Herbert Henry Eichlin Jr. was born on June 18, 1917, in Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Herbert Henry Eichlin Sr. and Helen L. Genther Eichlin. He was married to Margaret Millicent Carpenter Crowell Henline. After graduating from high school in 1934, he attended Lafayette College for a year before entering the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 1, 1935, and graduated in 1939. was determined to join the Air Corps but was barred due to a minor eye defect. He diligently practiced eye exercises prescribed by an optometrist, hoping to improve his vision, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Unable to qualify for flight duty, he instead chose the Infantry and was assigned to the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines.

By late 1940, the 31st Infantry had shifted into intensive training, preparing for the conflict that was soon to erupt. His competence led to his reassignment from an infantry company to a staff post at regimental headquarters, a role he disliked and from which he repeatedly requested a return to field command. When war broke out in 1941 and Japanese forces invaded the Philippines, his appeals were finally granted. By mid-March 1942, now a captain, he took command of L Company, 31st Infantry, on the Bataan Peninsula. The unit was severely weakened, short on men, food, medicine, and ammunition, with many soldiers suffering from malaria and dysentery.

After the fall of Bataan, Captain Eichlin endured the brutal Bataan Death March to Camp O’Donnell, where disease and starvation ravaged the prisoners. Suffering from malaria and amoebic dysentery, he lost seventy pounds. When Camp O’Donnell was closed in June 1942, he was moved to Cabanatuan, where he nearly died in the camp hospital but slowly recovered. In late 1944, the Japanese began transferring prisoners to Japan. Though his evacuation was delayed because of his illness, Ike was eventually placed aboard the Oryoku Maru in December 1944. After surviving bombings that sank both the Oryoku Maru and Enoura Maru, he was transferred to the Brazil Maru. There, weakened by renewed dysentery, starvation, and dehydration, he died on January 27, 1945. His body was consigned to the China Sea.

Cpt Eichlin'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