World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGordon Stifler Seagrave was born in Rangoon, Burma in 1897 to American Baptist missionaries Reverend Albert Ernest Seagrave and Alice Vinton. His first tongue was the Karen language rather than English. Following his parents' footsteps, he also became a missionary. In 1917, he graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, United States. In 1920, he married Marion Grace "Tiny" Morse, with whom he would have four children. In 1921, he graduated with a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Returning to Burma, he practiced medicine near the border with China from 1922 to 1941. In 1941, he joined the US Army Medical Corps at the rank of major. During WW2, he was largely attached to the Chinese New 6th Army, treating the wounded in northern Burma and in India. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1943. After the war, he served as the chief medical officer for the Shan States of Burma with the British military government until 1946. He was arrested by agents of the now-independent Burma for assisting anti-government Karen rebels. Found guilty, he was sentenced to six years of hard labor in Jan 1951. He suffered from dysentery and malaria while in captivity. In Nov 1951, the Burmese Supreme Court overturned the decision, declaring him not guilty. He passed away at the hospital in Namhkam in northern Burma in 1965.

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Gordon Seagrave Timeline

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