Peter Paul Bernd was born on August 4, 1909, in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of Frank C. Bernd and Salome J. Leininger Bernd. He was married to Mildred Elsie English Bernd. After graduating from Pottsville High School in 1927, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving with the 33rd Infantry at Fort Clayton, Panama Canal Zone, before earning an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1933. Following his commissioning, Bernd earned a Master of Science degree from MIT and was later deployed to the Philippines in April 1941, serving with the 745th Ordnance Company (Aviation) under the 20th Air Base Group at Nichols Field.

When Japanese forces invaded, he joined the infantry defense on Bataan and was captured after the fall of Corregidor in May 1942. Bernd was imprisoned at Cabanatuan POW Camp #1 before being placed aboard the Arisan Maru, one of Japan’s notorious “hell ships”, used to transport prisoners to Japan under brutal, unsanitary conditions. On October 24, 1944, the Arisan Maru was torpedoed and sunk in the Bashi Channel between Formosa and Luzon by an American submarine, unaware that Allied POWs were aboard. Bernd was among those killed in action.

Cpt Bernd'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, uk.forceswarrecords.com, weremember.abmc.gov