Sergeant Simon Garelick, 22-year-old son of Mary Garelick of Kansas City, died in a Japanese prison camp on Nov. 4, 1942, somewhere in the Philippine Islands.
Young Garelick enlisted in the U.S. Army in March of 1941 and was sent overseas in April of the same year.
In December of 1941, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines where Garelick was stationed. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942. Sergeant Garelick was among those reported captured and interned at a POW camp along with thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members. Prisoners were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.
In April of 1942, Sergeant Garelick’s family was informed that he was missing in action and later received word that he was alive and a prisoner of war. According to prison camp and other historical records, Garelick died on Nov. 4, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 707.
On Oct. 7, 2024, Sergeant Simon Garelick’s remains were accounted for and announced by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Garelick’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
At his time of death, Sergeant Garelick was preceded in death by his brother Jake Garelick and survived by his mother, Mary Garelich;and siblings, Alice Masonoff, Fanny Michelson, Hymie Garelich, Ida Flapan, Anne Deutch, Helen Gilman, Louis Garlich and Sadie Singer.
A reinternment service will be held with full military honors at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5, at Sheffield Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.
Online condolences for the family may be left at louismemorialchapel.com.
