Collin Batson Whitehurst Jr. was born on February 3, 1914, in Richmond County, Virginia. He was the son of Collin Batson "Carl" Whitehurst and Adelaide Alice Rawls Whitehurst. He was married to Rose Kneubel. He attended Washington School and Hughes High School, later enrolling at the University of Cincinnati as a pre-medical student. At the end of his second year, he earned an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, entering in June 1934 and graduating with the Class of 1938.

After graduating, his first assignment was with Headquarters Company, 10th Infantry at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In June 1940, he sailed for the Philippines, where he was stationed at Fort McKinley. Collin was later transferred to Cebu, serving under Major General William F. Sharp as part of the Visayan-Mindanao Force during the defense of the Philippines. Following the fall of the islands in 1942, Collin was captured and became a prisoner of war. While imprisoned in PW Camp #2 in Davao, Mindanao, he organized and trained a choir for a 1943 Christmas service conducted by Chaplain Capt. Monett, offering hope and dignity to his fellow prisoners during their captivity. Later, he was transferred to Cabanatuan Prison, then to Manila, where he was loaded aboard a Japanese “hell ship” with 1,775 prisoners on October 11, 1944. The ship was sunk on October 24, 1944, by U.S. submarine action in the South China Sea, about 200 miles from the Chinese coast. Only a few prisoners survived; Collin was among those lost.

Maj Whitehurst'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, alumni.westpointaog.org