Memoirs: 1993

Robert George Bjoring was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota on August 26, 1920. In 1938, he entered the University of North Dakota with the intention of becoming a lawyer. While at UND, he participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program and earned a private pilot's license. In 1940, he entered the United States Army Air Corps pilot training program. Upon graduation, he was stationed in the Philippines. He arrived there on Thanksgiving Day, 1941. He participated in battles on Luzon in the Philippines from December, 1941 through April, 1942. He was on the Bataan Peninsula when it was captured by the Japanese. When the prisoners were forming up to begin the Death March from Bataan, Bjoring escaped along with three other men. They were recaptured in Southern Luzon in July 1942, and Bjoring was then a prisoner of war until September, 1945. Bjoring contributed two folders to the Carleton Elliott Simensen Military Heritage Collection. The first folder contains a photocopy of a paper that Bjoring wrote for a military history class at the University of Maryland in 1949. The paper concerns the defense of the Philippines from 1939-1942. Bjoring researched the paper from materials at the Library of Congress. The first folder also contains a 1993 letter from Bjoring describing the creation of his manuscript, "A 1920 Baby." Also included is a list of North Dakota World War II POW's found in the book Some Survived by Manny Lawton. The second folder contains a copy of Bjoring's unpublished manuscript "A 1920 Baby." In this work, Bjoring describes his experiences during World War II. (Accession # 93-1931)