Donald Richard Snoke was born on July 22, 1914, in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Charles Edward Snoke and Helen Virginia Uhrich Snoke. A 1930 graduate of Washington High School and 1935 graduate of Washington and Jefferson College, he later entered West Point and graduated in 1939, receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. Likely trained at Fort Sill, he arrived in the Philippines around April 1941 and commanded Battery F, 59th Coast Artillery Regiment on Corregidor.

Following the Japanese invasion in December 1941, Snoke led his battery through the defense of Bataan and Corregidor. After Corregidor’s fall in May 1942, he was taken prisoner and held in camps across the Philippines, including Davao, enduring starvation, disease, and forced labor. In December 1944, he was among 1,619 POWs loaded onto the Oryoku Maru, which was sunk by U.S. aircraft. Surviving that attack, he was transferred to the Enoura Maru via the Brazil Maru. On January 9, 1945, the Enoura Maru was bombed while anchored at Takao, Formosa (now Kaohsiung, Taiwan), killing over 300 prisoners, including Captain Snoke. His body was never identified; he remains listed as Missing in Action.

Cpt Snoke'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 Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, USA.

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