Edwin Virgil Kerr was born on June 27, 1897, in Metropolis, Massac County, Illinois. He was the son of Seward Bartlett Kerr and Eva E. Gowan Kerr. He was married to Rosalina Espinosa Kerr. He graduated from West Point in 1919 and was commissioned into the Field Artillery. Over the 1920s and 1930s, he held a succession of posts, including commands with the 17th and 13th Field Artillery Regiments, service at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, and teaching military science at the University of Missouri and Fishburne Military School. Promoted to Captain in 1935 and later to Lieutenant Colonel, he served as adjutant and battalion commander in the 7th Field Artillery before being deployed to the Philippines in 1941 with the 88th Field Artillery Regiment (Philippine Scouts).

When war broke out, his unit fought in the defense of Bataan, later becoming part of II Corps, Luzon. Captured by the Japanese, Kerr was imprisoned at PW Camp #2, Davao, Mindanao. He eventually boarded the Oryoku Maru, a “hell ship,” on December 13, 1944. Surviving its bombing, he was transferred onto the Enoura Maru and finally the Brazil Maru, where he died of acute colitis on January 27, 1945, in transit to Japan. His body was thrown into the sea, and his remains were never recovered.

Kerr's name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines. He also has a cenotaph in the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, USA.

Source of information: dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil, weremember.abmc.gov