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About Philip H. Meier

About the author: Philip H. Meier, Major, U.S. Army, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 57th Infantry Regiment, 21st Infantry Division (Philippine Scouts. P.O.W. in Cabanatuan. In December, 1944, embarked on Oryoku Maru for Formosa (Taiwan). 

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency states that,

Records indicate MAJ Meier was killed several weeks later in the attack on the Enoura Maru

An interesting detail about the author can be found in a story about the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity:

A few months after the war, the fraternity found a document recording the minutes of a group of SAEs who were pri[s]oners of war in the Philippine Islands at Cabanatuan. In defiance of Japanese regulations which forbade any meetings of prioners, the 20 SAEs met in February of 1943 and organized what they called “Cabanatuan Alpha Alumni Chapter of SAE.” This was the first chapter ever formed in a military prison camp. Lt. Richard P. Fulmer, one of the twenty, wrote that “the wretched conditions of prison camp life are no bar to the rekindling of this spirit in our hearts as we meet in secrecy, telling in whispers, and singing softly our fraternity songs.” They held eleven meetings between February and October, elected officers, and even pledged and initiated Philip H. Meier. In order to provide a badge for Meier, the chapter mmade one by hand using an old silver Philippine peso. It took several months of utmost secrecy to make this badge, and finally Philip Meier was initiated on October 1, 1943 in the dark, as no lights or meetings were allowed by the Japanese. Of the 28 men who were recorded as members of the chapter, only 12 returned from the war.

About the diary: The same entry above describes the diary, briefly, as,

A very detailed POW diary which includes some rosters and lists.

Located in the U.S. National Archives, “Diary, Cabanatuan POW Camp, 2d Lt Philip H. Meier, Folder 13,” Cabanatuan, covers 30 May 1943 – 16 August 1944, contains Air Corps rosters, file code 999-2-195. Another digitized copy exists in the Philippine Archives Collection (PVAO), as 2nd Lt Meier Diary Cabanatuan.