The Struggle for Life
By Paola Elder and Dylan Fox
Benjamin Doolittle Goodier
December 13, 1898 – January 26, 1945
Benjamin Goodier’s headstone in Fort Logan (Courtesy of findagrave.com)
On December 13, 1898, George and Elizabeth Goodier welcomed their second child into the world and named him Benjamin. The couple had moved from New York to Denver after having their first child, Florence Goodier.[1] By 1910, Benjamin Goodier had a little brother named George and was attending school in Denver.[2] Although the exact date is unclear, Goodier enlisted in the Navy sometime during World War I and served as a machinist’s mate.[3] After the war, Goodier remained in the Navy Reserves and went on enroll in the Colorado School of Mines.[4] After graduating, Goodier married Luella Gates in 1922.[5] The couple had three children: Benjamin Jr, Yvonne, and Roxanna.[6]
Goodier’s work as a mining engineer and geology consultant meant the family frequently moved; they spent time in New Mexico, Colorado, and South America before the family settled in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.[7] At some point, Goodier’s brother George and his family also moved out to Manila. In 1940, while still living in Manila, Goodier was called back into active duty to work as an officer in the Civil Engineer Corps.[8] He was stationed at the Cavite Navy Yard as part of the Public Works Department, but still maintained his career as a mining consultant as well.[9]
Life for Benjamin and the Goodier family changed dramatically on December 7, 1941, when Imperial Japan declared war on the United States and began a subsequent invasion of the Philippines. The Cavite Navy Yard was one of several American facilities throughout the Pacific that were destroyed by Japanese bombing runs.[10] As the Japanese invasion progressed, Goodier decided to dispose of his Navy uniform and pass as a civilian so he could remain with his family and keep them safe.[11]
Children climb on a tank after the liberation of Santo Tomas. (Courtesy of the blog “Manila Nostalgia”).
On December 24, 1944, Manila was declared an open city and taken unopposed by Japanese forces. All remaining American and British citizens were rounded up and taken to the University of Santo Tomas, which had been converted into an internment camp. Goodier’s daughter Yvonne recounted that he took up a camp duty as a “room monitor,” which allowed him to keep watch over his family.[12] Compared to the brutal treatment of servicemen during the Bataan Death March, the Japanese administration of Santo Tomas began relatively hands-off; prisoners that brought currency could trade with the outside, there were regular aid packages from the International Red Cross, and the prisoners organized self-governing committees for sanitation and healthcare.[13]
The Goodier family stayed together in Santo Tomas for over a year – yet, by 1943, the Japanese camp commandant declared they were aware of servicemen living among the civilians of Santo Tomas. The commandant ordered that the servicemen turn themselves in or face execution and Goodier discussed what to do with his wife Luella.[14] Several men were executed in 1941 for attempting to escape and the couple decided it was safest for Benjamin to turn himself in. Yvonne stated that her father was first interrogated at Fort Santiago and then transferred to a POW camp in Cabanatuan, where they had limited communication.[15] By December of 1944, Goodier was moved onto a Japanese prison ship, the Oryoku Maru, for transport to a POW camp in Japan.[16] Japanese prison ships were known as “hell ships” due to conditions such as overcrowding, overheating, starvation, and wanton summary executions.[17]
An aerial shot of the sinking Oryoku Maru. (Courtesy of Asia Policy Point’s “American POWs of Japan” project)
There are conflicting sources on what happened to Benjamin Goodier after he was placed on the Oryoku Maru. The ship departed from Manila on December 13 of 1944 and was attacked by American aircraft in the Subic Bay the next day; Japanese prison ships were requisitioned merchant or commercial craft and military forces could not discern their purpose by sight. When the pilots noticed thousands of prisoners bailing out of the sinking Oryoku Maru, they called off the attack.[18] Goodier and other survivors were picked up by another Japanese prison ship named the Enoura Maru. While the Enoura Maru was docked around Takao, Taiwan, it too was bombed by American aircraft. The ship was permanently disabled and hundreds of POWs were killed.
From here, several sources list different fates for Benjamin Goodier. The U.S. Navy Seabee Museum states that Goodier and the survivors were transferred onto a final Japanese ship, the Brazil Maru, but Goodier had caught pneumonia while treading water and died en route to Japan.[19] The POW/MIA Accounting Agency corroborates this scenario, stating he died of unspecified causes abord the Brazil Maru and was buried at sea.[20] Yet, the Colorado Freedom Memorial states that Goodier was injured during the bombing of the Enoura Maru and died of his wounds, wherein he was cremated in a mass grave on Taiwan.[21]
Ultimately, the POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists Goodier’s remains as “unaccounted for” and unrecoverable. Goodier’s name is engraved on a Tablet of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial and he was honored with a headstone in Fort Logan National Cemetery in 2018. Given conflicting circumstances and sources, Goodier’s date of death is listed as either December 15, 1944, January 12, 1945, or January 24, 1945.[22] The rest of the Goodier family survived the increasingly poor conditions of Santo Tomas, unaware of Benjamin’s ultimate fate. Santo Tomas was liberated by the 1st Cavalry Division on February 3, 1945, and the Goodier family was repatriated back to the United States.[23] Luella Goodier later remarried a man named Hobart Proctor; she is buried as Luella Gates Goodier.
While World War II impacted thousands of families, the stories of the Goodier family and those interned at Santo Tomas are undoubtedly unique and often overlooked. In the face of overwhelming odds and circumstances beyond his control, Benjamin did his best to keep his family safe. Benjamin and Luella’s headstones at Fort Logan National Cemetery can be found close by in section 63, site 139.
Footnotes ↓
[1] “1900 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D. Goodier.
[2] “1910 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D. Goodier.
[3] “Colorado, Roster of Men and Women Who Served in World War I, 1917-1918,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D. Goodier.
[4] Colorado School of Mines, The Quarterly of the Colorado School of Mines (Golden, 1918), p. 139; archive.org, entry for Benjamin D. Goodier in Freshman Class, https://archive.org/details/quarterlycolora03minegoog/page/n146/mode/2up?q=goodier.
[5] “Colorado, County Marriage Records and State Index, 1862-2006,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D Goodier and Luella Gates.
[6] Herbert C Banks II, ed., “Civilian Prisoners of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands: Years of Hardship, Hunger, and Hope,” Google Books (Turner Publishing Company, 2002), https://books.google.com/books/about/Civilian_Prisoners_of_the_Japanese_in_th.html?id=hXkGndoiRVUC. 83.
[7] Pixnmopix, “YVONNE CHARLES GOODIER Santo Tomas,” YouTube video, 1:02:17, September 16, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCAlGkYu0eY. 0:00:28.
[8] “Personnel Profile: Lt. Benjamin Doolittle Goodier,” POW/MIA Accounting Agency (Department of Defense), accessed September 29, 2021, https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001Cbs0kEAB;
“U.S., Select Military Registers, 1862-1985,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D Goodier.
[9] Pixnmopix, “YVONNE CHARLES GOODIER Santo Tomas.” 0:02:25.
[10] “Philippines, Guam, and Wake Attacks,” Naval History and Heritage Command, July 8, 2019, https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1941/philippines.html.
[11] Pixnmopix, “YVONNE CHARLES GOODIER Santo Tomas.” 0:13:30.
[12] Ibid, 0:17:10.
[13] Paul Springer, “Review of Wilkinson, Rupert 'Surviving a Japanese Internment Camp: Life and Liberation at Santo Tomás, Manila, in World War II',” H-Net Reviews, November 2015,
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42831.
[14] Pixnmopix, “YVONNE CHARLES GOODIER Santo Tomas.” 0:34:25.
[15] Ibid, 0:35:35;
“U.S., World War II American and Allied Prisoners of War, 1941-1946,” ancestry.com, entry for Benjamin D. Goodier.
[16] Personnel Profile: Lt. Benjamin Doolittle Goodier,” POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
[17] “The Japanese ‘Hell Ships’ of World War II,” Naval History and Heritage Command, December 11, 2019, https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/oryoku-maru.html#13.
[18] “Personnel Profile: Lt. Benjamin Doolittle Goodier,” POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
[19] “Civil Engineer Corps Prisoners of War (WWII),” U.S. Navy Seabee Museum, February 26, 2020, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/seabee/explore/civil-engineer-corps-history/civil-engineer-corps-prisoners-of-war--world-war-ii-.html.
[20] “Personnel Profile: Lt. Benjamin Doolittle Goodier,” POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
[21] “Goodier, Benjamin Doolittle,” Colorado Freedom Memorial, November 16, 2018, https://coloradofreedommemorial.com/tellustheirstories/honor-roll-directory/154276/goodier-benjamin-doolittle/.
[22] “Benjamin D. Goodier,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed October 2, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/goodier%3Dbenjamin;
“Benjamin D Goodier (1898-1945),” Find a Grave, accessed October 2, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/190659112/benjamin-d-goodier.
[23] Peter R Wygle, “Santo Tomas Raid,” 1st Cavalry Division Association, accessed October 2, 2021, https://1cda.org/history/santo-tomas-raid/;
“City Man’s Kin Due from Manila,” Democrat and Chronicle, (March 30, 1945): 19, newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58123908/30-mar-1945-democrat-chronicle/?xid=865.
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