James O’Brien attended Saint Joseph’s Parochial School in Alameda, California, and Saint Joseph’s College in Mountain View. Beginning in 1932, he studied for six years at Saint Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. In 1938, he was ordained a Catholic Priest at Saint Mary’s Cathedral for the San Francisco Diocese. He served as assistant pastor of Five Wounds Parish in San Jose from 1938 to 1940. Small of stature, he was initially rejected for military service by the Navy, but was finally accepted by the Army and commissioned in the Army Chaplains Corps. He was assigned as assistant base chaplain at Nichols Field in the Philippine Islands, in 1941, and subsequently became an assistant regimental chaplain for the Provisional Air Corps on Bataan. He was captured after the fall of Bataan, and held as a Prisoner of War of the Japanese. In 1944 he was among a group of prisoners being sent to Japan on the “Hell Ship” Arisan Maru, which was sunk by American submarines on October 24, 1944, and lost at sea.
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Awards Received
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Silver Star
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Silver Star
Service:
United States ArmyRank:
First Lieutenant (Chaplain’s Corps)Batallion:
192d Tank BattalionRegiment:
Provisional Tank GroupAction Date:
October 24, 1944
(Citation Needed) – SYNOPSIS: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to First Lieutenant (Chaplain’s Corps) James Walter O’Brien (ASN: 0-406259), United States Army, for gallantry in action against the enemy while serving as Prisoner of War of the Japanese, on 24 October 1944. There, when not joining in the back-breaking labor of the camp work details, he continued to hear confessions and say Mass. He was among the 1,800 prisoners who sailed from Manila for Japan aboard the Arisan Maru. On October 24, 1944, the un-marked ship was sunk by American submarines in the China Sea. Eight men survived the open-sea disaster by clinging for days to floating debris. One of the eight recalled that Chaplain O’Brien prayed with and granted absolution to the Catholic men until the ship was completely submerged. The gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty demonstrated by Chaplain O’Brien, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.