In May 1942, Lt.Col William F. Harris was captured by the Japanese during the Battle of Corregidor. He escaped and swam 8 1/2 hours across Manila Bay to Bataan where he joined Filipino guerrillas fighting the Japanese. In the summer of 1942, Harris and two others attempted to sail to China in a motorboat, but the engine failed and the boat drifted for 29 days with little food or water. The monsoon blew them back to an island in the southern part of the Philippines where they split up and he joined another resistance group. Harris headed towards Australia hoping to rejoin American forces he heard were fighting in Guadalcanal, but he was recaptured in September 1943 by Japanese forces in Indonesia.
Harris was then taken to Ōfuna POW camp in 1944. and experienced malnutrition and brutal treatment at the hands of his jailers. According to a fellow captive, Harris had been knocked down 20 times with a baseball bat for reading a newspaper stolen from the trash. Harris was chosen to represent prisoners of war during the surrender of Japan, aboard USS Missouri on 2 September 1945. After World War II, he remained in the Marines and went on to be the CO of 3rd Bn, 7th Marines in the Korean War. During the breakout at the Chosin Reservoir, his unit stayed behind as a rear guard to protect retreating forces. Despite heavy losses, Harris rallied his troops and personally went into harms way during the battle. Harris was last seen by American forces on 7 December 1950 walking, carrying two rifles on his shoulders. He was listed as MIA , but after the war when former POWs had neither seen nor heard of his fate, Harris was declared to be dead. He was awarded the Navy Cross in 1951 for his actions at Chosin. Because of his penchant for escape and survival exhibited during World War II, his peers and family were reluctant to accept his death. A superior officer held on to his Navy Cross for a number of years, expecting to be able to give it to Harris personally.
Remains thought to be his were eventually recovered and interred in Versailles, Kentucky. His family doubted the remains were his, and conclusive testing using DNA had not been attempted as of 2014. In short...balls