Deserting guards at Palawan prison massacred Ernest.

Ernest Julius Novak was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on January 9, 1919, to Fabian and Anna Novak. The Novak family was a large family that also included sons Peter, Jacob, Joseph, Nick, Jerry and Fabian Jr. and daughters Anna, Elizabeth, Pauline and Teresa. Ernest attended grammar school in Oklahoma City before moving to Watsonville with his mother and siblings. His father remained in Oklahoma City. While living in Watsonville, Ernest worked for the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian as a route man and delivered newspapers.

In San Francisco on April 25, 1941, Ernest Novak enlisted in the US Army, requested duty in the Philippine Islands and was assigned to the Coast Artillery branch. In June of that year he left for the Philippines and upon arrival, he joined the 200/515 Coast Artillery detachments serving one of the forts protecting Manila Bay.

During the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manila in December 1941, Ernest Novak was moved to Corregidor and when that fort fell in May 1942, the Japanese took him prisoner. He continued to remain a prisoner of war until December 14, 1944, when he was brutally massacred by Japanese prison guards at Princesa, Palawan, in the Philippine Islands. The Adjutant General Department provided details of that massacre in a September 1945 letter to Novak's mother.

“Private Novak was killed in action December 14 when [he] was "one of a group of 150 members of the US army, navy and marine corps, imprisoned by the Japanese at a camp at Puerto Princesa. This group was attacked without warning by their Japanese guards, who attempted to massacre the prisoners to the last man...Ten of the prisoners succeeded in escaping. These were the only survivors. It has now been officially established by reports received in the war department that all the remaining prisoners, including your son, perished as a result of this ruthless attack.”

The body of Private Ernest Julius Novak was initially buried in the Philippines; however, his remains were exhumed and reinterred in the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 14, 1952.

(NARA2; USDVA; WRP June 17, 1943 1:1, September 1, 1945 1:2; Bataan Corregidor Mem Foundation of NM, A Brief History of the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery http://www.angelfire.com/nm/ bcmfofnm/history/briefhistory.html, [16 September 2008])