards: Purple Heart

Technician Fourth Class William Cummings was born in 1922 in New Jersey to John and Susannah Cummings. By 1930 the family was renting a home at 434 North 7th Street in Camden, NJ, where John Cummings worked as an assistant cashier at the evening paper, the Camden Courier-Post. Besides William, there were four older children: John, Martha, Cecelia, and Grace. The family later relocated to Pine Grove in Clementon, NJ.

William Cummings enlisted in the United States Army prior to June 1940. He was serving in the 440th Ordnance Company, Aviation, in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he died when the unmarked prison ship Arisan Maru was sunk on October 24, 1944. The Arisan Maru was sunk 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong. She took two direct hits in the center of the ship and split in two, going down quickly. Of approximately 1,800 American prisoners of war aboard the Arisan Maru, only nine survived; one immediately died, three were recaptured, and five were rescued by Chinese fishermen and returned to American lines in Southern China. The death of William Cummings was reported in the July 7, 1945, edition of the Camden Courier-Post.

Thanks to Fred Baldassarre of “The Battling Bastards of Bataan,” who supplied much of the information concerning the whereabouts of Technician Fourth Class Cummings and the conditions he endured.