Albert Svihra was born on November 21, 1898, in New York. He was married to Ila Mary Whiteside Svihra. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1922. He began his career in the Signal Corps, later transferring to the Field Artillery and then the Judge Advocate General’s Department after earning a law degree with honors from the University of Virginia. By World War II, he was serving as Staff Judge Advocate for Maj. Gen. Wainwright’s Philippine 1st Division, the only Army lawyer on the staff.

After the surrender of Corregidor in May 1942, he was taken prisoner and held at PW Camp #1 in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, where he advised fellow POWs on Geneva Convention rights and secretly kept a diary of camp life. On October 24, 1944, while being transported aboard the Arisan Maru, a Japanese “hell ship” unmarked as carrying POWs, he was killed when the vessel was torpedoed by the U.S. submarine USS Shark in the South China Sea.

Col Svihra's name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, weremember.abmc.gov