Burton had seven brothers and two sisters.
He was a student at Hattiesburg High School, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Burton Sellers (1914 Mississippi), a resident of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, enlisted as a Private (S/N 6922714) in the U.S. Army in 1937 at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He served two years in the Panama Canal Zone and one year in California.
Burton Sellers (Mississippi), of Rt. 1, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, reenlisted in the U.S. Army (S/N 6922714) on 15 January 1940. With the possibility of war looming he was sent in 1940 to the Philippine Islands and assigned to Company K, 31st Infantry Regiment.
War with Japan broke out on 08 December 1941. The 2nd and 3rd Battalion from nearby Estado Mayor, flush with hundreds of green replacements, were on their annual range firing exercise at Fort McKinley's B Range when three waves of Japanese planes attacked adjacent Nichols Field around 9 AM on 09 December 1941. No one with the 31st was hurt. On the airfield, however, there was great devastation. Buildings and wrecked planes billowed thick black smoke and flames into the air. Source: The Birth of the 31st Infantry Regiment and Beyond - Historical Data Relevant Its Distinguished Service In Defending The Philippine Islands December 8, 1941 - May 10, 1942.
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur, as part of War Plan Orange, ordered their withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force.
"At 2 AM on December 12, the 31st Infantry boarded trucks, civilian buses and commandeered taxicabs and headed north from from Fort McKinley....Around 1 PM on December 13, the regiment's lead element was dropped off at kilometer post 137, near Pilar on the Bataan Peninsula's main north-south road. The next morning, the 3d Battalion (Sellers') marched westward, taking up positions about three miles east of the barrio (village) of Bagac to guard against possible Japanese landings on Bagac Bay...
On 6 January 1942 at 1600 hours the Japanese 1st Formosa Infantry of the 48th Division supported by a tank company and 3 battalions of artillery hit Company B, 31st Infantry with full force. Badly shaken, Company B was forced back 800 yards where they stood at and fought. Colonel Steel, the regimental commander, ordered the 3d Battalion to seize the gap created by Company B as Company C, on the left of Company B, stood and assumed the force of the Japanese attack. l.t . Col. Brady, commanding the 3d Battalion , moved Companies I and L. into the attack. Company I hit the enemy in the nose and failed but Company L pressed on and restored the line within 30 minutes from the time it jumped off. At Layac the 31st paid a dear price for the time needed to successfully withdraw all defending forces to Bataan for their final battles.
The 31st had stopped the Japanese regiment cold, and the 48th Division was withdrawn and replaced by General Nara's 6,500-man 65th Brigade. The 31st withdrew through the Abucay defensive line and reverted to reserve.
16 January 1942 - Abucay Line
The Japanese 14th Army attacked the Abucay Line and breached it on 16 January, in a brilliant flanking maneuver by General Nara's 9th Infantry over Ht. Natib that broke the Philippine 51st Division. The attack was in the location least expected, and General Jones' local counterattacks failed, so the Corps reserve, the 31st Infantry and the 45th Philippine Scouts, were ordered to stop the Japanese at Abucay Hacienda. In the inky darkness, the two crack regiments of the Philippine Division moved forward as fast as possible to plug up the giant hole.
19 January 1942
Colonel Steel then ordered the 3d Battalion, commanded by Colonel Brady which had been held in reserve, to attack from the left flank while a company of the 45th Filipino Scouts joined the attack from the right...Attacking again on the following morning, with the last ravine behind it and only 150 yards of jungle before reaching the enemy river positions, Company K of the 3rd Battalion ran into severe fire from reinforced Japanese units. The attack was stalled momentarily and Company K was forced to retire.
For the next three days the 31st Regiment was almost incessantly attacked by infantry. artillery and air bombs, but it didn't yield an inch. The Japanese infantry attacks were made mostly at night. Source: 31st U.S. Infantry Regiment - History, Lineage, Honors, Decorations and Seventy-Third Anniversary Yearbook (Department of the Army, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1989), Chapter 5, The Philippines and Bataan 1932-1942
Corporal Burton Sellers was killed in action on 22 January 1942 in the vicinity of the Abucay Line on Bataan. He was one of 60 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment killed in the counter attack.
He was buried in USAF Cemetery Cabcaben, Bataan, adjacent to General Hospital No. 2. After the war his cross was found behind the cemetery on the ground but his body was not recovered.
Corporal Burton Sellers is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing - United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Corporal Burton Sellers was one of 70 men from his company (K) that died in captivity. In all 1155 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment died in captivity, roughly half of the regiment's strength on the day the war began.
He was a student at Hattiesburg High School, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Burton Sellers (1914 Mississippi), a resident of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, enlisted as a Private (S/N 6922714) in the U.S. Army in 1937 at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He served two years in the Panama Canal Zone and one year in California.
Burton Sellers (Mississippi), of Rt. 1, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, reenlisted in the U.S. Army (S/N 6922714) on 15 January 1940. With the possibility of war looming he was sent in 1940 to the Philippine Islands and assigned to Company K, 31st Infantry Regiment.
War with Japan broke out on 08 December 1941. The 2nd and 3rd Battalion from nearby Estado Mayor, flush with hundreds of green replacements, were on their annual range firing exercise at Fort McKinley's B Range when three waves of Japanese planes attacked adjacent Nichols Field around 9 AM on 09 December 1941. No one with the 31st was hurt. On the airfield, however, there was great devastation. Buildings and wrecked planes billowed thick black smoke and flames into the air. Source: The Birth of the 31st Infantry Regiment and Beyond - Historical Data Relevant Its Distinguished Service In Defending The Philippine Islands December 8, 1941 - May 10, 1942.
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur, as part of War Plan Orange, ordered their withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force.
"At 2 AM on December 12, the 31st Infantry boarded trucks, civilian buses and commandeered taxicabs and headed north from from Fort McKinley....Around 1 PM on December 13, the regiment's lead element was dropped off at kilometer post 137, near Pilar on the Bataan Peninsula's main north-south road. The next morning, the 3d Battalion (Sellers') marched westward, taking up positions about three miles east of the barrio (village) of Bagac to guard against possible Japanese landings on Bagac Bay...
On 6 January 1942 at 1600 hours the Japanese 1st Formosa Infantry of the 48th Division supported by a tank company and 3 battalions of artillery hit Company B, 31st Infantry with full force. Badly shaken, Company B was forced back 800 yards where they stood at and fought. Colonel Steel, the regimental commander, ordered the 3d Battalion to seize the gap created by Company B as Company C, on the left of Company B, stood and assumed the force of the Japanese attack. l.t . Col. Brady, commanding the 3d Battalion , moved Companies I and L. into the attack. Company I hit the enemy in the nose and failed but Company L pressed on and restored the line within 30 minutes from the time it jumped off. At Layac the 31st paid a dear price for the time needed to successfully withdraw all defending forces to Bataan for their final battles.
The 31st had stopped the Japanese regiment cold, and the 48th Division was withdrawn and replaced by General Nara's 6,500-man 65th Brigade. The 31st withdrew through the Abucay defensive line and reverted to reserve.
16 January 1942 - Abucay Line
The Japanese 14th Army attacked the Abucay Line and breached it on 16 January, in a brilliant flanking maneuver by General Nara's 9th Infantry over Ht. Natib that broke the Philippine 51st Division. The attack was in the location least expected, and General Jones' local counterattacks failed, so the Corps reserve, the 31st Infantry and the 45th Philippine Scouts, were ordered to stop the Japanese at Abucay Hacienda. In the inky darkness, the two crack regiments of the Philippine Division moved forward as fast as possible to plug up the giant hole.
19 January 1942
Colonel Steel then ordered the 3d Battalion, commanded by Colonel Brady which had been held in reserve, to attack from the left flank while a company of the 45th Filipino Scouts joined the attack from the right...Attacking again on the following morning, with the last ravine behind it and only 150 yards of jungle before reaching the enemy river positions, Company K of the 3rd Battalion ran into severe fire from reinforced Japanese units. The attack was stalled momentarily and Company K was forced to retire.
For the next three days the 31st Regiment was almost incessantly attacked by infantry. artillery and air bombs, but it didn't yield an inch. The Japanese infantry attacks were made mostly at night. Source: 31st U.S. Infantry Regiment - History, Lineage, Honors, Decorations and Seventy-Third Anniversary Yearbook (Department of the Army, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1989), Chapter 5, The Philippines and Bataan 1932-1942
Corporal Burton Sellers was killed in action on 22 January 1942 in the vicinity of the Abucay Line on Bataan. He was one of 60 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment killed in the counter attack.
He was buried in USAF Cemetery Cabcaben, Bataan, adjacent to General Hospital No. 2. After the war his cross was found behind the cemetery on the ground but his body was not recovered.
Corporal Burton Sellers is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing - United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Corporal Burton Sellers was one of 70 men from his company (K) that died in captivity. In all 1155 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment died in captivity, roughly half of the regiment's strength on the day the war began.
Burton had seven brothers and two sisters.
He was a student at Hattiesburg High School, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Burton Sellers (1914 Mississippi), a resident of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, enlisted as a Private (S/N 6922714) in the U.S. Army in 1937 at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He served two years in the Panama Canal Zone and one year in California.
Burton Sellers (Mississippi), of Rt. 1, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, reenlisted in the U.S. Army (S/N 6922714) on 15 January 1940. With the possibility of war looming he was sent in 1940 to the Philippine Islands and assigned to Company K, 31st Infantry Regiment.
War with Japan broke out on 08 December 1941. The 2nd and 3rd Battalion from nearby Estado Mayor, flush with hundreds of green replacements, were on their annual range firing exercise at Fort McKinley's B Range when three waves of Japanese planes attacked adjacent Nichols Field around 9 AM on 09 December 1941. No one with the 31st was hurt. On the airfield, however, there was great devastation. Buildings and wrecked planes billowed thick black smoke and flames into the air. Source: The Birth of the 31st Infantry Regiment and Beyond - Historical Data Relevant Its Distinguished Service In Defending The Philippine Islands December 8, 1941 - May 10, 1942.
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur, as part of War Plan Orange, ordered their withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force.
"At 2 AM on December 12, the 31st Infantry boarded trucks, civilian buses and commandeered taxicabs and headed north from from Fort McKinley....Around 1 PM on December 13, the regiment's lead element was dropped off at kilometer post 137, near Pilar on the Bataan Peninsula's main north-south road. The next morning, the 3d Battalion (Sellers') marched westward, taking up positions about three miles east of the barrio (village) of Bagac to guard against possible Japanese landings on Bagac Bay...
On 6 January 1942 at 1600 hours the Japanese 1st Formosa Infantry of the 48th Division supported by a tank company and 3 battalions of artillery hit Company B, 31st Infantry with full force. Badly shaken, Company B was forced back 800 yards where they stood at and fought. Colonel Steel, the regimental commander, ordered the 3d Battalion to seize the gap created by Company B as Company C, on the left of Company B, stood and assumed the force of the Japanese attack. l.t . Col. Brady, commanding the 3d Battalion , moved Companies I and L. into the attack. Company I hit the enemy in the nose and failed but Company L pressed on and restored the line within 30 minutes from the time it jumped off. At Layac the 31st paid a dear price for the time needed to successfully withdraw all defending forces to Bataan for their final battles.
The 31st had stopped the Japanese regiment cold, and the 48th Division was withdrawn and replaced by General Nara's 6,500-man 65th Brigade. The 31st withdrew through the Abucay defensive line and reverted to reserve.
16 January 1942 - Abucay Line
The Japanese 14th Army attacked the Abucay Line and breached it on 16 January, in a brilliant flanking maneuver by General Nara's 9th Infantry over Ht. Natib that broke the Philippine 51st Division. The attack was in the location least expected, and General Jones' local counterattacks failed, so the Corps reserve, the 31st Infantry and the 45th Philippine Scouts, were ordered to stop the Japanese at Abucay Hacienda. In the inky darkness, the two crack regiments of the Philippine Division moved forward as fast as possible to plug up the giant hole.
19 January 1942
Colonel Steel then ordered the 3d Battalion, commanded by Colonel Brady which had been held in reserve, to attack from the left flank while a company of the 45th Filipino Scouts joined the attack from the right...Attacking again on the following morning, with the last ravine behind it and only 150 yards of jungle before reaching the enemy river positions, Company K of the 3rd Battalion ran into severe fire from reinforced Japanese units. The attack was stalled momentarily and Company K was forced to retire.
For the next three days the 31st Regiment was almost incessantly attacked by infantry. artillery and air bombs, but it didn't yield an inch. The Japanese infantry attacks were made mostly at night. Source: 31st U.S. Infantry Regiment - History, Lineage, Honors, Decorations and Seventy-Third Anniversary Yearbook (Department of the Army, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1989), Chapter 5, The Philippines and Bataan 1932-1942
Corporal Burton Sellers was killed in action on 22 January 1942 in the vicinity of the Abucay Line on Bataan. He was one of 60 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment killed in the counter attack.
He was buried in USAF Cemetery Cabcaben, Bataan, adjacent to General Hospital No. 2. After the war his cross was found behind the cemetery on the ground but his body was not recovered.
Corporal Burton Sellers is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing - United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Corporal Burton Sellers was one of 70 men from his company (K) that died in captivity. In all 1155 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment died in captivity, roughly half of the regiment's strength on the day the war began.
He was a student at Hattiesburg High School, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Burton Sellers (1914 Mississippi), a resident of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, enlisted as a Private (S/N 6922714) in the U.S. Army in 1937 at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He served two years in the Panama Canal Zone and one year in California.
Burton Sellers (Mississippi), of Rt. 1, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, reenlisted in the U.S. Army (S/N 6922714) on 15 January 1940. With the possibility of war looming he was sent in 1940 to the Philippine Islands and assigned to Company K, 31st Infantry Regiment.
War with Japan broke out on 08 December 1941. The 2nd and 3rd Battalion from nearby Estado Mayor, flush with hundreds of green replacements, were on their annual range firing exercise at Fort McKinley's B Range when three waves of Japanese planes attacked adjacent Nichols Field around 9 AM on 09 December 1941. No one with the 31st was hurt. On the airfield, however, there was great devastation. Buildings and wrecked planes billowed thick black smoke and flames into the air. Source: The Birth of the 31st Infantry Regiment and Beyond - Historical Data Relevant Its Distinguished Service In Defending The Philippine Islands December 8, 1941 - May 10, 1942.
Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon on 22 December. In response, General Douglas MacArthur, as part of War Plan Orange, ordered their withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula to be a part of the Bataan Defense Force.
"At 2 AM on December 12, the 31st Infantry boarded trucks, civilian buses and commandeered taxicabs and headed north from from Fort McKinley....Around 1 PM on December 13, the regiment's lead element was dropped off at kilometer post 137, near Pilar on the Bataan Peninsula's main north-south road. The next morning, the 3d Battalion (Sellers') marched westward, taking up positions about three miles east of the barrio (village) of Bagac to guard against possible Japanese landings on Bagac Bay...
On 6 January 1942 at 1600 hours the Japanese 1st Formosa Infantry of the 48th Division supported by a tank company and 3 battalions of artillery hit Company B, 31st Infantry with full force. Badly shaken, Company B was forced back 800 yards where they stood at and fought. Colonel Steel, the regimental commander, ordered the 3d Battalion to seize the gap created by Company B as Company C, on the left of Company B, stood and assumed the force of the Japanese attack. l.t . Col. Brady, commanding the 3d Battalion , moved Companies I and L. into the attack. Company I hit the enemy in the nose and failed but Company L pressed on and restored the line within 30 minutes from the time it jumped off. At Layac the 31st paid a dear price for the time needed to successfully withdraw all defending forces to Bataan for their final battles.
The 31st had stopped the Japanese regiment cold, and the 48th Division was withdrawn and replaced by General Nara's 6,500-man 65th Brigade. The 31st withdrew through the Abucay defensive line and reverted to reserve.
16 January 1942 - Abucay Line
The Japanese 14th Army attacked the Abucay Line and breached it on 16 January, in a brilliant flanking maneuver by General Nara's 9th Infantry over Ht. Natib that broke the Philippine 51st Division. The attack was in the location least expected, and General Jones' local counterattacks failed, so the Corps reserve, the 31st Infantry and the 45th Philippine Scouts, were ordered to stop the Japanese at Abucay Hacienda. In the inky darkness, the two crack regiments of the Philippine Division moved forward as fast as possible to plug up the giant hole.
19 January 1942
Colonel Steel then ordered the 3d Battalion, commanded by Colonel Brady which had been held in reserve, to attack from the left flank while a company of the 45th Filipino Scouts joined the attack from the right...Attacking again on the following morning, with the last ravine behind it and only 150 yards of jungle before reaching the enemy river positions, Company K of the 3rd Battalion ran into severe fire from reinforced Japanese units. The attack was stalled momentarily and Company K was forced to retire.
For the next three days the 31st Regiment was almost incessantly attacked by infantry. artillery and air bombs, but it didn't yield an inch. The Japanese infantry attacks were made mostly at night. Source: 31st U.S. Infantry Regiment - History, Lineage, Honors, Decorations and Seventy-Third Anniversary Yearbook (Department of the Army, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1989), Chapter 5, The Philippines and Bataan 1932-1942
Corporal Burton Sellers was killed in action on 22 January 1942 in the vicinity of the Abucay Line on Bataan. He was one of 60 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment killed in the counter attack.
He was buried in USAF Cemetery Cabcaben, Bataan, adjacent to General Hospital No. 2. After the war his cross was found behind the cemetery on the ground but his body was not recovered.
Corporal Burton Sellers is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing - United States Army and Army Air Forces at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Corporal Burton Sellers was one of 70 men from his company (K) that died in captivity. In all 1155 men from the 31st Infantry Regiment died in captivity, roughly half of the regiment's strength on the day the war began.
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