"Even in our worst moments, some type of humor would usually keep us going." (Memoir)

Aaron Clyde Hopper

Aaron Hopper, Swannanoa, NC, 1946 [detail] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 194th Tank Battalion Service Location: Pacific Theater; Bataan, Philippines; Manchuria Rank: Staff Sergeant POW: Yes Place of Birth: Carrol County, TN

Stationed in the Philippines in December 1941, Aaron Hopper wouldn't surrender to the Japanese without a fight. After Bataan fell in April 1942, he and a lieutenant fashioned a homemade float and escaped capture by swimming five miles across Manila Bay to Corregidor. Hopper spent 25 days there at Fort Drum until that facility finally fell. Sent to work in factories in Manchuria, he actively sabotaged production. His memoir includes a stirring account, written by Office of Strategic Services historians, of his rescue at war's end, when Hopper's captors refused to believe that Japan had itself surrendered.