Albert Brown ( American veteran ) Albert " Doc " Brown ( October 26 , 1905 – August 14 , 2011 ) was an American former dentist , veteran of World War II and prisoner of war . Brown was the oldest survivor of the Bataan Death March at the time of his death in 2011 . Biography . Early life . Brown was born on October 26 , 1905 , in North Platte , Nebraska to parents , Albert and Ida Fonda Brown . His mother was the aunt of actor Henry Fonda . His father , Albert , was a railroad engineer . Brown was also the godson of Buffalo Bill . Brown was raised in Council Bluffs , Iowa , following the death of his father , who worked as a railroad engineer , in a locomotive engine explosion . He joined the R . O . T . C . while in high school . Brown received a bachelor ' s degree in dentistry from Creighton University in Omaha , Nebraska , in 1927 . World War II . Brown was drafted into active duty in the military in 1937 . He left his wife , Helen , children and dental practice behind . Brown and thousands of American and Filipino troops were captured following the Japanese invasion of the Philippines . He survived the Bataan Death March , in which the Japanese forced 78 , 000 Allied prisoners of war to march 65 miles from Bataan to a POW camp without food , water or medical attention . An estimated 11 , 000 prisoners died during the march , including those who were killed when they fell in the jungle . Brown recorded the events he witnessed in secret using a small writing tablet and pencil hidden inside his canvas bag ' s lining . He witnessed the killing of Filipinos who had attempted to throw fruit to the prisoners in the march . Following the Bataan Death March , Brown endured a three - year imprisonment in a Japanese POW camp from 1942 until he was liberated in the middle of September 1945 . He ate nothing but rice while in the camp . Brown became afflicted with more than twelve diseases while in the camp , including dengue fever , malaria and dysentery . He also suffered a broken neck and back . He was released from the camp when he was 40 years old . He was nearly blind from maltreatment and had lost more than eighty pounds , then weighing less than one hundred pounds . A doctor told Brown that he would not live to be 50 years old due to the extent of his injuries . However , he lived to be 105 years old . Post - war years . Brown moved to Los Angeles , California , after World War II . He was unable to return to dentistry or reopen his practice due to the injuries he sustained in the march and the POW camp . Instead , Brown returned to college and became involved in rental properties , which he purchased and became a landlord . He rented houses and other properties to some of Hollywood ' s major figures of the time , including Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine . He developed personal friendships with Roy Rogers and John Wayne . He even read for some screen test s while dabbling in acting . He later moved from California to southern Illinois in 1998 , settling in the town of Pinckneyville to live with his daughter . He did not openly discuss his experience on the Bataan Death March until the 1990s , approximately fifteen to twenty years before his death . In 2007 , Brown was recognized as the oldest living survivor of the Bataan Death March by the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor , a veterans organization . The American War Library , which is located in Gardena , California , also named Brown as the oldest living World War II veteran at the time , though that has never been confirmed by other organizations . His experience during the march and war was chronicled in the 2011 book , " Heroes of the Pacific War : One Man ’ s True Story " , by Ken Moore . Albert Brown died in a nursing home in Nashville , Illinois , on August 14 , 2011 , at the age of 105 . His wife of fifty - eight years , Helen Johnson Brown , died in 1985 . Brown was survived by his daughter , Peggy Doughty ; son , Graham ; twelve grandchildren , twenty - eight great grandchildren and nineteen great - great grandchildren .