Gallup Bataan survivor dies at age 86

Former Gallup resident Pete Espinosa, shown in this Nov. 8, 2005 photo, was a WWII veteran and a survivor of the Bataan Death March. Espinosa died Thursday. [Independent File Photo]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Pete Espinosa, a long-time resident of Gallup and a survivor of the Bataan Death March, died of natural causes Thursday in Socorro. He was 86.

Born in Gibson, a small mining community near Gallup, Espinosa joined the army in 1941 and with 77 other men from Gallup was assigned to the Battery D of the 200th Coast Artillery, an anti-aircraft unit.

All members of that unit were captured by the Japanese and the survivors spent the rest of the war in Japanese prison camps.

Tom Payton, commander of Post 8 of the American Legion, said Espinosa would often tell stories of the cruelty that members of the battalion suffered at the hands of the Japanese during this time.

“One of the stories he would tell is that on the march, Japanese soldiers would pick out a member of Battery D at random and bayonet them and bet on how long it would take to die,” he said.

Espinosa also said that when he was transferred to a ship on his way to Japan, the Japanese would not follow proper protocol and mark the ship as holding prisoners of war. Instead, they would make it look like a battleship and put it on the outer edges of the fleet so that if there was an attack by U.S. Navy ships, they would be the first to be attacked.

While this didn’t happen to Espinosa’s ship, Payton said he knows of cases where these ships carrying prisoners of war were sunk because the U.S. Navy had no idea who was being carried on them.

Payton said another story Espinosa would tell centered around the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. “He was apparently so close to Hiroshima at the time that when the bomb went off, he was thrown off of his bunk,” he said.

When Espinosa was discharged, he returned to Gallup where he met Geraldine Babbitt and a short while later the two were married.

Over the next years, he worked for BF Goodrich and Firestone as a salesman, the New Mexico Highway Department and then went to work at Fort Wingate as an accountant until his retirement in 1971.

He moved in 2006 to Socorro where one of his daughters, Antoinette, who is a nurse, lived.

Payton remembers him as man who was very well-liked by a lot of people in Gallup. He was also in great physical shape and even in his 80s, could walk steps “like a man 40 years younger.”

Espinosa was very much involved in Post 8 activities and made a point of attending every meeting. Payton said he could remember Payton showing up and sitting down and shortly thereafter there would be a cloud of smoke because he was a chain smoker.

He’s the last of the Bataan survivors from Battery D, Payton said. There are still a handful of march survivors in this area from other units.

He was the Post 8 Veteran of the Year for 2006 because of his work on Veteran’s Day in 2005 in the recognition by the Post of the members of Battery D. He also received the post’s Commanders Appreciation Award, which is the only that the post has given out so far in its 86-year history.

A rosary will be held on at 7 p.m. Sunday at the San Miguel Church in Socorro and a funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the same church.

Internment will take place at 3 p.m. Monday at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe.

Besides his wife, survivors include a son, George, who lives in Chicago; daughters Arlene Sandoval of Gallup and Antoinette Romero of Socorro; six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.