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8,000 miles from home!
As it turned out, Madamba had first traveled to Stillwater in the 1920s to begin schooling at OAMC. During his time in Stillwater, he met, fell in love with and married a woman from Woodward. Madamba moved back to Negros in the early 1930s, and his wife Iva followed suit after her graduation.
Brittan would eventually board the transport ship Arisan Maru, enroute for Japan. Tragically, the unmarked vessel was mistaken by an American submarine for a military ship and sunk to the bottom of the Philippine Sea.
and everyone else on board were thus killed in the waning moments of the war. Meanwhile, the Madambas successfully evaded capture, and Jorge Sr. participated in Guerrilla warfare on Negros. The Madamba family returned to Oklahoma after the war: both Helen and Jorge Jr. attended college at their parents’ alma mater. We are grateful to Jorge Madamba, Jr., for sharing his story with us.
Name of Robert N. Brittan, memorialized on the wall of the missing, American Memorial Cemetery, Manila, Philippines.
They had two children, Helen and Jorge Jr. and lived at a sugar plantation where he served in upper management. As all of this was explained to the bewildered Brittan, Iva Madamba remembered having had classes with Brittan’ s wife, Rena( Penn) Brittan! Needless to say, Brittan and the Madamba’ s carried on throughout the night, reminiscing of a world that now seemed so far away.
After Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered all American and Filipino forces in the Philippines to Japan on May 8, 1942, the Madambas urged Neil to stay with them – they planned to evade capture by escaping into the nearby hills. Instead, Lt. Col. Brittan found his way to the island of Mindanao to link up with American and Filipino Guerrilla forces who were still fighting there. Captured, he spent time at the Davao Penal Colony, before being sent to Manila.
Brittan would eventually board the transport ship Arisan Maru, enroute for Japan. Tragically, the unmarked vessel was mistaken by an American submarine for a military ship and sunk to the bottom of the Philippine Sea. Brittan
MAMON G. SHARP United States Army
B orn in Mississippi, Mamon G. Sharp was active in the National Guard during high school. Sharp moved to Stillwater to attend Oklahoma A & M for college and earned the rank of Second Lieutenant by the time he graduated college in 1929. After bouncing around to various bases across the United States in the 1930s, he volunteered to serve in the Philippines.
After arriving in Manila in September of 1941, Sharp transferred to the Philippine Scouts in order to have the ability to train the troops there. He was sent to various areas in the Philippines, including the islands of Luzon, Bohol and Cebu. He was promoted to the rank of Captain by none other than Douglas Mac- Arthur. Sharp was killed in action on April 19, 1942, at age 37. By all accounts, he had performed his duties valiantly – he was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal and the Campaign and Service Victory World War II Medal for his efforts and devotion to duty.
Sharp was the first man
Grave of Mamon G. Sharp, American Memorial Cemetery, Manila, Philippines. from Stillwater, Oklahoma to die in World War II, and is forever memorialized by Stillwater’ s American Legion Post 129, which bears his name and honors the community’ s wartime casualties. His sacrifice serves as a testament to the role Stillwater played in World War II, and an important reminder of the power in remembering. Sharp is buried at the American Memo-
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