05/25/2026
Remembering 1st Lt. Pearley H. Scarborough Jr.
Pearley H. Scarborough Jr. graduated from High Point College in 1940. Soon after, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, trained as a P-40 fighter pilot, and was assigned to the 27th Bomb Group in the Philippines.
Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the 27th Bomb Group fought as infantry during the Battle of Bataan, becoming the only Air Force unit in U.S. history captured as an entire organization. Lt. Scarborough was taken prisoner on April 9, 1942, and endured the horrors of the Bataan Death March.
He was later imprisoned at Cabanatuan Prison Camp. In October 1944, while being transported to Japan aboard the Arisan Maru, the ship was torpedoed in the South China Sea. Of the 1,782 American POWs aboard, only nine survived.
Today, 1st Lt. Pearley H. Scarborough Jr. is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
đź”— Additional photos and documents are available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g9-cLmKlqm4gWHzSDn-MC3spoLUx4iCX?usp=drive_link