P.O.W. A SAILOR’S STORY

Cavite, Bataan, Corregidor. The names alone are a wound on our collective memory.

But at the time, the men who forged headlong into these World War II battles had no idea what awaited them, what role they were about to play in the wartime history of our country-nor it seems did the United States Government, the Navy, or the Pentagon.

"When Japan unleashed its firestorm on Pearl Harbor, surprise, anger, and fear beyond words gripped the nation. Reflecting on this, I realize how wrong so many people were, including enlisted men like me and those in power." In this historical, political, analytical, and deeply personal story of a disgracefully blundering hierarchy, inadequate weaponry, lack of even rudimentary supplies, and official incompetence and miscalculation at every turn, Poness recounts the events that led up to being taken as a prisoner of the Japanese and of his harrowing years as a P.O.W.

The fighting men distinguished themselves, they fought and sacrificed and died. Their nation profoundly failed them.

Ralph Carlo Poness was born in the village of Fort Montgomery, New York on January 10, 1915. He graduated from Highland Falls High School and went to attend Clarkson College in Northern New York State though ended up transferring to New York University. In 1937 he joined the Navy and was stationed in the Phillipine Islands where he was captured by the Japanese after their defeat if the Americans at Bataan and Corregidor. Ralph spent the entirety of the war in Japanese Prison Camps. Upon his release, he returned to New York and continued working for the Navy for the next eleven years. Ralph C. Poness was honored with a Purple Heart for having endured Prisoner of War camps and for sustaining wounds both physical and mental. Poness passed away in January 2002. He is survived by his two sons and five grandchildren.