2009 Welcome to Wise.indd - Wise County Messenger

74
WISE COUNTY Heritage Museum
The Wise County Heritage
Museum is a monument to the
past.
Located on Trinity Street in
Decatur, the museum was once
the Decatur Baptist College
and is now owned by the Wise
County Historical Society. The
museum has many relics from the past,
including what’s known as the “Lost
Battalion” Room. The room serves as a
tribute to the local soldiers whom Japan
took as prisoners of war in the Dutch
East Indies during World War II.
Members of the Lost Battalion were
mostly from Wise and Jack counties. The
Japanese held those American soldiers
from the Lost Battalion captive for more
than three years during World War II under
brutal conditions.
Composed of soldiers from the Army
and Navy, the men suffered together
through 42 months of humiliation, degradation,
physical and mental torture,
starvation and horrible tropical diseases,
with no medication, according to the
Wise County Historical Society.
Of the more than 900 men taken prisoner,
almost 700 were sent to Burma and
Thailand and worked on a railroad and
later in coal mines and shipyards before
they were freed.
No members of the Lost Battalion from
Wise County are still alive, said Rosalie
Gregg, director of the Wise County Historical
Museum.
The “Lost Battalion” room contains
items that once belonged to members of
the battalion, including military uniforms,
as well as documents that detail
the hardships the men faced while pris-
MESSENGER PHOTO BY JOE DUTY
WISE COUNTY HERITAGE MUSEUM