Robert Hale Vesey (1899–1942)

Robert Hale Vesey was a U.S. Army officer during World War II who was executed by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942 after he volunteered to replace another officer facing the punishment.

Robert Hale Vesey was born on February 6, 1899, in Kaufman County, Texas, to Addie Vesey and four-term Kaufman County Judge John Vesey. His father died of complications from surgery on August 11, 1900, and his mother later married businessman Charles Crutchfield. By 1910, the family had moved to Hope (Hempstead County).

Vesey attended Hope High School, where he was active on the debate team and in oratory contests, also participating in the school play. He graduated in April 1916 and received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, from Congressman William Shields Goodwin a few weeks later. He graduated from West Point in November 1918, placing 204th in a class of about 500 cadets who were graduated early because of World War I.

By 1919, he was stationed with the Ninth Machine Gun Battalion at Camp Pike in North Little Rock (Pulaski County). He married Effie M. Bridewell of Hope in 1920; they would have two daughters. The Veseys were stationed at various bases and were at South Dakota State College, where Robert was an assistant professor of military science and tactics, when he was transferred to Manila in the Philippines in the summer of 1939; his wife moved there as well. He was serving there as a lieutenant colonel in the Seventy-third Infantry Regiment of the Seventy-first Philippines Infantry Division, where a fellow soldier remembered him as “a fine gentleman” with a “robust handshake.”

Effie Vesey was among around 700 family members of American soldiers in the Philippines who were sent back to the United States in May 1941 as the prospect of war with Japan loomed; their daughters were apparently still in the United States. Robert Vesey became a prisoner of war (POW) in May 1942 when U.S. troops on Mindanao surrendered to Japanese forces, and he was held at Camp Keithley in Dansalan City.

On July 1, 1942, four American soldiers escaped from the camp, and the Japanese pledged to execute other POWs as punishment. On July 3, 1942, they tied Brigadier General Guy Fort, commander of the Eighty-first Philippine Infantry Division; Captain Albert Price of Alabama; and First Sergeant John Chandler of Louisiana to wooden stakes and prepared to kill them. Vesey came forward and asked to replace Fort and was tied to the stake. The three men were then bayoneted in front of their fellow prisoners. A witness said that “it took two-and-a-half hours for [Vesey] to die.”

Fort would later be executed in November 1942 for refusing to tell the Filipino soldiers he had commanded and who were fighting a guerrilla war to surrender to the Japanese. After the war, Lieutenant Colonel Yoshinari Tanaka was sentenced to hang in October 1948 for ordering the executions of the four Americans.

The U.S. government informed Vesey’s family in August 1945 that he had been killed three years earlier. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Prisoner of War Medal. His remains were never recovered, and his name is included on the Tablet of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery. However, a volunteer nonprofit organization, the Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group, stated that it believed there was sufficient information based on eyewitness recollections to locate the graves of the three men executed on July 1, 1942, and, in September 2025, announced plans to try to recover them.

For additional information:
Barrouquere, Brett. “Search Planned to Find Body of WWII Soldier.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 20, 2025, pp. 1, 8A. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2025/sep/20/search-planned-for-remains-of-world-war-ii/ (accessed February 11, 2026).

“Brig. Gen. Guy O Fort.” Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001EhNz2EAF (accessed February 11, 2026).

“Camp Pike Notes.” Arkansas Democrat, November 26, 1919, p. 8.

“Captain Vesey Here for 2-Month Visit.” Hope Star, June 6, 1939, p. 6.

“Demise of Judge Vesey.” Marshall [Texas] Messenger, August 17, 1900, p. 3.

“Fall of the Philippines Told Rotarians.” Hope Star, December 23, 1943, p. 11.

“Friends Of S. D. Man, Beheaded By Japs, See ‘Justice At Last’ in Execution of Nip War Criminal.” Huron, South Dakota, Daily Plainsman, October 13, 1948, p. 1.

“Hope Boy to West Point.” Arkansas Gazette, June 16, 1916, p. 2.

“Hope Graduates.” Arkansas Gazette, April 30, 1916, p. 2.

“Hope Officer Executed on Mindanao.” Arkansas Gazette, August 28, 1945, p. 2.

“Jap Will Be Executed for Killing Americans.” Jefferson City [Missouri] Post-Tribune, October 8, 1948, p. 1.

“Officer Visits Parents.” Arkansas Democrat, November 4, 1918, p. 9.

“Texas and Texans.” Granbury [Texas] News, March 22, 1900, p. 6.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas