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About Thomas Dooley

About the author: (1914-2006) Major, USAFFE (later USFIP), Aide-de-Camp of Gen. Jonathan Wainwright. Reached the rank of Colonel. Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets has this entry:

Colonel Thomas Dooley graduated with a degree in Agricultural Engineering in 1935. He was a Ross Volunteer and Head Yell Leader.

When the Japanese attacked the Philippines in 1941, he distinguished himself in action as Aide-de-Camp to General Jonathan Wainwright and was awarded the Silver Star. Col. Dooley continued serving with Wainwright through the Corregidor and Bataan campaigns; was captured and held as prisoner of war for 3 years.

His military career ranged from combat commands to Army Attaché in Prague, Czechoslovakia, with his final assignment being Chief of Staff and Deputy Post Commander at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

About the diary: Published by Texas A&M University Press as To Bataan and Back: The World War II Diary of Major Thomas Dooley:

On the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dooley began the first of six handwritten journals—more than 500 pages—that he continued to update throughout the war. As aide-de-camp to Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, the new commander of the Allied forces after Gen. Douglas MacArthur was ordered to Australia, Dooley had regular contact with various commanders and headquarters throughout Bataan and Corregidor.

His journals reveal the inside story of the battles of Bataan and Corregidor and with it the capture, imprisonment, and struggle for survival of tens of thousands of American prisoners of war. Dooley’s journals—dutifully maintained even as he was a prisoner—are at once witty, articulate, stark, and often reflective.

Texas A&M University Press

An article in the Kentucky New Era reported,

Dooley, an aide-de-camp to Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, was among the troops to surrender to the Japanese on the Philippine island of Corregidor in 1942, but he wasn’t a part of the Bataan Death March that forced American and Filipino soldiers to walk through coastal jungles when Japan captured the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.

Dooley recorded his wartime experiences in six diaries that detailed everything from the books he’d read and how much he weighed during that time to the details of military action, the tortures inflicted by the Japanese and even his daily activities.

Occasionally there was a mention of someone’s death, and one entry listed all the officers in one of the prisoner-of-war camps.

Diaries tell forgotten chapter of WWII, Dec. 8, 2016