Editing 31st Infantry Regiment (United States) (section)

==World War II==
On 8 December 1941, Japanese planes attacked U.S. military installations in the Philippines. A 31st Infantry sergeant on detail at [[Camp John Hay (1903–1955)|Camp John Hay]] in [[Baguio]] became the campaign's first fatality. After landing in [[Northern Luzon|northern]] and [[Southern Luzon]], the Japanese pushed rapidly toward Manila, routing hastily formed Philippine Army units that had little training and few heavy weapons. The 31st Infantry covered the withdrawal of American and Philippine forces to the Bataan Peninsula. Unfortunately, the peninsula had not been provisioned with food and medicine and no help could come in from the outside after much of the Pacific fleet was destroyed at [[Pearl Harbor]] and mid-ocean bases at [[Guam]] and [[Wake Island]] were lost. <blockquote>''Despite starvation, disease, no supplies, obsolete weapons, and often inoperative ammunition, the peninsula's defenders fought the Japanese to a standstill for 4 months, upsetting Japan's timetable for Asia's conquest''.</blockquote> When Major General King announced he would surrender the Bataan Defense Force on 9 April 1942, the 31st Infantry buried its colors and the cherished [[U.S. 31st Infantry Regiment#The Shanghai Bowl|Shanghai Bowl]] to keep them out of enemy hands. Some of the 31st's survivors escaped to continue resisting, but most underwent brutal torture and humiliation on the [[Bataan Death March]] and nearly three years of captivity. Twenty-nine of the regiment's men earned the Distinguished Service Cross and one was recommended for the [[Medal of Honor]], but the entire chain of command died in captivity before the medal recommendation could be formally submitted. Roughly half of the 1600 men of the 31st Infantry who surrendered at Bataan perished while prisoners of the Japanese.

Perhaps of note, the Shanghai Bowl was later recovered due to the efforts of Cpt. Earl R. Short (who had buried it) after his release from a POW camp, and Col. Niederpreum. He returned to Corregidor Island under the orders of Major General Marshall in September 1945 to retrieve the bowl from its hidden location. While he was able to pinpoint the area, others had to continue the excavation until it was located in December 1945. The Bowl and Cups were found a yard and a half from where Cpt. Short had remembered them to be. And so, the trophy and symbol of the 31st Regiment was returned to them.<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard B. Meixsel|title=Philippine-American Military History, 1902-1942: An Annotated Bibliography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk6nCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA55|date=16 December 2002|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-0975-1|page=55}}</ref>