Campbell Hodges “Camp” Snyder was born on January 27, 1916, in Como, Franklin Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of William Marion Snyder and Linda May Hodges Snyder. He was married to Mary Jane Hunter Gilmore. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1937. Upon graduation, he entered the Corps of Engineers and was initially assigned to the Army Air Corps for flight training at Randolph Field, but a failed physical exam returned him to engineering duty. He served as assistant to the district engineer in Vicksburg, Mississippi, overseeing construction and inspection at Sardis Dam. He attempted training again in 1938 but was found again physically unfit in 1939 and reassigned to the San Francisco district engineer’s office. After working briefly on a project in Eureka, California, he pursued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a Master of Science in civil engineering.

Campbell sailed to the Philippines aboard the U.S. Army Transport U.S. Grant, where he was assigned to Fort McKinley. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he remained in the Philippines, serving with the 14th Engineers during the fierce fighting on Bataan. After the surrender, he survived the Death March and was at Camp O’Donnell until December 1944, when he was placed aboard the Oryoku Maru en route to Japan. The ship was bombed and sunk by American aircraft at Subic Bay on December 15, 1944, and he lost his life in the attack.

Maj Snyder's name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines. He also has a cenotaph in the Camp Zion Cemetery, Haughton, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, alumni.westpointaog.org