REMEMBERING FATHER TOM

Father Thomas Scecina Memorial High School was named after the only Indianapolis archdiocesan priest to be killed in World War II. Born in Vicksburg, Indiana, on September 16, 1910, Fr. Tom was raised by Austrian-Hungarian immigrants in Linton. He attended St. Peter’s Elementary School in the parish where he was baptized. He went to St. Meinrad Seminary, graduated in 1935 and was ordained on June 11. He celebrated his first Mass at St. Peter’s on June 16, and then was assigned in August to Holy Trinity parish in Indianapolis.

In 1938 Fr. Tom began a stay at St. John’s in Indianapolis, where he also taught at the girls’ academy. He enlisted in the Chaplain’s Reserve Corps on October 5, 1939, and was stationed with the 57th Infantry Division at Fort McKinley on Luzon in the Philippine Islands. Fr. Tom served both the men of his unit and the Filipinos in sacramental duties until the fall of the Islands in 1942. He was taken prisoner in April, and on April 9 began his participation in the infamous Bataan Death March. He was a POW of the Japanese government at two camps: O’Donnell and Cabanatuan. Then he volunteered to work a burial and cemetery detail while also ministering to all the prisoners’ spiritual needs.

In fall 1944, the Japanese prepared to transfer all POW’s to the Philippines mainland to work as slave labor, a practice against the Geneva Convention. Fr. Tom boarded one of the first ships to move, the Arisan Maru, and endured two weeks of torture before the ship was unknowingly torpedoed by an American submarine. In the final hours, Fr. Tom heard confessions, gave absolution, and comforted his men as he became one of 1,792 men to die in the worst maritime disaster in United States History.

For his heroism, Fr. Tom posthumously received the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star. In addition to these many other honors, Father Thomas Scecina Memorial High School opened in his memory in 1953.