THE DYESS STORY

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THE DYESS STORY

THE

The Eye-Witness Account of the
DEATH MARCH FROM BATAAN

and the Narrative of Experiences

in Japanese Prison Camps and

of Eventual Escape

BY
LT. COL. WM. E.JDYESS

Edited, with a biographical introduction, by
CHARLES LEAVELLE

G-P-PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK

Qppyright, 1944* *>7

STEVICK. E> YESS

book, or parts thereof, must not be re-
produced in any form without permission.

*

This complete copyright edition is produced in full
compliance with the Government's regulations for
conserving paper and other essential materials.

Manufactured in

the United States of America

Van Rees Press, New York

TO THE AMERICAN HEROES OF THE PHILIPPINES-
LIVING AND DEAD AND THEIR GALLANT FILIPINO
COMRADES, THIS BOOK IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.

This book is based upon a series of stories first published
by The Chicago Tribune, whose kindness in permitting their
reproduction here is gratefully acknowledged, and special
thanks should be given to Melvin H. Wagner of the Tribune,
who drew the maps, and to Swain Scalf, also of the Tribune,
who took, both at White Sulphur Springs and Champaign,
the photographs here reproduced which are not otherwise
credited.

ILLUSTKAT1UJN3

The illustrations will be found between pages 96 and 97.

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess

Officers' Mess at Bataan Field

Dyess Celebrates Raid

Captain Dyess after His Bombing Raid in Subie Bay

A Shelter near Bataan Field

Major General King and His Staff after Capture by the

Japanese

Prisoners Being Disarmed by the Japanese at Mariveles
Articles Carried on Death March
Dyess Trophy: A Moro Kris
The Dyess Diary
Captain Samuel C. Grashio
A Message from the Prison Camp
General MacArthur Greets Escaped Heroes
Dyess's Cablegram Announcing Escape
The Prison Food
How He Downed a Jap Fighter
Col. Dyess in Hospital
Dyess Relates His Experiences
In the Summer of 1943
At White Sulphur Springs

7

INTRODUCTION

IN THE HUMID HEAT of an Australian field hospital on a day
in July, 1942, the late Byron Darnton of The New York
Times was talking to Lieutenant (now Major) Ben S. Brown,
fighter pilot of the United States Army Air Forces. Brown,
awaiting a minor operation, had been one of the last Amer-
ican officers to be evacuated from the Philippines before the
fall of Bataan.

"I didn't want you to come to see me so I could talk about
myself," Brown was saying. "I want to tell you about Captain
Ed Dyess. I don't think his story has been told back in the
United States and I think it ought to be. Ed is a Texas boy,
over six feet tall. He was twenty-six years old this month.
Boy! Was he the ideal officer!"

Brown talked on and Darnton took notes, though the story
already was more than three months old. The dispatch he
sent was printed throughout the country, then it was clipped
out and buried with a million other items in newspaper
morgues. Darnton was killed three months later in an air-
plane crash somewhere in New Guinea.

But the stage had been set for one of the most dramatic
news breaks of the war. Nineteen months later, in January,
1944, the Dyess story burst upon a shocked nation. It was
acclaimed by statesmen, clergymen, editors, and the Amer-
ican people as an historic document which would figure de-
cisively in the shaping of peace terms for Japan; one whose
full significance could be measured by time alone.

The story of Dyess and his companions and the atrocities
they had witnessed had been withheld for months by the
government in the fear that its publication would result in
death to thousands of American prisoners still in Japanese
hands. When all hope of aiding the prisoners passed, the story
was released.

The swift recognition of the Dyess story's importance is
due largely to Byron Darnton's dispatch, which might never
have been written, except that World War II has been the
most fully reported conflict in history. The army of news-
paper and magazine correspondents and photographers is the
greatest ever assigned to a war. Their intensive coverage of
even the most remote sectors on the battlefronts of the world
has unearthed and preserved thrilling and historical chapters
by the thousands. It was this new standard of war reporting
that took Darnton to the isolated Australian hospital where
he met Ben Brown.

It was a year later, in July, 1943, that a brief telegraphic
dispatch chronicled the safety and good health of one Major
William Edwin Dyess, of the army air forces, who for many
months had been a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese army.
In some newspapers the dispatch appeared as written. In
many others it did not appear. Certain-editors sent the dis-
patch to their morgues with the scribbled query: "Who is
he?" And when the Darnton clipping was laid before them,
the Dyess item became big news.

"Ed was the commanding officer of the field squadron,"
the Times correspondent had written in the words of Lieu-
tenant Brown. "Ed had a lot of work to do, but nine times
put of ten when a dangerous mission came up he would take
it. There wasn't anything the pilots wouldn't do for Ed
because he never asked them to do what he wouldn't do.

"We got word one day that three i 2 ,ooo-ton tankers and
transports, a cruiser, and some destroyers had pulled into
Subic bay on the western coast of Luzon island. Ed took a
P-40, hung a soo-pound bomb onto its belly, and started out
to bomb and strafe the Japs. He made three trips. I was his
relief pilot, but he wouldn't let me fly. He did it all himself.
He missed the ships with this bomb but hit a small island
on which supplies were stored and blew them up. By straf-
ing, he blew up one i 2 ,ooo-ton ship, beached another, and
sank two loo-ton launches. And he strafed troops and docks
and caused a lot of casualties.

"Next dav the Japanese radio reported that Subic bay had

10

been attacked by a big force of four-engined bombers and
forty or fifty fighters. I tell you that to give you an idea of
the sort of guy Ed is.

"The time came when we had to get out of Bataan. We had
only a few planes left and the jig was up. Ed gave orders for
all of his pilots to leave. But he refused to go himself.

"There were 175 men and 25. officers who could not pos-
sibly get away because there was nothing to take them away
in. And Ed wouldn't go unless they could. I tried to get him
to, but he wouldn't."

Dyess's importance as an American hero as established by
Darnton's dispatch was responsible for a concerted rush to
obtain the full story. And when, in the course of their efforts,
newspapers and magazine editors learned something of
Dyess's appalling experiences in Japanese prison camps, the
struggle for the right to publish diem grew epochal.

By September 5, 1943, when Dyess was recuperating in
the army's Ashford General Hospital at White Sulphur
Springs, West Virginia, the stiffening competition had nar-
rowed the field of bidders to a national weekly magazine and
The Chicago Tribune, representing 100 associated newspa-
pers. The Tribune was successful, not because it outbid the
magazine, but because it could promise Dyess, now a lieu-
tenant colonel, a daily circulation of ten million and an esti-
mated daily audience of forty million against the magazine's
circulation of about three million weekly and estimated
reader audience of twelve million. Colonel Dyess's consuming^
determination to expose to the world Japan's barbaric trea^e
ment of American war prisoners decided him in favor of td-
daily newspapers and their vastly larger audience. le

The Tribune obtained the War Department's penniss? :
for Colonel Dyess to tell his story. Only three days later 'f to
retary of War withdrew the permission and forbade DJiile
to divulge any further details of his prison camp experier^ear
or escape from the Japs. The Tribune had the story, butxve
faced a four-and-a-half-month battle for its release. Offidbr-
reluctance, indecision, resistance, and actual hostility in l|bve
places all contributed to lengthening the fight. In the f the

ii

the story came out and was given to the American people by
their newspapers.

There was good reason in July, 1943, why editors might
have been slow to recognize the Dyess epic for what it was.
In the first place, Dyess himself was practically unknown.
Many editors, as has been seen, lacked the background ma-
terial that would have established him as a hero of the first
rank. At that time, too, the Swedish repatriation liner
Gripsholm already had made one trip, returning American
civilian internees who had flooded the magazines and news-
papers with stories of Jap callousness and neglect. Japanese
prison stories were on their way to being old stuff. But to
those who read it, the Darnton dispatch carried a mighty
message: here was a man who had lived behind the curtain
of military secrecy the Japanese had drawn upon Bataan after
the surrender and who could tell what actually had happened
to the battered remnants of MacArthur's armies after the
Stars and Stripes had been hauled down.

It was on one of those perfect fall mornings the West Vir-
ginia mountain country knows so well that I first met Ed
Dyess. He was pale and lean to the point of spareness. His
blond hair was thinning on top, though he was only twenty-
seven years old. This, I was to learn, came of the barbaric
Japanese sun cure to which the prisoners of Bataan had been
subjected.

Heroes seldom appear heroic in hospital beds, but even so
* was difficult of belief that this smiling young fellow had
s ;ken all the tortures the Japs could inflict upon him for
pearly a year and was the holder of the Distinguished Service
t oss with oak leaf cluster, the Legion of Merit, the Silver
refe' and the g 1011 ? citation award with two oak leaf clusters.

there was a certain ruggedness of feature, a cold blue of
on e 7 e > and an unmistakable authority in the voice, despite
i n , easy, Texas xlrawl.

sagd Dyess was slow of speech, but every word counted, it
an&loped as our conversations got under way. His talk was

"}red by pungent colloquialisms, richly descriptive. There

12

was an undercurrent of the refreshing humor that seems to
be the birthright of Westerners and Southwesterners.

This young Texan seemed to be of the same breed as those
slow-spoken and hard-riding Southern lads who left their
homes in 1861 to follow Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bed-
ford Forrest. And, it turned out, he was descended on both
sides of the family from men who had worn the gray of the
Confederacy. Somehow, this raised an old question that has
produced a thousand answers; what goes into the making
of a hero?

On America's far-flung fighting fronts there are thousands
of men who, like Colonel Dyess, measure up as the ideal
American officer and fighting man. What factors go into
building the self-reliant spirit, the strength of character, and
the daring that make certain men outstanding, even in a
fighting force conceded to be the world's best?

Is it their upbringing? Their background of life in a free
America? Or is it heredity? Most authorities regard military
training as a lesser factor. Military training can bring out
qualities that in some men have lain dormant, but it cannot
instill a quality that is not there. A study of Ed Dyess's life
and background indicates that all the factors suggested here
played a part in making him the hero he became.

To begin with heredity, the first Dyess in America was
John, a native of Wales, who settled in Georgia as a member
of the Oglethorpe colony in 1733. He was Edwin's great-
great-grandfather. The flier's great-grandfather, also a John
Dyess, was a Georgia planter and helped drive the Seminole
Indians into the Everglades. John George Dyess, Ed's grand-
father, also was a native of Georgia and a soldier in the
Confederate army in the War between the States.

Colonel Dyess was not the first member of the family to
be a prisoner of war. The grandfather was captured while
scouting the Union lines in Pennsylvania and was held near
Chicago. He refused an offer of parole because it would have
compelled him to swear not to bear arms again. Shortly after-
ward Grandfather Dyess put a gunpowder bomb in the stove
that wanned the officers' barracks. The blast shattered the

13

stove and blew out all the windows. Because no one was in-
jured the Southerner's only punishment was solitary con-
finement.

This suited his purpose admirably. A few days later he
landed a haymaker on the chin of his single guard, took the
guard's rifle, and escaped to the South, where he rejoined the
army of General Joseph E. Johnston and fought until the end
of the war.

Judge Dyess, the colonel's father, has by his own state-
menttwo of the most important qualifications for being
President of the United States: he was born in a log cabin
and went west in an ox-drawn covered wagon. This journey
was from his birthplace near Alexandria, Louisiana, to west
Texas.

Judge Dyess , was graduated from old Burleson college,
Greenville, Texas, and attended Baylor university and John
Tarleton college, preparing himself for teaching. His first
job was one no one else wanted. The high spirited "scholars"
of Hunt county had run two teachers out of the county. The
board was seeking a high spirited teacher and offered sixty-
five dollars a month instead of the usual forty dollars.

Dyess, the new teacher, moved in, took some of the starch
out of the most troublesome scholars, and finished the term
without incident. When he accepted a better job in Shackel-
ford county he met and .married Miss Hallie Graham, a
native of Oglesby, Texas. In 1914 he was elected county tax
assessor, serving two terms. He was elected county judge in
1918 and held the post ten years. Since 1928 he has been
district school tax assessor-collector.

Mrs. Dyess's father was Emmett Graham of Missouri, who
moved to Texas during the Civil War. Her grandfather,
Noah, a Confederate soldier, died in battle.

Albany, the community in which Colonel Dyess grew up, is
a typical west Texas county seat and cow town. Farmers of
the western and southern regions of Shackelford county trade
in Stamford and Abilene, but the ranchers and punchers con-
gregate in Albany. These men with their big hats and jingling
spurs are as much a part of the town as the three-story stone

14

courthouse which stands in its windswept square, amid mes*
quite and cedar trees.

On the Main street side is a bronze tablet, surmounted by
a steer's head, erected "In Memory of the Texas Cattle Trail
to Dodge City and Other Northern Points: 1875-1890." Main
street, which curves in from the east and swings southward
to cross the railroad, was part of the trail.

Near-by is another tablet, at the base of a miniature oil
derrick. This slab is inscribed, "Commemorating the first
producing oil well in west Texas; completed in 1919."

It was in this town that Edwin grew up. When he still was
a youngster he joined the Boy Scouts. He could not, how-
ever, attend the weekly meetings and work. But he could
always take time off from his work to attend the carnival
which had a long stay in Albany. Once when Ed brought
home a report card that showed him low in deportment and
in grades Judge Dyess took him into the front bedroom. After
the judge had had his say the son said:

"It's all right, Dad. I will not need that when I grow up.
I'm going to be in the carnival."

Meanwhile the youngster delivered and sold a Fort Worth
newspaper. Later he worked for a filling station for eighty
dollars a month, but he put the money into the First Na-
tional Bank and received his spending money from home as
usual.

It was at this time also that Edwin began slipping away to
take a few lessons from the barnstorming pilots who contin-
ued to visit Albany. It was while working on the Humble
pipeline that he met a young fellow who had just been
"washed out'* at Randolph field.

Edwin had attended John Tarleton college, at Stephen-
ville, Texas, with the idea of becoming a lawyer. During his
summer vacation he had gone to enroll at the University of
Texas. But when he met the washout from Randolph field he
determined to become a flier.

Judge Dyess always had wanted Edwin to be an aviator;
both had been thrilled by Lindbergh's historic New York-
Paris flight -in 1927. And the judge and his son had taken

15

their first airplane ride together in a barnstormer's rickety
plane in 1920, when Ed was four years old. So, when the
son went home and announced to his father in the front
bedroom that he wanted an appointment to the West Point
of the air the judge said:

"Son, if she can be got we'll get her."

Ed got the appointment. He arrived at San Antonio and
reported at the airfield. And here is where he began to
accumulate the philosophy that carried him through the Jap-
anese prison camps. In his early days at Randolph one of his
best friends was killed in an accident.

Ed saw the body. He refused to believe his pal was dead.
He preferred to think of him as having been transferred to
another airfield. Later, witnessing the fall of Bataan, Ed
Dyess projected his philosophy. He thought of the Philip-
pines as having been only temporarily lost. He was sure they
would be regained as they will be and took comfort.

Ed was graduated from Kelly field, which is near Ran-
dolph. With his reserve commission as second lieutenant he
was transferred to Barksdale field, Shreveport, Louisiana, as a
member of the soth Pursuit Group. When he was transferred
a second time, to Hamilton field, California, he was promoted
to first lieutenant and placed in command of the sist Pursuit
Squadron.

It was during his stay in California that Ed met and be-
came engaged to Marajen Stevick, co-publisher with her
mother of the Champaign (111.) News-Gazette. They were
married shortly before he sailed with his squadron for
Manila.

Ed's last visit home, before he went overseas, was in May,
1941. The next the folks heard of Ed he was a prisoner of
war.

Shortly after this it was announced at Washington that
nothing could be done for the American fighting men who
had been captured. Judge Dyess and his fellow townsmen
refused to take this sitting down. "There's one sure way we
can go in there and get Ed," the judge told a group of Albany

16

men who had pledged themselves to back him in anything he
wanted to do. "If we can get us a submarine and somebody to
run it, we can save Ed and his friends! I'm going to write
General MacArthur."

And he did! The general replied that the plan was a good
one, but that there were many difficulties. Judge Dyess made
one more effort. He tried to ship out from one of the Texas
ports in the hope that some workable plan might be devel-
oped if he could but reach the Pacific theater of war. His age,
however, blocked this venture. Judge Dyess's determination
in the face of a hopeless odds is mentioned as a parallel to his
son's refusal to leave his junior officers and men who were to
stay behind facing overwhelming tfdds on Bataan.

My efforts to extract from Ed Dyess a more detailed ac-
count of this decision met with little success. The point was
one of the two snags encountered in the conversations at
White Sulphur Springs. The other, on which he yielded after
prolonged questioning, involved the detailed story of the
Subic bay raid, described briefly to Darnton by Ben Brown.
Dyess's objection was that a more complete account would
require too much first person narrative. Later, after glancing
through a rough draft of the Subic bay chapter, Ed said,
"Tst, tst!" and shook his head. He added: "You sure must
have a strong T key on this typewriter. It's^a wonder to me it
didn't break down somewhere along here."

But he was not reluctant to describe in full his personal
experiences on the Death March and in the prison camps.
This was because the sufferings he endured were typical of
those visited upon thousands of other Americans. They were
definitely a part of the story he wanted the world to know.

"If you triple my troubles and multiply the result by sev-
eral thousand, youll get a rough idea of what went on,"
Dyess remarked at the end of the story. "And when you do
that, you must bear in mind that I got out alive. Thousands
of the boys didn't and won't."

When Ed Dyess was discharged from the hospital in late
September, he was entering his last three months of life.
And he was under restrictions which, to many another man,

17

might have been unbearable. He could give the press no news
of himself news thousands of Americans were waiting to
hear. It was known in many army posts that Colonel Dyess
had returned to the United States, yet he had to adopt a
vague and formal style in replying to the hundreds of letters
that reached him.

When Colonel and Mrs. Dyess went to visit her mother in
Champaign, Illinois, they slipped into town and during the
daylight hours remained inside the big house on Armory
street. Their presence was not chronicled by Mrs. Dyess's
Champaign News-Gazette. Though he was a national hero,
Colonel Dyess remained in effect a military secret. Yet it was
not this that irked him most. His great concern was his story;
his abiding hope was that it be told in time to help those
American fighting men still in the Japanese prisons and to
arouse the people to a more determined prosecution of the
war in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, the Dyess story had been written and the
agreed price paid over. Colonel Dyess deposited it in a
special account and never drew upon it. "If the story isn't
released, I don't want anything," he said. "Money isn't im-
portant. It's the story that matters."

Colonel Dyess felt that the information he had brought
back was the property of the people, and he accepted payment
for it only that he might make substantial contributions to
Army Air Force relief funds and the American Red Cross
and assist certain of the men who were with him on Bataan,
in the prison camps, and during the escape from the Japanese.

In furtherance of Colonel Dyess's hope that his contribu-
tions be sizable, the Tribune and associated newspapers pub-
lished the Dyess story without financial profit to themselves.
The Tribune negotiated the sale of the book in order that
the fund might not be reduced by the payment of fees to an
agent. In harmony with this policy, G. P. Putnam's Sons, to
whom the manuscript was awarded, paid top royalties for the
right of publication. The Colonel's wishes are being carried
out by Mrs, Dyess, to whom he confided them in detail.

As the Champaign visit drew to a close, Colonel Dvess was

18

notified that upon expiration of his leave he would report for
duty with the 4th Air Force, on the west coast. En route
there he paid a visit long delayed to his home town of Al-
bany. The entire community turned out two thousand strong.
The news spread across the range country, and there was an
inrush of booted and sombreroed ranch owners and their
punchers. When the press wires carried a story that Colonel
Dyess would address a gathering of home folk the night fol-
lowing his return, a perturbed press relations officer tele-
phoned from Washington. But the celebration went on as
planned. Ed Dyess disclosed nothing of his secret even to his
parents. He proposed that the welcome be dedicated to those
Americans still in Jap prisons. The throng stood to applaud
many minutes as Ed took his place behind the microphone,
alternately gulping and smiling in the glare of floodlights.
Then he said he felt as though he had swallowed a ten-gallon
hat that would go down just so far and no farther. He paid
tribute to the Hereford beefsteaks of Shackelford county,
contrasting them with the carabao meat of Bataan. "You put
a rock in the cooking pot with the meat and when the rock
melts the carabao is tender." He said that Tojo's boys were
on the run and that buying war bonds would keep 'em run-
ning. Then he shook hands with everybody and that ended
the homecoming.

A few weeks later, Colonel Dyess returned to duty, flying
a P-gS Lightning a two-engined fighter whose dazzling speed
always had fascinated him.

Until the end he insisted that he be kept informed of each
step in the campaign to win release of his story. He probably
was the only one who never seemed discouraged by the re-
peated turndowns. His premise was a simple one: that his
disclosures were too momentous, his story too big to remain
long suppressed. He foresaw grave repercussions for the sup
pressors and was convinced that in time they too would see
the light.

Colonel Dyess did not live to see the proof of his premise.
It was five weeks to the day after he had crashed to his death
in Burbank, California, that tall type in a hundred news-

19

papers from coast to coast heralded the start of "DYESS'S
OWN STORY!'* Nor did he live to learn that he had been rec-
ommended for the highest military award his government can
bestow: the Congressional Medal of Honor. This was an-
nounced to Judge and Mrs. Dyess and the townsfolk by
Brigadier General Russell E. Randall, commanding the 4th
Air Force, as they stood in Albany's windswept cemetery on
December 27. Mrs. Dyess had gently insisted that her son be
laid to rest near his boyhood home, rather than in Arlington
National Cemetery as had been proposed.

That the Dyess story stirred the nation more deeply prob-
ably than any event since Pearl Harbor, there can be little
doubt. This was evidenced by tremendous reader response
recorded in the hundred newspapers that gave it to the
people and by the concerted demand upon Congress to
strengthen our forces in the Pacific. On January 27, the day
a joint army-navy statement gave a generalization of the dis-
closures to come, Secretary of State Hull addressed a blunt
warning to Japan. Those responsible for the crimes against
American prisoners of war will be made to pay in full, he
said. Secretary Hull mentioned specific crimes and named the
victims, quoting from Colonel Dyess 's official report of what
he had seen. Without question, the story he was spared to tell
will be the means of avenging his comrades who were not
spared and, equally important, will speed the day of vent
geance.

CHARLES LEAVELLE.

THE DYESS STORY

CHAPTER ONE

FROM THE AFTER DECK of our transport I looked back through
the Golden Gate to San Francisco's terraces of twinkling
lights. I wondered what changes might come to the mellow
old city and to me before I should see it again.

It was the night of November i, 1941. We were outward
bound for Manila and the Philippines. With me were thir-
teen pilots and a ground crew of the sist Pursuit Squadron,
United States Army Air Forces, of which I was captain and
commander. The rest of our fellows were waiting near San
Francisco, expecting sailing orders within a few days. Also on
board were pilots and technicians of the 34th Pursuit Squad-
ron, commanded by First Lieutenant Samuel Maratt.

Both groups had been shipped out in a hurry, without
planes. New ships were to be ready for us at Nichols field,
our destination. But as the transport slid through the starlit
night, I wondered if there would be a Nichols field when
we got there.

I should explain that for weeks we all had been convinced
that war with Japan was imminent. Nor was our conviction
shaken by the quiet ribbings handed us by our civilian
friends.

We were to remember their laughter in the weeks that
followed. It reflected the attitude of the nation. It was ex-
planation, in a measure, of America's bewilderment and
shock at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yet we knew nothing
the civilians didn't know. The newspapers had publicized

each move in that tragic chess game; the mounting tension
between Washington and Tokio and the strained diplomatic
correspondence between the two capitals, each note sharper
and more ominous than the last. This had gone so far by
November i that as we embarked we were impatient of even
the slightest delay, lest hostilities start before our arrival at
our Philippines station. We had no doubt that Manila would
be Japan's first target.

The beauties of our Pacific voyage were, I am afraid, lost
upon us. I have only a vague memory of those sun-drenched
days and moonlit nights. But I remember clearly that we
devoured every scrap of news that reached us by radio and
that we chafed and made sharp comments each day when the
ship's run for the preceding twenty-four hours was an-
nounced.

We disembarked at Manila on November 20 and were re-
lieved to learn there still was no war. At Nichols field we
were gratified to find preparations proceeding at a furious
pace. It was obvious at once that we were facing a colossal
task, and with each day's developments the international situ-
ation grew more explosive.

On November 26 the United States warned Japan to get out
of the Axis and out of China and to cease all aggression.
Tokio responded bluntly that it could not comply.

A few days later, Japan massed troops on Thailand's bor-
ders in the face of warnings by President Roosevelt. The
government shut oft shipment of American oil to Japan and
froze Japanese credits in the United States. Simultaneously,
we began speeding troops and material to the Philippines.
How anything short of war could have been expected I do
not know.

The story I am about to tell covers the twenty months be-
tween our arrival in the Philippines and my return to the
United States. In the telling I hope I can picture with lasting
realism the selfless courage of those thousands those few
thousands of American and Filipino fighting men who held
the Philippines against the fury of the Japanese for four long
months.

I want to picture in stark detail the barbaric cruelties in-
flicted upon the survivors in a succession of Japanese prison
camps; the horrors of hunger and thirst, of sickness and
neglect, and of a daily existence in which the sight and stench
of death were ever present.

But even more terrible than the prison camp sufferings was
the barbaric Death March from Bataan, an 85-mile trek from
Mariveles, Bataan province, to San Fernando, Pampanga,
under the merciless tropical sun. It began on April 10, 1942,
the day after our surrender. The wanton murder, by be-
headal, of an American army captain as the march was
getting under way symbolized the horrors that were to come.

In the days that followed I saw the Japs plunge bayonets
into malaria-stricken American and Filipino soldiers who
were struggling to keep their feet as they were herded down
the dusty roads that led to hell. I saw an American colonel
flogged until his face was unrecognizable.

I saw laughing and yelling Jap soldiers lean from speeding
trucks to smash their rifle butts against the heads of the strag-
gling prisoners.

I saw Jap soldiers roll unconscious American and Filipino
prisoners of war into the path of the Japanese army trucks
which ran over them.

I saw and experienced for the first time the infamous Jap-
anese sun cure, which can break a strong man. Thousands of
American and Filipino war prisoners, mostly bareheaded,
were forced at noonday, when the tropical sun was at the
zenith, to sit in its direct rays until the sturdiest of us thought
we must give up and until hundreds of our sick and weakened
comrades did give up to delirium and death.

And it was on this march of death that most of us went
practically without food for six days, others for twelve days,
and all of us without water except for a few sips dipped
from vile carabao wallows.

I am going to describe in detail the daily life, the misery
and torture that characterized the 361 days I existed in three
prison camps and a prison ship; a period of starvation and
horror that took the lives of about 6,000 American and many

25

thousands more Filipino war prisoners out of a total of
50,000 men who started from Bataan. Finally, I will tell how
a few of us escaped.

But what I want you really to understand and to ponder
upon is the truth of what happened to America's fighting men
and their brave Filipino comrades after the Stars and Stripes
had been hauled down on the battlefields of Bataan.

I told my story first to General Douglas MacArthur in his
Southwest Pacific headquarters last summer. When I had
finished he shook my hand and congratulated me on our
escape. Then he added:

"It is a story that should be told to the American people.
But I am afraid, Captain, that the people back home will find
it hard to believe you. I believe you. Make no mistake about
that. I know the Japs."

A few nights later, after a swift passage through the far-
flung Pacific theater of war, I looked again upon the lights of
San Francisco. Even from a height of 5,000 feet it was plain
that changes had come to the old city since that night in
November, 1941. The lights that had twinkled against the
rising background of hills now were shrouded and dimmed,
or had disappeared.

With the deep-throated roar of the bomber's four motors
filling my ears, I wondered drowsily what changes the last
twenty months had wrought in me. As we dropped in for
our landing I concluded that time alone can reveal their full
extent.

Before the week was out I reported to my commanding offi-
cers in the War Department at Washington, D. G. I told my
story. For more than three hours they listened in taut silence.
A its conclusion they said:

"It is one of the most momentous stories of the war. It is
>ne the American people must know. But do you think they '
:an grasp its enormity? Do you think they can credit it?"

I said I didn't know. I remembered all too well that there
lad been times during the Death March from Bataan and in
iie prison camps that I could scarcely credit the testimony of
ny own eyes and ears. I told my superiors our people simply

26

must believe this account of atrocity, unparalleled since the
Indian wars of our Colonial days.

With military thoroughness they set about corroborating
what I had told them. They interrogated my companions and
consulted independent sources. And they were successful; ap-
pallingly so. Here, then, is my story.

My first feeling of being actually at war with Japan came
to me during a dramatic fifteen minutes in group headquar-
ters at Nichols field on December 6, 1941. This was two days
before the Pearl Harbor raid, which for us was on December
8, Far Eastern time.

It was midmorning, and we were summoned to headquar-
ters by the late Brigadier General Harold H. George, then
colonel and our chief air officer. He looked at us in somber
silence as we walked into the long room and sat down on
benches and chairs.

He was not a tall man and the breadth of his shoulders
made him appear shorter. He stood with arms folded and
looked into each of our faces in turn. Then he spoke:

"Men," he said, "you are not a suicide squadron yet, but
you're damned close to it. There will be war with Japan in a
very few days. It may come in a matter of hours."

We sat tensely expectant. From outside the building came
the distant drone of motors on the testing blocks. Within,
there was no sound except our commander's voice.

"The Japs have a minimum of 3,000 planes they can send
down on us from Formosa [600 miles to the north] and from
aircraft carriers," he went on. "They know the way already.
When they come again they will be tossing something."

We had already had a hint of this. For several nights Jap
planes had been flying over Luzon and other islands of the
Philippines group. Our planes actually had gone up to inter-
cept the Japs but had failed because our inadequate air warn-
ing service had not functioned rapidly enough.

Colonel George then gave us his carefully prepared esti-
mate of the number of planes necessary to defend the islands
against such a Jap force. We were shocked.

27

"Yes," he concluded, "you men know how many planes we
can put into the air. Well, that's the job you will be facing
within a very short time/'

PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS

No one doubted the truth and seriousness of the situation
as we walked back to the hangars where we had been working
furiously to get our available planes into fighting shape. On
arrival, my squadron was issued some well-worn P-gss. We

28

flew these until December 4, then turned them over to the
34th and began receiving P-4oEs, which transports were
bringing in from the United States. None of the guns had
been fired. We had to install and boresight them.

In boresighting, the guns are fired and adjusted until the
bullets strike the spot where the sights are centered. We were
handicapped in this because of the acute shortage of .so-cali-
ber ammunition. Only a few rounds were issued for test pur-
poses.

On the day the Japs attacked, our squadron was given four
new P-4oEs and* I really mean new. None of them ever had
been in the air. The gun barrels still were packed with
cosmolene [heavy grease]. The Filipino mechanics assigned
to help us prepare for eventualities were more hindrance
than help. Taking a plane off after one of these lads had
worked on it was sometimes a thrilling experience.

At 2:30 A.M. of December 8 with much work still to be
done we were ordered to stations for the sixth successive
day. None of the eighteen planes waiting on the line had been
in the air more than three hours. We could see their ghostly
outlines through the open fly of the emergency operations
tent where we assembled under the dim glow of a blacked
out gas lantern.

There was little' talk among the youngsters gathered about
me. Many of them were only a few months out of flying
school. Upon them rested a grave responsibility; their role in
the defense of the islands was to be a major one. And they
faced it like veterans.

They knew the zero hour was at hand. It had been two
days sincd Colonel George had called it "a matter of hours."
The telephone rang.

I remember well the exclamations and looks of surprise as
I told them that the Japs had taken the plunge, but that they
had passed us up for the moment and were bombing Pearl
Harbor, thousands of miles to the east. We didn't know then,
of course, about the fleet concentration the Jap bombers had
chosen for a knockout blow.

We waited restlessly in the operations tent, while the sun

29

came up, silhouetting our gleaming new planes. At 10:30 A.M.
the orders came, via the squadron radio: "Tally-ho, Clark
field! " We took off immediately, fifteen planes following me
up. One flight, still working on the new P-4OS, got off five
minutes later.

I radioed air force headquarters that we were climbing to
24,000 feet and heading for Clark, several miles northward.
We were just north of Manila when we were ordered back to
a point midway between Corregidor and Cavite to intercept
Jap bombers. But the air was empty of enemies when we got
there. The Japs had been warned and had ducked back out
to sea, later striking elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the flight that had gotten off late headed for
Clark field and got into the scrap there, shooting down three
Jap dive bombers, but were unable to stop the intensive
bombing that left the field in ruins. We saw them again at
Nichols field that afternoon while our planes were being
serviced. Lieutenant Sam Grashio's plane had a wing hole
you could throw a hat through.

"By God/' said Sam. "They ain't shootin' spitballs, are
they?"

Orders now came for abandonment of Nichols field. It was
too exposed. It was late afternoon when we took off in beau-
tiful flying weather for Clark field, our new base. There were
almost no clouds. Across the blue of Manila bay stood the
mountains, of Bataan, clear and sharp in the brilliant sun-
shine.

At 4,000 feet we could see the towering pillars of smoke
that marked our destination. We were over Clark field after
a few minutes of flight. It was a mess. Oil dumps and hangars
were blazing fiercely. Planes were burning on the ground.
Runways had been bombed so systematically we could use
only the auxiliary landing strip. This was little better than a
Country road.

Each landing stirred up blinding dust clouds. We could go
down only at intervals of several minutes. The sun had set
and the tropical dusk had deepened into darkness when the
last planes landed in the eerie glow cast by the smoldering

30

Airfields Used

by Dyess and His

Squadron in First

Days of War

langars. It was a job to weave the planes in and out among
:he bomb craters.

After a search, we found group headquarters, which had
been moved into the jungle at the edge of the field. We slept

that night on the floor of a dugout, after a dinner of eold
canned beans, blackberry jam, bread, and cold coffee.

We were off at dawn to intercept bombers reported head-
ing our way. Two planes cracked up on the bomb-pocked
field, and Lieutenant Robert D. Clark, of Cleveland, O., was
killed. The bombers never showed up.

We learned that day what it's like to fly for hours at 15,000
feet and above without oxygen. There was none at Clark
field. Without it, that night found me so done in I doubt I
could have seen a Jap even if he had been in the cockpit with
me.

Late the following morning I met my first Jap in the air.
My tracers showed that I raked him from nose to tail. I was
so busy watching two others above me that I never saw what
became of the Jap I hit. But the fight pepped me up.

I landed and went to the temporary mess near our jungle
headquarters to get some lunch. The late Lieutenant (later
Colonel) Boyd D. (Buzz) Wagner and I were in the midst 'of
our meal when we were warned at 12:28 P.M. that Jap bomb-
ers were heading for us and would be overhead at 12:30. This
was about as much warning as we ever got, incidentally.

I dropped my food and ran to the edge of the field just as a
motorcycle dispatch bearer chugged up. I jumped on the
luggage carrier and told him to hightail it for the line. I
didn't see Buzz anywhere and wondered how he would get to
his plane in time. My next meeting with him was a shock to
us both. When we reached the line I jumped off the motor-
cycle and into my ship.

I was halfway through the takeoff run in an opaque dust
cloud before I realized I had left goggles, helmet, and para-
chute behind. But it was too late then. I missed the bomb cra-
ters and got into the air, flying absolutely blind in the pall left
by the other planes.

When I shot out of the dust, into the dazzling sunlight, I
almost jumped out of the cockpit. Right beside me was an-
other P-40, its wing tip almost touching mine. The other
pilot appeared equally startled. Then I saw it was Buzz. He
recognized me at the same time. He laughed like a hyena. I

3*

laughed, too rather shakily, I think then we pulled apart.

The radio now informed us the bombers had chosen the
Manila waterfront instead of Clark field. I headed in that
direction and soon saw them, dropping their eggs along the
already battered shipping centers. I was almost there before
I pressed the trigger to warm up my guns. Nothing hap-
pened. I tried again and was rewarded only by a discouraging
click. I was getting very close now.

I radioed for the 34th Squadron to take off in the P-35S,
then tried the guns a third time. All were useless. This was
beyond understanding. They had worked perfectly during
the morning fight.

There was nothing to do but head for Mother Earth. I
landed in a small auxiliary field north of Manila. There three
American soldiers helped me charge the guns [force cartridges
into the firing chambers] with a screwdriver. But it was too
late. When I got back over Manila the Japs had done their
work and were gone, leaving a rolling smoke cloud along the
waterfront.

During the next two days the Japs began landing opera-
tions at Vigan and Lingayen gulf in northern Luzon and
we were sent to give them a taste of concentrated .5o-caliber
fire. This was in support of General MacArthur's strategy of
harassing the Jap columns which were advancing from the
south and counterattacking while withdrawing his own weary
troops to the north. Our part was to strafe wherever needed.

At Lingayen gulf the 34th Squadron lost its commander.
Lieutenant Maratt, who had run up a nice score against the
Jap landing barges, tackled a big power boat. He came in
low, letting it have everything six .50-caliber machine guns
could deliver. He literally knocked it to pieces. Then, as he
was passing directly above it, the gasoline tanks exploded,
catching his plane in the pillar of flame and wreckage. This
action was our last from Clark field.

I reorganized my squadron and pooled what remained of
the aircraft. My ground crew, left at Nichols field the first
day of the war, was with me again.

We had been ordered to a new field that was being laid

S3

out near Lubao, about fifty air miles northwest of Manila, in
Pampanga province- The Japs were advancing steadily, de-
spite General MacArthur's delaying action, and in the weeks
that followed we gave up field after field, retiring to new ones
farther away.

Lubao field supposedly was completed, but when I went
ahead of the squadron to verify this I found the runway still
under construction. There were no ground installations and
no revetments for the planes. I stayed there, taking charge of
the 300 Filipino laborers and working them in shifts twenty-
four hours a day.

On Christmas eve our twenty-six remaining planes ar-
rived; twenty-five P-4OS and an A-2?, which had been used
both for attack and dive bombing. The first plane to come in
hit a soft spot in the field, bounded into the air in a complete
somersault, and hit on its nose, injuring Lieutenant Tex
Marable.

The 300 Filipinos ran wildly on the field like so many
chickens. They were directly in the path of the other planes
which were just dropping in. It looked as if a mass tragedy
was inevitable. The next I remember, I was running at them,
yelling like a wild Indian and firing my automatic. The bul-
lets were whining just over their heads. Those boys were off
the field and into a cane patch in nothing flat. They didn't
come back for hours.

CHAPTER TWO

CHRISTMAS DINNER OF 1941 was our last feast for many a day.
The evacuation of Manila was under way and it was possible
to send into the city for anything we wanted. We had roast

34

turkey, canned cranberry sauce, and plum pudding, and
plenty o vegetables and coffee. And there were a few drops o
holiday cheer.

But the holiday began and ended with that dinner. The
situation grew in gravity with each moment. General Mac-
Arthur had quit his Manila headquarters on Christmas eve,
leaving orders that declared the Philippine capital an open
city on Christmas day. He now was in the field, fighting to
stem the enemy tide that already was sweeping northward
toward Lubao.

Our biggest job was to camouflage the field. It lay along
the road over which an endless stream of trucks, artillery, and
service units was retiring toward Bataan. Jap dive bombers
and fighter planes blasted the highway all day long. We were
in constant danger of being discovered.

Working along with Filipinos, we divided the 3,5oo-foot
runway into halves. The first half we covered with windrows
of dead cane, which looked from the air as though it had
been cut and left to lie. The other section was left bare, like
a newly planted field. Before a takeoff we scanned the skies
for Japs, then the Filipinos removed the cane. After we had
gone, they replaced it and swept the bare section clear of
landing wheel tracks.

Revetments for the planes were dug into the ground at the
edge of a cane field. When the planes were in, they were cov-
ered by nets of chicken wire into which were stuck stalks of
fresh, green cane. In front of each plane was a row of bamboo
tubes which also held green cane stalks. From the air the
illusion was perfect.

During the construction period we were well guarded by
anti-aircraft crews. It was our hope that if prying Jap planes
should come over they would come singly or in a small group.
Only one ever paid us a visit and it stayed permanently. The
visitation was just after noon of a day when I was supervising
one of the last phases of the cane patch camouflage.

I heard Jap motors and saw a two-engined bomber coming
toward us at 2,000 feet. He would pass directly over the field;
The bomb doors were still open. We learned later the plane

35

had just blasted a bridge two miles away. One of our anti-
aircraft guns opened up just across the highway. A burst par-
tially obscured the Jap for a second, and when he came out
of the smoke I could see daylight between the fuselage and
the port engine. The next instant, flames burst through the
open bomb doors and billowed out behind the plane, which
heeled over and started down.

From where I stood it looked as though he would hit me
right between the eyes. There was no use running because
he was turning and twisting as he fell and might strike any-
where.. When the flaming ship was within a hundred feet of
the ground I started hotfooting it.

The Jap struck in the cane patch with a glorious explosion
that sent flaming gaspjjne in every direction and set fire to
the cane. He had qoine pown among five of our ships, but
none of them got a scratdR. All hands turned out to extinguish
the fire before other Taps could be attracted by the smoke.

The explosion haescattered maps, charts, and papers over
a wide area ancLJ?set the Filipinos to gathering these up. I
told them toJmng me everything they might find; every-
thing, Thejrobeyed to the letter, one of them handing me the
jawboq^and big teeth of a Jap flier;

In addition to the task of caipouflagiiig the field, we flew
reconnaissance and other missfons evei^4day. On December
26, while returning from a mission with Captain Charles
(Bud) Sprague we met a Jap dive bomber on his way home
after an attack on our troops. I gave Bud the high sign and
we started down. Just before I got within range the Jap saw
me and dived. I was well into my dive, however, and soon
came up with him. Just as I did so, the rear gunner put
three holes in my plane. I riddled him before the pilot could
twist away.

Our speed was so great that Bud and I both slid past his
tail. We were just over the treetops now and the Jap could
dive no farther/When he straightened out I got in a long
burst and saw him take fire and go into the woods. I could
see the black smoke plume for a long way on the trip home.

Two days later I met a Jap Zero pilot who was a lot smarter

36

and a lot tougher. I was on a reconnaissance mission in the
Lingayen gulf region, with a lieutenant now a prisoner of
war. He was weaving along on my tail to keep Japs off while
I counted ships, barges, and truck trains, and noted troop
movements.

When the mission was completed I looked back for him,,
but he was not there. A little later I looked again and he
still seemed to be absent. Just then there was a loud boom
and my plane lurched.

"Well, well," I thought. "The boy's got one right under
me."

I banked and looked down. Just below and behind me was
a Zero, jockeying to get in another burst. I pulled over into
a dive as though I was about to spin. The Jap followed me
down, ready to cut loose at the first sign of trickery. I dived
a long distance those P-4OS will really do it and put a safer
distance between us. Then I zoomed, coming out behind and
above him. He cut around and started up at me, head on*
We both opened fire. I could see his tracers passing to the
right at about the height of my head.

He shot out one of my guns and put twenty-seven holes in
the right wing of the P-4O before I centered my fire and took
the top off his motor. As I passed over him he burst into
flames and started down. Several of the boys got their first
Japs during this period.

On December 30 we had some real fun. Flying at 7,000
feet several miles east of Lingayen gulf , I spotted a truck con-
voy, crawling along a hilly road near Baguio. With me was
my companion of two days before.

We dropped a little lower to have a good look at the pro-
cession. Since the Japs also used American-made trucks their
convoys sometimes were hard to identify, but at 5,000 feet
we were able to make out a red bull's-eye atop one of the
trucks. That was all we needed to know.

The Japs saw us, stopped the trucks, and scattered into the
ditches. We dived, each of us opening up with six .5o-caliber
machine guns. We could see great chunks of truck bodies,
motors, and cargo flying in all directions. We had two passes

37

at the seven machines and left three of them enveloped in
flames and the others knocked to pieces.

On New Year's day, 1942, in midmorning we finished work
on our airfield. By midafternoon the onrushing Japanese
advance had made Lubao field front line territory. By evening
we had received orders to abandon it. American infantry
xmits, truck trains, and artillery were streaming past us on
the road, bound for Bataan province where General Mac-
Arthur planned to make a last stand.

The planes were divided between the i^th and g4th Pur-
suit Squadrons, which were sent to Pilar and Orani fields, in
Bataan province, twenty and ten miles southwest of Lubao,
respectively. Each squadron was alloted nine P-4os all we
had left. The remainder of the squadrons, including pilots,
technicians, and ground crews, were ordered deeper into
Bataan to train as a mobile infantry unit.

The two flying groups were hardly settled at their new
fields, however, when they were ordered to move again. Nine
planes were sent to Del Monte field, on the southern island
of Mindanao, and the other nine were ordered to Bataan
field, near Cabcaben, at the southeastern tip of the peninsula.
v Two of the former came to grief. A lad named Wilcox was
killed when his plane hit a mountainside, and another, Joseph
Cole, cracked up when he ran out of gasoline. But the point
is that the air defense of Bataan began with nine planes!

Those of us who trained as infantry were willing, but awk-
ward. For nearly two weeks before we saw real action we
charged up and down mountains and beat the bush for Japs.
We were bivouacked in a canyon in southern Bataan and had
all sorts of terrain near-by for practice.

Our equipment looked as though it might have been picked
up at an ordnance rummage sale. Our weapons included
some navy Marlin machine guns; air corps -5O-caliber ma-
chine guns which we took from old P-4os and equipped with
homemade mounts; two Browning water-cooled machine
guns; six Lewis aircraft .go-caliber machine guns, which we
carried over the shoulder by a leather loop, holding the barrel

38

steady with an asbestos glove, and a few Browning automatic
rifles.

There were some hand grenades and four Bren gun car-
riers. There were only three bayonets, but this was all right

LUZON
ISLAND

Planes Ordered
New Fields from
Lubao

AgJomaBcty' Y MAR1VEU.ES.

RREGIOOR

IQMilesr

Where Japs Landed
and Later Escaped
on Beach Below

because only three of our 220 air force men knew anything
about using them; We were renamed the air force battalion
of the 7 ist division.

Our menu soon became as varied and sldmpy as our arma^
ment. We had been well fixed for food on our arrival in

39

Bataan, but in less than two weeks the quartermaster ordered
all surplus supplies turned in. From then on it was nip and
tuck.

At first we had plenty of white rice. This gave way to red
[unpolished] rice which was succeeded by musty red rice.
Th^re also were some cashew nuts. Hunting parties occa-
sionally brought in deer or wild pigs.

Soon we were shooting everything edible. Before the end,
there was hardly a monkey left alive in the area. We even ate
lizards, though these fleet reptiles were hard to bag. In a very
short time, however, we were to go after game even harder
to bag.

Perhaps the bagging would have been easier if we had
known a little more about the terrain and military tactics.
Sometimes the mistakes we made were beyond the ludicrous.

I recall a day of maneuvers when I was acting as referee.
Our men had been divided into two forces, one to hide in the
jungle and the other to go in and flush them. I was walking
down a jungle trail when I was amazed to hear the whistle
of a bobwhite (quail). There were many things I didn't
know about the Luzon jungle, but I did know there were
no quail out there.

I sat down behind a clump of something and answered the
whistle. There were responses from so many directions it
seemed the brush must be filled with quail. I continued to
whistle. Presently I could see helmeted heads poking around
trees and bushes. In about ten minutes I had whistled up a
full platoon.

Lieutenant James May (who was to give his life at Agoloma
bay) was in command. I told him I could have cleaned out
the whole bunch with a quail gun. He was as mad as a wet
hen.

"I told 'em to whistle," he yelled, "but I didn't tell 'em
to imitate a bunch of blankety-blank bobwhites!"

I should have been pretty stern, but Jim was in such a rage
and the boys looked so aggrieved and foolish that I got to
laughing and let them off with a slightly sarcastic lecture.

40

They really took their work seriously, however. We all felt
we were going to be used soon. With that in prospect we held
night maneuvers. We learned much, but not enough.

It was midnight of January 17 that we were awakened in
our blacked out camp and hurried into waiting trucks. A
seven mile ride took us to the Agoloma bay region, where
the Japs had effected a landing just after dark. They now
were in the jungle and, as we later learned, were preparing to
advance until dawn.

Our green troops made so much noise with their yelling,
shooting, and floundering, however, that the Japs thought
they were facing a major force" and dug in at once. We were
joined by some Philippine army and constabulary units and
a scattering of men from the 8ogd Engineers, U.S.A.

This was the start of a long siege. We had no entrenching
tools and were forced to lie on top of the ground or fire from
behind trees. Casualties ran high. Our food during the week
to come was chiefly salmon gravy on sour-dough bread. Our
water was hauled in fuel drums and reeked of gasoline.

We had been told the Jap party numbered about thirty,
but the ferocity of their defense soon showed us there were
hundreds of them. All night long the jungle crackled with
rifle fire, punctuated by the bomblike blasts of mortar shells.
There was much irregular machine gun fire or so it seemed*
We later learned the little cuties were setting off firecracker
strings to simulate machine guns.

To our cost we became acquainted with their strategy o
playing dead until an American column had crept past them.
Then the supposed corpses would rise up and shoot the
Americans in the back. We countered this by never passing a
"dead" Jap without shooting him to make sure he was hors
de combat. But before those seven sleepless days and nights
had ended we were so weary, dirty, and starved we didn't care
whether we were shot or not.

I had a hard-bitten, drawling young sergeant who was
particularly adept at spotting 'possuming Japs. One day,
early in the siege, I was sitting with him near the edge of a
wood. He was answering my questions somewhat absently

and I saw he was staring at what appeared to be a very dead
Jap, lying against a tree trunk.

"Cap'n," he said at length, "I don't think that buzzard's
dead."

"Well, why don't you shoot and find out?" I said.

It was the command the sergeant had hoped for. He raised
his rifle and fired. The Jap bounced to a sitting position,
then fell over.

The sergeant shot him twice more "to make it official."
Later in the siege he caught another 'possiiming Jap, but
just a second too late. A general who had come down to view
the action made the error of arriving with boots and orna-
ments polished until they gleamed. We on the firing line had
long since learned to strip ourselves of . all insignia because
Jap snipers aim for officers.

The general came striding along, looking like something
off a parade ground. Suddenly my sergeant yelled, whipped
up his rifle, and fired. Another shot cracked out almost with
his and the general's orderly grasped a shattered shoulder.
The sergeant swore monotonously as he put three more slugs
into a writhing Jap.

"I would have shot him before," the sergeant said later,
"but I didn't want to startle the general. Dang it!"

Later the same day we were advancing into a particularly
dense jungle sector. We knew there were Japs just ahead. Be-
side me was one of my squadron boys carrying a Lewis gun.
It was a tense moment and, as often happens at such times,
the gunner felt the need of a little levity.

"Cap'n," he said, "how will we tell which are Japs and
which are monkeys?"

The sergeant answered for me.

"Just kill 'em all, son," he said. "We can eat the ones that
ain't got uniforms on."

On the night the siege started we were about a quarter of
a mile from the cliffs overlooking Agoloma bay. In a week
we occupied 150 yards of this area on a line about 500 yards
long.

Then we handed the job over to a large force of Philippine

4*

scouts, who were well equipped with Garand rifles. We left
them our automatic equipment and went back for a six-day
rest, much of which we spent fighting a forest fire set by Jap
incendiary bombs.

On our return we found that the scouts had occupied fifty
yards more of the high jungle above the bay at terrible cost
to themselves. Their casualties had run about fifty per cent.
The sight and stench of death were everywhere. The jungle,
droning with insects, was almost unbearably hot.

We reinforced the scouts and shortened the line to 400
yards, penning up the Japs between us and the cliffs, which
were fifty to sixty feet high. By the fifth day after our return
our line was only about 300 yards and we were supported by
four tanks under Lieutenant John Hay. The jungle now had
been pretty well shot away, so that there was clearance for
their passage.

We started our advance, directing the tanks' fire with
walkie-talkies [portable radio sets]. The Japs now were
crowded up to the very brink. There were hundreds of them,
partially screened by the thick growth that extended to the
edge. At fifty yards* we could see them plainly. Beyond and
below them was the blue water of the South China sea.

Suddenly, above the noise of the gunfire, we could hear
shrieks and high-pitched yelling. Scores of Japs were tearing
off their uniforms and leaping off the cliffs. Others were
scrambling over the edge and shinnying down to fortifications
prepared along the rock ledges. In a few minutes all surviving
Japs had taken refuge below us and out of our sight.

We had a good view of .the narrow beach, which was lit-
tered with bodies. Other Japs were running wildly up and
down and plunging into die surf. We raked the beach and
surf with machine gun fire, annihilating all who moved.
Presently the waves were rolling in stained with blood and
dotted with dead Japs.

I'll never forget the little Filipino who had set up an air-
cooled machine gun at the brink and was peppering the
crowded beach far below/At each burst he shrieked with

4S

laughter, beat his helmet against the ground, lay back to
whoop with glee, then sat up to get in another burst.

We spent the rest of that day and the next trying to dis-
lodge the Japs from the ledges and galleries of the cliffs. We
lowered boxes of dynamite with ropes and detonated them,
but with little effect. Then we tried grenades and mines, also
lowered by ropes and also ineffective. It would have been
suicide to have stormed them from the beach because they
were well armed.

It was not until the eighth day, assisted by the navy, that
we wiped them out. The navy supplied two whaleboats and
two 35-foot longboats that had been plated with armor and
armed with captured 37-mm. Jap cannon, twin .3o-caliber
machine guns and one .5O-caliber gun each.

Ten men of our squadron were in each of the whaleboats.
I went with one of the homemade gunboats to direct the fire.
Previously we had lowered sheets over the face of the cliff
to mark the Jap positions.

We stood off the beach and had shelled them for about ten
minutes when a sailor hurried up to the commander (now a
war prisoner) and called his attention to*a flight of Jap dive
bombers approaching from the east.

"To hell with the airplanes, sailor," the commander
snapped. To me he said: "Where do you want the next shot,
captain?"

Our little fleet raced for the beach with the Jap planes
immediately above us, loosing a rain of loo-pound fragmenta-
tion bombs. They were bursting all about us, sending up
geysers of water. Through it all the navy gunners continued
to blast away. One of the whaleboats was hit, then one of the
gunboats. In another minute the second whaleboat was gone.

Almost at the beach a near hit demolished our gunboat.
There were casualties among our volunteers and the navy
personnel as well. The intrepid commander was wounded
critically.

But our shelling had been so deadly it was an easy matter
for our survivors to storm the remaining Japs and mop them
up. We finished this task at noon, taking only one prisoner.

44

He fled over the top of the cliff and into the arms of our men
waiting there.

We counted more than 600 Jap bodies in the jungle, in the
ledge, and on the beach. Many others were carried away by
the sea. And we had been sent after only thirty!

That night in our old bivouac area we slept like the dead.
There was no duty on the day following. We spent it luxuri-
ously, bathing in the mountain stream, getting into clean
clothing, and cutting one another's hair. Getting spruced up
a little raised our spirits a hundred per cent.

I had finished and was climbing the slope when the path
was blocked by an amazing apparition. It was my sergeant,
but how changed! I grabbed for my .45 before recognizing
him.

His hair had been cropped so closely his head was burred
like a Jap's. Around his neck hung a pair of Jap binoculars.
At his hip was a Jap automatic. Across his chest was a pon-
derous Jap watch chain, supporting ten watches.

All around his person other watches and Jap pendants
dangled and glittered in the sun. Completing the get-up was
a pair of big Jap spectacles, which he wore on his forehead
as elderly ladies sometimes do.

"You'd better get rid of some of that Jap junk/* I said, let-
ting my pistol slip back into the holster. "And you'd better
do it before you go down where those other guys are* You
know how trigger happy everybody is today."

"That's right, cap'n," he said. "I'm going to. I know what
111 do. -I know where I can trade these binoculars for a Jap
saber!"

Soon afterward, General George paid us a visit and we pre-
sented him with a captured Japanese saber. With it was a
note which read:

"We, the members of the gist Pursuit Squadron, who have
served as engineers, infantry, artillery, anti-parachute troops,
anti-sniper troops, mechanized units, marines, and air corps
our first and only love respectfully present as a token of our

45

esteem this Japanese saber, taken in the battle of Agoloma
bay."

And it developed that General George had not merely
dropped in to pass the time of day. He touched off a wild
charivari of clanging tinware, shots, and Indian yells by let-
ting it be known we soon would be back with our first love.
The 2ist Pursuit was assigned to Bataan and Cabcaben fields.
We would be in the air again.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN WE JOINED THE REMNANTS of several other flying or-
ganizations on Bataan and Cabcaben fields February 13, 1942,
we found that our Philippines air force had grown from nine
to ten planes. But that was little to rejoice about.

The original nine had been good P-4OS. Of these only five
remained. The other planes, some of them flown in from the
southern islands, included an O-i army biplane, a ramshackle
Bellanca, a dilapidated Beechcraft, and a couple of other jobs.
These boneyard ships were called the Bamboo Fleet and
were kept at Bataan field along with three of the P-4OS.

The other P-4os were assigned to Cabcaben field, a mile to
the west. Both fields began at the water's edge and sloped
upward toward the Mariveles mountains. They were at the
southeastern tip of Bataan peninsula and each had a single
runway. We always took off southeast, no matter how the
wind set, and came in over the water to land northwest.

The planes were hidden in the jungle at the upper end of
the field. General George had a shack at the edge of Bataan
field to be near his men. We built our mess hall in a little
canyon, digging out the mountainside. We lived in bamboo

46

shelters and huts near-by. The area was well protected by
anti-aircraft batteries.

During the rest of February, through March and up to the
fall of Bataan in early April we flew reconnaissance, brought
in medical supplies from the southern islands with the Bam-
boo Fleet, and dropped supplies to our guerrillas who were
fighting in the mountains of Luzon.

In addition, we went on bombing missions. A warrant offi-
cer, now a prisoner of the Japs, built ingenious bomb releases
for our planes. My P-4O, which I named "Kibosh/* would
carry a 300- or 5oo-pound egg. Some of the others could take
loo-pounders or six 3O-pound fragmentation bombs. And
speaking of bombs, the Japs let us have it every day,

Our runway constantly was under repair, but none of their
bombs ever hit our planes. Meanwhile work was in progress
on a new field just north of Mariveles, a small seaport eight
miles west. About this time Captain Joseph Moore of Mis-
sissippi, who was in charge at Mariveles, raised an old navy
duck [amphibious plane] that had been sunk in the early
days of the war.

Joe got it to flying and used it to bring in supplies, medi-
cine, and official mail. On nearly every trip he would manage
to include several boxes of candy for the boys. The duck was
named "The Candy Clipper."

The candy was manna. Our food situation was growing
rapidly worse. We were eating lizards, monkeys, and anything
else that came under our guns. We set off dynamite in the
water in the hope of getting fish, but the blasts usually burst
the fishes' floats and they sank. The life expectancy of any-
thing that walked, crawled, or flew on lower Bataan was
practically nil.

The food shortage was cause for uneasiness even at the
start and it grew swiftly critical. At no time did we have beef.
Now and then we killed a carabao [water buffalo] and boiled
its dark, strong, tough meat. We had a formula for cooking
carabao: you put a stone in the pot with it and when the
stone melted the carabao was cooked.

Late in February we slaughtered the last horses and mules

47

of the 26th Cavalry, receiving two issues each of horse and
mule meat. By this time bread, even the sour-dough variety,
was a memory. There was no flour, coffee, sugar, powdered
milk, or jelly. One of the last rations I drew included nine
medium-sized cans of salmon and forty-five pounds of musty
red rice for 175 men.

The chow line hardly ever formed that someone didn't
collapse from hunger and weakness. Malaria began taking its
toll, also. Many of the pilots would have been incapable of
flying even if we had had the planes. Only one thing was
plentiful. Our source of clear cold water was a sparkling little
stream fed by a high mountain spring.

Occasionally there would be a feast amid the famine. Our
engineering officer, whom we called "Ji tter Bill," suggested
to General George that he be allowed to fly the old Bellanca
of the Bamboo Fleet to Cebu.

His idea was to load it up with medicines and food in the
southern islands to relieve our situation. General George was
enthusiastic. Bill made two trips, returning from the first
with five three-gallon tins of quinine, and a quantity o
blood plasma and gas gangrene serum. In addition, he
brought food which he had stacked under the seats, stuffed
inside his shirt, and taped and tied all through the old plane.

These pioneering flights really brought the Bamboo Fleet
into the picture and gave it a purpose in life. Other of the
old crates were taken on foraging flights. Captain Whitfield
began flying the Beechcraf t. Captains Dick Fellows and Wil-
liam Cummings took two more of the rattletraps on grub
missions. Their combined efforts helped, of course, but 175
to 220 hungry mouths can make an appalling amount of food
disappear.

Jitter Bill came to be looked upon as the chief of the Bam-
boo Fleet. He was a character I'll long remember. His nick-
name came from no lack of nerve* No one in the squadron
was braver. Day after day he flew the condemned and un-
armed Bellanca, taking missions that sometimes appeared to
be hopeless.

But he was jittery; there is no question about that. He

probably was the only man in the air forces who would try
to wind his eight-day panel clock six times an hour. His
speech was jerky and rapid-fire. You'd walk toward him to
say something, but before you'd get your mouth open he
would pop out with:

"You bet, boy! That's right. That's right." And Bill ended
all conversations, no matter the topic, with: "Thank you>
boy. Good luck, boy/'

Before the war Bill had been pilot for a commercial air line
in the islands. Sometimes he would forget he now was in the
army. One night he was to fly three colonels to Mindanao.
Bill walked over without saluting and, from force of habit,
picked up one of the handbags and hefted it. The grip
weighed almost a hundred pounds.

"God almighty, man!" Bill bellowed. "Whattaya got in
there? Bricks? Don't you know you're only allowed thirty
pounds?"

The amazed colonel took a step backward. Bill opened his
mouth again, but closed it abruptly and scrambled into the
plane. We explained matters to the colonel, who was a nice
fellow and left most of his belongings behind. Some colonels
and there must have been a thousand of them in the Philip*
pines were not such nice fellows. When we began evacuating,
them to the southern islands we could take only three at a.
time and there were some terrible rows over who ranked
whom. It was my job to sort them out and provide passage
"for the three who ranked the others. The boys used to gather
outside my shack to hear the shouting:

"I rank you by thirty-two days!"

"Yes, but you don't rank ME!"

"Who says I don't?"

Most of us will remember Jitter Bill for his last missions
from Bataan field. It was as fine an example of calm courage
as I ever expect to see. It became necessary that someone fly
a plane of the Bamboo Fleet to Corregidor on an urgent
matter, then proceed to Mindanao. The rub was that it.
would be necessary to refuel at the field on the island of
Panay. And there was no way of knowing whether or not that

field was in our hands or the Japs'. The fellows voted to cut
for low card to determine who would get the job. Bill
frowned at this and told two friends he did not intend to let
any young and less experienced pilot get the assignment.

After some talk Bill brought in the deck, which was shuf-
fled and spread out. Everyone reached for a card. Bill took
his and stepped far back. When the showdown came, he
walked back to the table and laid down the deuce of clubs.
The others were suspicious, but Bill shook a finger at them.

"You boys just ain't livin' right; ain't livin' right," he
said. Then he went off to warm up his plane. The last I saw
of Bill he was industriously winding his panel clock.

He completed the mission safely, but was taken prisoner at
Mindanao.

On March i. General George called me in and said he
thought we ought to have a party. I asked him with whom
and with what. He said with the nurses from Hospital No. 2
a few miles away and with whatever we could scare up.

"If this war is going to be fought by our boys and girls,
Ed/* he said, "they might as well have what little good times
they can."

We had some extra gasoline one of our pilots had spotted
in a forgotten jungle supply dump. We had brought it into
camp. We mixed kerosene with it to tone it down for use in
the trucks in which we drove over to pick up the nurses.

The party itself was held in a thatched shack which we
used as a clubhouse. Its walls were decorated with Jap
helmets, rifles, sabers, and other trophies. There was a score-
board with the records of our pilots; number of planes
downed, citations, and so on. Over the door were mounted
some fine carabao antlers with a placard which read:

THE DYSENTERY CROSS

Awarded to the Quartermaster by

THE MEN OF BATAAN FIELD

We sported a battered piano we had fished from the rubble
of a bombed out village/and a corporal and a buck sergeant

to play it. They were talented exponents o boogie woogie.
Between dances they would sit together at the piano and cut
loose till the roof rocked.

Among our dozen guests were Lieutenant Juanita Red-
mond and Lieutenant Helen L. Summers. They wore civilian
dresses and we were in our best handwashed, unironed uni-
forms, without ties. It had been so long since we had seen
white women we were shy and awkward. This didn't wear
off until almost time for them to start home.

Some of the boys had brought in crackers and cookies and
a few containers of relish spread. We drank canned pineapple
juice.

We danced on canvas spread over the bamboo floor. De-
spite our boys* hot music there was no jitterbugging. We were
too tired and the shack wouldn't have taken it. Our second
party was ruined by a beautiful full moon.

Its silvery light would have been conducive to romance
anywhere else in the world. But on Bataan it meant only that
if the Japs had effected a landing before moonrise, they would
be attacking soon. So, we thought more about the Japs than
about our pretty dancing partners. But we weren't called out.

The day after this the bomb release on my plane Kibosh
was completed just about the time our lookout in the Mari-
veles mountains reported a large number of Japanese ships
entering Subic bay, which begins at the northwestern corner
of Bataan and gouges deeply into Zambales province to the
north. I immediately asked General George if we could try
our luck with a few 5oo-pounders.

"No, Ed," he said. "We'll proceed on the same line we've
been following. The time isn't right yet,"

The next morning, however, I got a message from air force
headquarters to get to the field immediately. On the way I
met our operations officer, Lieutenant Ben S. Brown of Haw-
kinsville, Ga.

"Well, Ed," he said. "We are putting the big shoes on Joe.
Everything'll be ready when you get there." He was using the
double talk we employed on our radio to confuse the Japs.
Putting the big shoes on Joe meant loading a plane with a

5 1

5OO-pound bomb. Putting the little shoes on meant that six
go-pound fragmentations were going into the racks.

I went to General George's shack. He told me the Japs
were unloading a vast amount of supplies near Olongapo^
Zambales, in the eastern reach of Subic bay and about thirty
air miles from Bataan field. In view of their numbers, General
George considered it best to discourage them as much as pos-
sible. As I left he called: "Be careful, Ed." I told him I would,
then hurried to the field.

Kibosh was waiting with a big green 5oo-pound bomb
slung underneath. Lieutenant Posten, who had taken off
earlier with six fragmentation bombs, returned about this
time. He had dropped his load, but didn't know whether he
had damaged any of the Jap ships.

I took off at 12:30 P.M., followed by Shorty, another pilot
now a prisoner of war. It was his job to weave along behind
me and keep Japs off my tail. I climbed to 10,000 feet over
the sea, then headed north and west. When I was even with
Subic bay I headed across to start my dive with the sun at my
back.

When I got in dose, however, I saw that the big ship con-
centration was not at Olongapo, as I had been told, but out
near Grand island about seven miles farther on and midway
of the bay's gi/^-mile mouth. There were a dozen or more
vessels there, busily unloading.' I headed for them.

Ten thousand feet below me Subic bay lay smooth as a
floor except for the feathery wakes of Japanese transports and
warships. ,

On the inner or north side of the island two transports were
unloading. Two cruisers, two destroyers and two transports
were well inside the harbor while others were just outside it.
A large transport was entering, passing between Grand island
and the western shore. I chose this as my target.

It was a beautiful, cloudless flying day. The scene below me
wras like a brilliant lithograph, the colors almost too real. At
3,000 feet, with the throttle wide open, I saw that I was to
-eceive a big-time reception. Anti-aircraft batteries opened
ip from the island and most of the ships.

5*

At 2,000 feet I released my soo-pound bomb and began to
pull out of the dive. Looking back, I saw it miss the big
transport by 40 feet and send a great geyser of white water
skyward. I was pretty hot at the miss, so I pulled around and
gave the Jap the .so-caliber treatment.

I strafed him three times, fro^n stern to bow, bow to stern
concentrating on the bridge and from stern to bow again.
How much damage, if any, my bomb accomplished I don't
know.

During the strafing, however, the transport stopped dead

53

and didn't move again that day. The anti-aircraft fire was
coming up in earnest now, so I pulled around the island
and blistered four small warehouses on the shore near the two
freighters which were unloading. From there I could see two
loo-ton motor vessels plying between the island and the
Bataan shore.

I caught one of them well out in the open and concentrated
on its two forward guns, then started firing amidships into
the hull, hoping to get the engine room. By this time I was
just above the water and coming in fast.

The Japs aboard her were putting on quite an act. Those
astern were running forward and those forward were rushing
astern. They couldn't have done better for my purpose. They
met amidships where my bullets were striking. When I was
ioo yards from the ship I veered off to north, banked around,
and went in again the same way.

The concentrated fire of six .5o-caliber guns literally was
knocking the sides out of her. Suddenly she stopped, listed,
and began to sink. I got in one short burst at her sister ship,
then ran out of ammunition. I couldn't see Shorty but I
called to him on the radio, telling him we were all washed up.

When I returned to Bataan field I found two large holes
and a small one in my wings. Shorty landed at Cabcaben
field, untouched. When I landed, Captain Joe Moore sent two
pilots from Mariveles field, eight miles west of us, in P~4os to
drop fragmentation bombs. One of these kids, Lieutenant
White, dropped his on the dock area at Olongapo.

When White came out of his dive, however, the other
youngster had disappeared. We finally concluded that because
of his inexperience he had followed the leading plane too
closely and had been caught by anti-aircraft fire. This had
happened many times before, and most seasoned pilots were
wise to the hazard.

While Kibosh was being refueled and loaded with another
50o-pounder and ammunition, I sent Lieutenant Sam Grashio
to drop a load of frags on Grand island. His homemade bomb
release jammed, however, and he was forced to land on Mari-
veles field still fully loaded. This was a touchy undertaking,

54

but there was nothing else to do except bail out. And Sam
knew we could not afford to lose the plane.

When Kibosh was ready, I took off and made the same ap-
proach to Subic bay. The situation was practically unchanged.
I picked the two unloading freighters as my target and went
into a dive at 10,000 feet, again releasing the bomb at 2,000.
It passed just over the outer freighter and exploded among a
concentration of barges and lighters that were receiving cargo
from the ships. They went up in a glorious cloud of smoke,
water, and debris. I felt better.

As I pulled up, swarms of Japs began running from the two
ships and stampeding along the dock toward shore. I pulled
around and cleaned off the dock with my machine guns.
While in the vicinity I sprayed the four warehouses again
with everything I had. Then I went for the second of the
two loo-ton motor vessels. I gave it a long burst and it caught
fire from end to end. It soon sank.

There was a long tanker near-by which received the last of
my ammunition, apparently with no ill-effects. I gave Shorty
the high sign, and we went home.

I was glad to get back. I should mention that I was fighting
on two fronts that day both against the Japs and against
diarrhea.

The boys swarmed around Kibosh. They found several
more A-A holes while they were servicing it and slinging a
new 500-pound bomb into the rack. General George was re*
luctant when I indicated I was planning a third visit to the
bay. He eventually granted permission. If he hadn't, I'd
have missed the best shooting of the day.

Lieutenant John Burns later killed in Mindanao went
along as my tail weaver this time. After making the same old
approach to Subic, I went into a dive at 10,000 feet just at
sundown. I soon saw that my two freighters had shoved out
from the dock and were running around like mad.

I therefore aimed my bomb at the enormous supply dumps
which had been built up along the northern shore of Grand
island, around the warehouses and beyond. I held to the dive

55

until I was at about 1,800 feet, then turned loose the bomb.
It was a direct hit.

There was a terrific explosion that scattered flaming debris
all over the island. A fierce fire started almost immediately
near the middle of the island. It burned all night and part of
the next day.

It was deep twilight now, which made it hard to see the
ships. But I had no difficulty in seeing the A-A fire which
was streaming up from all directions. Cruisers, destroyers,
and shore batteries had all cut loose. They really were filling
the sky. I told General George later that with his permission
I would do my future strafing in daylight. At night those
tracers look too big and too many.

Meanwhile our observers on Mariveles mountain reported
to air force headquarters that a large transport was slipping
out of the bay. When this was relayed to me I flew north
across the bay until the ship was silhouetted against the glow
in the west. I started the attack by strafing it from amidships
to the stern. Small fires leaped up all over the after deck.

There was no trouble in hitting that baby. It was plenty
big. I could see plainly my six streams of -5O-caliber tracers
and could put them just where I wanted. I climbed to 4,000
feet, then came back, laying my fire along the bow and put-
ting it into the bridge. Fires started all over the bow and in
the well deck. Then she blew up. My plane was at 1,800 feet
and diving at 45 degrees.

There was a blinding flash from below. A black cloud of
debris-filled smoke shot into the sky, far above me. I yanked
back on the stick to avoid flying into the shower of wreckage.
The ship responded so suddenly I blacked out colder than a
pair of ice tongs. I was out several seconds and when I came
to, the P-40 was hanging by its propeller at about 4,000 feet.

The water below was a mass of flame. A few minutes later
there was nothing where the ship had been.

The glow in the west now served me well a second time.
Silhouetted against it was a fairly large ship that had been
reported variously as a cruiser, destroyer, tanker, and trans-
port. It was so dark I couldn't tell what it was, but it sent up

56

more A-A than any tanker or transport I ever have tackled.

When I started my dive the ship was turning rapidly, as
though trying to get back into the bay. I struck from the
southwest, raking it from bow to stern.

The ship stopped turning and put on speed, heading

Bomb Hits

Enemy Supply

Dumps

Jap Transport

Blows Up After

Air Attack

straight out into the South China sea. I hit at the Jap next
from the northeast, strafing him from stern to bow. As I slid
over him all anti-aircraft guns had been silenced and small
fires were blazing up on both the bow and stern. When I
came around to hit him again from the southwest, the fires
had grown much larger.

I gave him another raking from bow to stern, with special

57 ' . . ' :

attention to the bridge. It was the most thorough treatment
of the three and during it I expended the last of my ammuni-
tion. I was trying to make it blow up as the other ship had,
but without success. It ended up as a total loss, however. It
burned all night after being beached and still was burning
the next day.

It was so dark now I couldn't see Burns's plane, but I gave
him the high sign and started home. The glow from below
showed me a number of large bullet holes in my P-4O. And
now, I did the stupidest thing of my flying career.

Instead of flying low over the water to get safely within
our lines, I blandly cut across the shore line at about 1,000
feet directly over Jap territory. I was booming along, think-
ing of nothing in particular when up came such a cloud of
anti-aircraft fire as I never have seen before or since. Tracers
were sailing at me from every direction at once.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I never have been so mad
at myself or anyone else. I turned away, climbing and weav-
ingand holding my breath. The sky was so full of fire it was
like flying down Broadway. The P-4O was catching hell. This,
I figured, probably was die finish and I deserved it. Some-
how or other, with fool's luck, I made it unscratched.

Nearing the field, I realized I had a terrific tail wind. I
went in over the water and set the P-4O down to a pretty bum
landing, but I didn't care much. The boys rushed up and as
I jumped out I told them:

"We got one that time."

'[When Colonel Dyess landed on that night of March 3,
1942, his score for the day was one i2,ooo-ton transport blown
up and sunk, one 5,000- or 6,ooo-ton vessel burned, two
zoo-ton motor vessels sunk, a number of barges and lighters
destroyed, a vast amount of supplies and material blown up
and burned, plus a large but undetermined number of Japa-
nese killed in the sinkings and repeated strafings of Grand
island and its docks. The Tokio radio announced the next
day that Subic bay had been raided by three flights of four-
engined bombers, escorted by fighter planes.]

Just as I hit the ground I saw a stream of tracers going up

58

against the mountain from beyond the hill that separated
Bataan field and Cabcaben. I thought at first we had drawn
some "flies" Jap bombers as it was their habit to bomb hell
out of us right after each of our raids. Then I realized the
direction of the fire meant it was coming from Burns's plane.
I supposed he had pressed the firing button accidentally after
landing.

At General George's headquarters I got the bad news. The
tail wind had brought Burns in too fast and to avoid over-
shooting the field, he had groundlooped the P-4O, damaging
it severely, but escaping serious injury himself. It was during
the loop that his guns had fired.

With General George were Captain (now Lieutenant
Colonel) Allison W. Ind of Ann Arbor, Mich., his aide; Lieu-
tenant Ben Brown, and Major (now Lieutenant Colonel)
Lefty Eades. I had just finished telling them my story when
the really bad news came in. Two pilots who had been sent up
from Mariveles field to cover the landing of Burns and myself
had both cracked up in the tail wind. The planes were be-
yond repair.

We had lost one of our five P-4o's in Subic bay in the after-
noon, Burns had cracked up another in the same tail wind
that undid the Mariveles boys; thus the latest disasters left
us with only mine. In addition there were only the Candy
Clipper and the Bamboo Fleet. The Mariveles boys were
young and had done very little flying in the last few weeks.
General George rallied first.

"Forget it," he said. "We couldn't have done better and
this was bound to happen sooner or later." Then, from the
depths of his luggage, he came up with a quart of whisky.
We were bowled over, but no one said anything except
"Here's how!" Though General George spoke lightly of the
aircraft loss, he felt deeply the death of the pilot. Losing one
of his boys always was a personal sorrow.

Pretty soon someone remembered that a prank note writ-
ten a few days before by a newspaper correspondent had
been ominously prophetic. The note, addressed to President

Roosevelt, had read: "Dear Mr. President: Please send us
another P-4O. The one we have is all shot up."

When the crew finished with old Kibosh the next day it
looked like a patchwork quilt. The plane was olive drab and
the external patches were bright blue. There were sixty-five or
seventy of them. You could hardly see Kibosh for the patches.

The next morning General George dug again into his re-
serves and came up with flour, baking powder, and coffee.
He made hotcakes for Ind, Eades, and me.

After breakfast I got to thinking about our situation. I
felt pretty somber. Our losses of the night before had been
serious. The Jap loss had been far greater, but they could
replace their men and materiel. We couldn't. We were out-
numbered in aircraft, men, ordnance in everything. We had
to strike when and where we could. I thought, rather pro-
phetically, that ours were guerrilla tactics and should be ex-
panded along that field.

We even had to improvise much equipment. Among other
things, we invented belly tanks which we welded from sheet
metal and which served also as incendiary bombs. They were
finned and equipped with shotgun shells and firing pins to
set them off when they hit. There was an ingenious arrange-
ment which permitted us to run the plane on the gasoline
they contained, when necessary. These now were in what we
.called mass production about two a week.

On March 5 Leo, the lieutenant who was my new engineer-
ing officer, assisted by men of the gist Pursuit Squadron, fin-
ished construction of an additional plane. In it were parts
from all the P-4OS and P-4oEs that had been cracked up. We
called it the P-4O-Something. It flew quite well. Shortly after-
ward we were reinforced by two well-worn P-g5S from Min-
danao.

We put bomb racks on them and on the P-4O-Something.
Thus we had four fighting ships in addition to the Candy
Clipper and the Bamboo Fleet. These planes were our air
force at the fall of Bataan, which now was only about three
weeks away.

60

CHAPTER FOUR

ON AN AFTERNOON in mid-March, 1942, I set my P-4O down
on Bataan field after a reconnaissance flight and found Gen-
eral George waiting for me.

"I guess this is good-by for a while, Ed/* he said. Then he
told me he had been ordered to accompany General Mac-
Arthur, who was going to Australia to take supreme com-
mand of our forces in the Southwest Pacific. It was obvious
to me that General George was leaving us only with the great-
est reluctance.

"Tell the boys," he said, "that if I'm not back pretty soon
it will not be because I don't want to come back."

It was the last time I ever saw him. He was one of the
grandest officers I ever have known. We always thought of
him as a genius who was human. [General George lost his
life in an airplane accident in Australia a few weeks later.]

At the time he left us our food shortage had grown acute.
More than sixty per cent of our pilots were so weakened by
hunger they were incapable of flying the planes. Those who
did fly came back from missions completely used up.

At some meals we had only rice. At others there was only
a thin salmon soup. Salmon gravy had been unheard of since
our flour supply had given out. Occasionally there was a bird
or two or a monkey. At length, our flight surgeon, Lieutenant
Colonel William Keppard, determined something had to be
done.

He put it up to Major General Edward P. King, straight
from the shoulder. In a very short time there would be no
more flying unless the pilots were given proper food. General
King arranged at once for extra rations to be sent over from
Corregidor. There were to be full rations and vitamin tablets
for twenty-five fliers for ten days. As soon as this was assured I
called in several of our sergeants.

I told them there was to be extra food for some of the

fit

pilots, but that I didn't want to issue it until I had learned
the attitude o the enlisted men. The first sergeant, R. W.
Houston, spoke up with feeling.

"Hell, captain," he said, "we already know all about it.
The men think it's wonderful you're going to get extra grub.
They said that i the new stuff isn't enough they'll give you
theirsl"

I've never felt prouder to be an American.

In a day or two we were having ham, bread, peas, pineap-
ple juice, canned corned beef hash, sugar, coffee, vitamin
tablets and other items. We had hoped for cigarettes, too. In
those days you were out of luck for smokes unless you had a
friend on Corregidor.

The food worked a miracle almost overnight. Because of
it, those favored pilots did much better than the other men
during the Death March from Bataan, which was just ahead.
The last red days before the surrender now were upon us,
and they were an unending hell.

Jap planes were overhead constantly, bombing and strafing.
Our artillery had been pushed back so far it had to send its
shells whistling over our airfield to reach the enemy. Com-
munications were practically nonexistent. Bombs and shells
severed our lines as fast as they were repaired.

The wounded were pouring back night and day along the
road that bisected Bataan and Cabcaben airfields. Those men
not wounded were sleepless, exhausted, and bedraggled.
Some of them, in their bewilderment, had become separated
from their units. There were few outfits left intact, and the
Japs daily were throwing in fresh troops.

Our planes were grounded on April 7 and 8, the last two
days before the tragic gth of April when Bataan was sur-
rendered. On each of the last few nights Jap warships pulled
in close and shelled us with everything they had. On the 8th
their shells found our bivouac area and made a shambles of
it.

In addition white phosphorus bombs were dropped, touch-
ing off the brush, so we had to do duty as fire fighters. None
of us got any sleep. We were all crazy to go after the Japs

with the P-40, the P-4O-Something and the P-35$. But we were
being saved for use in the event the enemy should try a land-
ing behind our lines.

There was a nebulous project afoot concerning supply ships
from Cebu island. We were to "shoot down all Japanese
aircraft" that tried to interfere and were to be assisted by
bombers supposedly en route from Australia. PT boats were
to attack and harass blockading Jap surface ships. But all this
had been set for April 10, and it never materialized.

I left the field an hour before sundown on the 8th, return-
ing to the bivouac area to check the damage. I needed sleep,
too.

We were expecting a plane of the Bamboo Fleet with
medical supplies from Cebu and I planned to help unload it.
I had just sat down to eat when there was an emergency call
from the field. Captain Burt of Alabama now a prisoner of
war told me a powerful Jap force had broken through our
lines and was only two miles down the road from the field.

I jumped into a car and started. The road was choked with
Filipino troops in wild retreat. It was sundown when I got to
the landing strip. There I grabbed Lieutenant Jack Donald-
son, Tulsa, Okla., and told him to take off in old Kibosh with
six go-pound fragmentation bombs and to bomb and strafe
the approaching Japs.

Jack had been with me in the infantry days. He was what
we called an "eager beaver" always ready for a scrap. I said:

"Jack, after you have finished, come back to the field. If
this is a false alarm, come in and land. If the Japs are as close
as they tell us, rock your wings and keep going for Cebu."

He was back in fifteen minutes with his bomb racks empty.
He rocked the plane like all hell and kept going. I later
learned he made Cebu all right, but that one of the ship's
hydraulic lines had been shot out so that he had to land
with the wheels up. That was the end of faithful old Kibosh.

By this time I had got through to air force headquarters
and told them the situation. They told me at once to start
evacuating the pilots in our remaining planes. They specified
the pilots who were to go. Shortly afterward Captain Joe

63

Moore took off from Cabcaben field in a P-4O and Captain
O. L. Lunde took off from Bataan in a P-gs. He took an extra
pilot, doubled up in the baggage compartment.

At dark the artillery back of the field opened up on the
Japs down the road. Simultaneously our forces started blow-
ing up the ammunition dumps a quarter of a mile from the
field.

I got all the planes out on the field with their motors run-
ning in the event the Japs should break through unexpect-
edly. Then I called headquarters and told Captain Hank
Thorne and Ben Brown to come to the field. I met them on
a rise near-by and ordered them into the remaining P-35
which was waiting. They both refused to go, but as the field
commanding officer I sent them off.

These two had done wonderful work on Bataan. Hank had
headed the grd Pursuit Squadron which fought at Eba the
first day of the war. Ben Brown was one of the foremost air
heroes of Bataan, downing many Jap planes and bombing and
strafing landing parties with deadly effect.

Hank and Ben took another pilot with them in their bat-
tered P-35, which they got into the air by the light of the
exploding ammunition dumps. Hank also took six fragmenta-
tion bombs which he dropped on the advancing Japs.

Our ground crews, meanwhile, were working like beavers,
emptying and lighting gasoline stores, smashing radios, and
pulling out our guns at the edge of the field. We left the
place as clean as a whistle. The Japs got nothing. Air force
ordnance men soon arrived and began blowing up out
bombs.

I assembled the available pilots and men and we took all
the guns we could get transportation for. We destroyed the
rest. We then hurried to Cabcaben field and found that all
planes except the Candy Clipper had gone. On its last flight
it had blown a cylinder.

Leo had worked on it twenty-four hours without a
letup, installing a cylinder he had taken from the wreck of
another navy plane. He had the motor running, but as the

64

Clipper had not been test hopped, no one knew whether it
would fly.

I loaded it up with Lieutenants Barnek, Robb, Coleman,
Shorty, and Boelens. At the last minute I put in Colonel
Carlos Romulo, who had been sent over by Lieutenant Gen-
eral Jonathan Wainwright from Corregidor that night.
Romulo had been a newspaper man and after entering mili-
tary service was attached to General MacArthur's head-
quarters.

[Dyess had been ordered to leave in the first plane for the
south. Others, whom he evacuated, stated afterward he had
refused to leave the men who could not be taken. Of this,
Dyess said only that "different arrangements were made, with
permission, of course."]

The old Candy Clipper did herself proud. Though heavily
loaded, she got off beautifully. Barnek was the pilot. He had
been on duty at headquarters throughout his stay on Bataan.
As the Clipper lifted from the strip, Gorregidor's artillery
opened up in support of the Bataan batteries. Shells were
bursting just down the road. The racket was terrific.

I took the men remaining on the field and, with our guns
and such food as could be rustled up, we started for Mariveles,
where we were to reorganize as mobile infantry. Just before
we reached Little Baguio, about four miles west of Cabcaben,
hell really broke loose. They were blowing up the main
munitions dumps, the engineers' dynamite dumps, and
others. The navy was setting off its dumps and destroying its
tunnels near Mariveles.

Almost anywhere on lower Bataan you could have read a
newspaper by the lurid glare. Artillery still was pounding
away and shell fragments were screaming through the air.
Because some of the exploding dumps were near the road,
it was impossible to advance for some time.

It was daylight when we reached Mariveles. I left some of
the pilots on the Mariveles cutoff. The men with the guns
and food went to a point two and one-half miles north of
the town to wait. I had been ordered to keep them readily

65

accessible in the event we should find transportation off the
peninsula.

Late in the morning we were told General King had sur-
rendered Bataan's defenders to the Imperial Japanese army.
As the official word spread, one of the most disheartening
scenes of my life unfolded just outside the town. Our army

JAf> FORCES

ADVANCE TO

WITHIN 2 MILES

OF 8ATAAN AIRFIELD

U. S. FLYERS AND
GROUND CREWS
EVACUATE FIELDS

CABCABEN

HOSPITAL N0.2
HOSPITAL N0.1

South. China
Sea,

WHERE JAPS CAPTURED
DYESS AND HIS MEN

DYESS AND HIS COMPANIONS

REACH TOWN; HEAR OF

BATAAN'S SURRENDER

trucks, rumbling down the dust fogged roads all hoisted
white flags. Individuals held up pieces of white cloth as they
walked along.

The Japs continued to bomb and shell the area without
letup. Filipino men/women, and children were huddled in
dazed groups along the road or were running wildly about.
Their outcries mingled with the rumble of trucks and the

66

shriek and thud of heavy shellfire in a symphony of despair.

American and Filipino wounded lay unattended in the
dust. Other American soldiers, wounded days before, were
wandering through the pall still in hospital pajamas and
kimonos. They had been left homeless by the bombing of
Hospital No. i.

I took one group of pilots through the ruined streets of
Mariveles to the waterfront in the hope of getting a boat in
which they could make a run for Corregidor, three miles
distant by water.

On the way, I saw a little Philippine scout who had been
my runner during the action of Agoloma bay. He was a
powerfully built youngster and a real fighter. We called him
"El Toro" The Bull. I asked him what he was doing. He
pointed to a critically wounded man lying near-by.

"Sir," he said, "I stay with my wounded companion.'*
When we passed back that way Toro was still there, but his
companion had died.

There was no transportation for my pilots. The boats that
escaped destruction during the bombing already had been
taken.

I knew where our guerrillas could be found, but they were
a long way off. We had got ample food from the navy when
we passed their exploding tunnels, but we had no quinine.
I hesitated to take to the malaria-ridden hills without it. A
number of men, not of our squadron, tried it and they were
pitiable sights when they were caught. Some may have made
it; others certainly perished on the way.

So our party headed northward out of town to rejoin the
ground crews with the guns and the food. We had covered
about two miles and were ascending a steep, ledgelike road,
when we came face to face with three Jap tanks, standing
side by side and blocking our path. Standing out of an open
turret was a Jap officer I'll never forget. Of his face I could
see nothing but squinting eyes and buck teeth. He was
pointing an automatic pistol at us.

We stopped. We were prisoners. The Jap waved his gun,
motioning us down off the road into a depression beside it.

' '

The Japs had all the hills and elevations. Tanks were charg-
ing up and down, firing their machine guns into treetops.
lines of marching Japs were silhouetted against the sky along
all the high places. Planes still were bombing the area. Shells
continued to fall. The jig certainly was up, for the time
being anyway.

None of us had had any rest for four days and nights. We
decided, therefore, to eat something, get a little sleep, and
plan our next move.

But no counter-move ever was planned or executed. After
eating we sank into dreamless sleep and knew nothing until
the Jap guards awakened us early the next morning. March-
Ing in a pall of dust stirred up by the wheels of Jap trucks,
we were herded to the landing strip north of Mariveles.
There our guards arranged us in long lines.

There still was plenty of fight left 'in us. We were prisoners,
but we didn't feel licked. I don't know what we would have
felt could we have known that this was only the first of 361
days to be filled with murder and cruelty such as few Ameri-
can soldiers ever have endured^ It was the start of the Death
March from Bataan.

CHAPTER FIVE

NORTH OF THE NARROW flying field stood Mount Bataan, its
jagged crater rising 4,600 feet above us into the clear, cool
sky. From these upper reaches came the drone of Jap dive
bombers, circling endlessly. To the south, smoke still was ris-
ing from the rubble which a few days before had been
Mariveles.

Three miles away, across the harbor's blue-green waters

68

the rocky eminence of Corregidor stood unconquered, still
guarding the sea approaches to a Manila that had fallen.
Grayish smoke puffs blossomed along the sides and pinnacles
of the Rock as high-flying Jap bombers dropped their loads.

The dust that enveloped Mariveles field was being stirred
up by the wheels of trucks and gun carriages. Jap artillery
was preparing to open fire on Corregidor from the sunken
rice paddies and near-by ridges. From the pall of smoke and
dust new prisoners American and Filipino soldiers emerged
in lines and groups to join those of us already there, awaiting
the pleasure of the Imperial Japanese army.

The first thing I heard after our arrival was an urgent
whispering which came to us from all sides. "Get rid of your
Jap stuff, quick!"

"What Jap stuff?" we whispered back.

"Everything; money, souvenirs. Get rid of it!" We did so
without delay and just in time. Jap noncommissioned offi-
cers and three-star privates were moving among us ordering
that packs be opened and spread out. They searched our per-
sons, then went through the other stuff, confiscating personal
articles now and then.

I noticed that the Japs, who up to now had treated us with
an air of cool suspicion, were beginning to get rough. I saw
men shoved, cuffed, and boxed. This angered and mystified
us. It was uncalled for. We were not resisting. A few ranks
away a Jap jumped up from a pack he had been inspecting.
In his hand was a small shaving mirror,

"Nippon?" he asked the owner. The glass was stamped:
"Made in Japan." The soldier nodded. The Jap stepped
back, then lunged, driving his rifle butt into the American's
face. "Yaah!" he yelled, and lunged again. The Yank went
down. The raging Jap stood over him, driving crushing blows
to the face until the prisoner lay insensible.

A little way off a Jap was smashing his fists into the face of
another American soldier who went to his knees and received
a thudding kick in the groin, He, too, it seemed, had been
caught with some Japanese trifle.

We were shocked. This treatment of war prisoners was be-

69

yond our understanding. I still didn't get it, even after some
one explained to me that the Japs assumed the contrabanc
articles had been taken from the bodies of their dead. I waj
totally unprepared for the appalling deed that came next.

I was too far off to witness it personally, but I saw the vic-
tim afterward. We had known him. A comrade who had stood
close by told me later in shocking detail what had taken place.

The victim, an air force captain, was being searched by a
three-star private. Standing by was a Jap commissioned offi-
cer, hand on sword hilt. These men were nothing like the
toothy, bespectacled runts whose photographs are familiar to
most newspaper readers. They were cruel of face, stalwart,
and tall.

"This officer looked like a" giant beside the Jap private/*
said my informant, who must be nameless because he still is a
prisoner of war. "The big man's face was as black as ma-
hogany. He didn't seem to be paying much attention. There
was no expression in his eyes, only a sort of unseeing glare.

"The private, a little squirt, was going through the cap-
tain's pockets. All at once he stopped and sucked in his breath
with a hissing sound. He had found some Jap yen.

"He held these out, ducking his head and sucking in his
breath to attract notice. The big Jap looked at the money.
Without a word he grabbed the captain by the shoulder and
shoved him down to his knees. He pulled the sword out of
the scabbard and raised it high over his head, holding it with
both hands. The private skipped to one side.

"Before we could grasp what was happening, the black-
faced giant had swung his sword. I remember how the sun
flashed on it. There was a swish and a kind of chopping thud,
like a cleaver going through beef.

"The captain's head seemed to jump off his shoulders. It
hit the ground in front of him and went rolling crazily from
side to side between the lines of prisoners.

"The body fell forward. I have seen wounds, but never
such a gush of blood as this. The heart continued to pump
far a few seconds and at each beat there was another great
spurt of blood/The white dust around our feet was turned

" ' -. . ' "-"._-- 7 --.-:-.- .". ".-.- . .

into crimson mud. I saw that the hands were opening and
closing spasmodically. Then I looked away.

"When I looked again the big Jap had put up his sword
and was strolling off. The runt who had found the yen was
putting them into his pocket. He helped himself to the cap-
tain's possessions."

This was the first murder. In the year to come there would
be enough killing of American and Filipino soldier prisoners
to rear a mountain of dead.

Our Jap guards now threw off all restraint. They beat and
slugged prisoners, robbing them of watches, fountain pens,
money, and toilet articles. Now, as never before, I wanted to
kill Japs for the pleasure of it.

The thing that almost drove me crazy was the certainty
that the officer who had just been murdered couldn't have
taken those yen from a dead Jap, He had been in charge of
an observation post far behind the lines. I doubt that he ever
had seen a dead Jap.

Gradually I got control of myself. By going berserk now I
would only lose my own life without hope of ever helping to
even the score.

The score just now was far from being in our favor. The
160 officers and men who remained of the 2 ist Pursuit Squad-
ron were assembled with about 500 other American and
Filipino soldiers of all grades and ranks. They were dirty,
ragged, unshaven, and exhausted. Many were half starved.

Swirling chalky dust had whitened sweat-soaked beards,
adding grotesquerie to the scene. It would not have been
hard to believe these were tottering veterans of 1898, re-
turned to the battlegrounds of their youth.

We stood for more than an hour in the scalding heat while
the search, with its beating and sluggings, was completed.
Then the Jap guards began pulling some of the huskiest of
our number out of line. These were assembled into labor
gangs, to remain in the area.

I doubt that many of them survived the hail of steel Cor-
regidor's guns later laid down on the beaches and foothills

' '

of Bataan. These were men who for months had faced Ameri-
can iron, thrown at them by Jap guns.

Now, it appeared, they were to die under American iron
thrown into their midst by American guns. As the remainder
of us were marched off the field our places were taken by
other hundreds of prisoners who were to follow us on the
Death March from Bataan.

We turned eastward on the national highway, which crosses

PRISONERS BEGIN DEAJH MARCH
OF BATAAN ON APRIL 10, 1942

*+*

LOSCONCHINOS**

MONJAt*

the southern tip of Bataan to Cabcaben and Bataan airfield,
then veers northward through Lamao, Balanga, and Orani.
From there it runs northeastward to San Fernando, the rail
junction and banking town in Pampanga province.

Ordinarily, the trip from Mariveles to Cabcaben field is a
beautiful one with the grandeur of high greenclad mountains
on the north and a view of the sea on the right. The white of
the road contrasts pleasantly with the deep green of the trop-
ical growth on either side.

But on this day there was no beauty. Coming toward us
were seemingly interminable columns of Jap infantry, truck

7*

trains, and horse-drawn artillery, all moving into Bataan for
a concentrated assault on Corregidor. They stirred up clouds
of blinding dust in which all shape and form were lost.

Every few yards Jap noncoms materialized like gargoyles
from the grayish white pall and snatched Americans out of
line to be searched and beaten. Before we had gone two miles
we had been stripped of practically all our personal posses-
sions.

The Japs made no move to feed us. Few of us had had
anything to eat since the morning of April 9. Many had
tasted no food in four days. We had a little tepid water in our
canteens, but nothing else.

The ditches on either side of the road were filled with
overturned and wrecked American army trucks, fire-gutted
tanks, and artillery our forces had rendered unusable. At in-
tervals we saw mounds of captured food, bearing familiar
trademarks. These had fallen almost undamaged into Jap
hands.

As we marched along I rounded up the no officers and
men of the 2 ist Pursuit. I didn't know yet what the score was,
but I felt we would be in a better position to help one an-
other and keep up morale if we were together.

We hadn't walked far when the rumor factory opened up.
In a few minutes it was in mass production. There were all
kinds of reports: We were going to Manila and Old Bilibid
prison. We were going to San Fernando and entrain for a
distant concentration camp. Trucks were waiting just ahead
to pick us up. We doubted the last rumor, but hoped it was
true.

The sun was nearing the zenith now. The penetrating heat
seemed to search out and dissipate the small stores of strength
remaining within us. The road, which until this moment had
been fairly level, rose sharply in a zigzag grade. We were
nearing Little Baguio.

I was marching with head down and eyes squinted for the
dual purpose of protecting myself as much as possible from
the dust and glare and keeping watch on the Jap guards who
walked beside and among us. Halfway up the hill we reached

73

a level stretch where a Japanese senior officer and his staff
were seated at a camp table upon which were spread maps
and dispatches.

As I came abreast he saw me and shouted something that
sounded like, "Yoy!" He extended his hand, palm downward/
and opened and closed the fingers rapidly. This meant I
was to approach him. I pretended I didn't see him. He
shouted again as I kept on walking. His third "Yoy!" vibrated
with anger. The next I knew a soldier snatched me out of
line and shoved me toward the table.

"Name!" shouted the officer. He was staring at the wings
on my uniform. "You fly?"

I told him my name without mentioning my rank and said
I had been a pilot.

"Where you planes?"

"All shot down." I made a downward, spinning motion
with my hand.

"No at Cebu? No at Mindanao?"

"No Gebu. No Mindanao."

"Yaah. Lie! We know you got planes. We see. Sometimes
one . . , two . , . sometimes three, four, five. Where you air-
fields?"

I shook my head again and made the spinning motion with,
my hand. But I located the airfields for him on his map. I
pointed to Cabcaben, Bataan, and Mariveles. He knew about
these, of course. He made an impatient gesture*

"One more. Secret field!"

"Nope. No secret field."

"True?"

"Yes. True."

"Where are tunnel? Where are underwater tunnel from
Mariveles to Corregidor? Where are tunnels on Corregidor
Rock?" He held the map toward me.

"I don't know of any tunnels. No tunnels; no place. I never
was on Gorregidor. I was only at Nichols field and Bataan/ 1

"You flying officer and you never at Corregidor Rock!" His
eyes were slits. His staff officers were angry, too. "LIEl"
he shrieked and jumped up.

74

He was powerfully built, as are most Jap officers. He
seized my shoulder and whirled me around with a quick twist
that almost dislocated my arm. Then came a violent shove
that sent me staggering toward the line. I expected a bullet
to follow the push, but I didn't dare look back. This would
have been inviting them to shoot. As I reached the marching
line, the officer shouted something else. The guards shoved
me and motioned that I should catch up with my group.

I wanted to be with them, but the double quick up the
hill in the scalding heat and dust almost finished me. I had
the thought, too, that the guards I passed might get the idea
I was trying to escape. My bullet expectancy was so high
it made my backside tingle from scalp to heels. I caught up
as we were passing through Little Baguio. In a short time
we were abreast the blackened ruins of Hospital No. i,
which had been bombed heavily a couple of days before.

Among the charred debris, sick and wounded American
soldiers were walking dazedly about. There was no place for
them to go.

Their only clothes were hospital pajama suits and kimonos.
Here and there a man was stumping about on one leg and a
crutch. Some had lost one or both arms. All were in need of
fresh dressings. And all obviously were suffering from the
shock of the bombing.

They looked wonderingly at the column of prisoners.
When the Jap officers saw them, these shattered Americans
were rounded up and shoved into the marching line. All of
them tried to walk, but only a few were able to keep it up/
Those who fell were kicked aside by the Japs.

The Japs forbade us to help these men. Those who tried it
were kicked, slugged, or jabbed with bayonet points by the
guards who stalked with us in twos and threes.

For more than a mile these bomb-shocked cripples stum-
bled along with us. Their shoulders were bent and the sweat
streamed from their faces. I can never forget the hopelessness
in their eyes.

Eventually their strength ebbed and they began falling

75

back through the marching ranks. I don't know what became
of them.

About a mile east of the hospital we encountered a major
traffic jam. On either side of the congested road hundreds of
Jap soldiers were unloading ammunition and equipment.

Our contingent of more than 600 American and Filipino
prisoners filtered through, giving the Japs as wide a berth as
the limited space permitted. This was to avoid being searched,
slugged, or pressed into duty as cargadores [burden carriers].

Through the swirling dust we could see a long line of
trucks, standing bumper to bumper. There were hundreds of
them. And every last one was an American make. I saw Fords
which predominated Chevrolets, GMCs, and others.

These were not captured trucks. They bore Jap army in-
signia and had been landed from the ships of the invasion
fleet. It is hard to describe what we felt at seeing these fa-
miliar American machines, filled with jeering, snarling Japs.
It was a sort of super-sinking feeling. We had become ac-
customed to having American iron thrown at us by the Japs,
but this was a little too much.

Eventually the road became so crowded we were marched
into a clearing. Here, for two hours, we had our first taste of
the oriental sun treatment, which drains the stamina and
weakens the spirit.

The Japs seated us on the scorching ground, exposed to the
full glare of the sun. Many of the Americans and Filipinos
had no covering to protect their heads. I was beside a small
bush, but it cast no shade because the sun was almost directly
above us. Many of the men around me were ill.

When I thought I could stand the penetrating heat no
longer, I was determined to have a sip of the tepid water in
my canteen. I had no more than unscrewed the top when the
aluminum flask was snatched from my hands. The Jap who
had crept up behind me poured the water into a horse's nose-
bag, then threw down the canteen. He walked on among the
prisoners, taking away their water and pouring it into the
bag. When he had enough he gave it to his horse.

Whether by accident or design we had been put just

76

across the road from a pile of canned and boxed food. We
were famished, but it seemed worse than useless to ask the
Japs for anything. An elderly American colonel did, however.
He crossed the road and after pointing to the food and to the
drooping prisoners, he went through the motions of eating.

A squat Jap officer grinned at him and picked up a can of
salmon. Then he smashed it against the colonel's head, open-
ing the American's cheek from eye to jawbone. The officer
staggered and turned back toward us, wiping the blood off.

It seemed as though the Japs had been waiting for just
such a brutal display to end the scene. They ordered us to
our feet and herded us back into the road.

We knew now the Japs would respect neither age nor rank.
Their ferocity grew as we marched on into the afternoon.
They no longer were content with mauling stragglers or
pricking them with bayonet points. The thrusts were in-
tended to kill.

We had marched about a mile after the sun treatment
when I stumbled over a man writhing in the hot dust of the
road. He was a Filipino soldier who had been bayoneted
through the stomach. Within a quarter of a mile I walked
past another. This soldier prisoner had been rolled into the
path of the trucks and crushed beneath the heavy wheels.

The huddled and smashed figures beside the road eventu-
ally became commonplace to us. The human mind has an
amazing faculty of adjusting itself to shock. In this case it
may have been that heat and misery had numbed our senses.
We remained keenly aware, however, that these murders
might well be precursors of our own, if we should falter or

As we straggled past Hospital No. 2 the Japs were setting
up artillery and training it on Corregidor. The thick jungle
hid the hospital itself, but we could see that guns were all
around it. The Japs regarded this as master strategy; the Rock
would not dare return their fire. I wondered what the con-
cussion of the heavy guns would do to the stricken men in
the hospital wards. The cannonade began after we had passed
by.

77

A few minutes later a violent blow on the head almost sent
me to my knees. I thought one of the Jap guns had made a
direct hit on me. My steel helmet jammed down over my eyes
with a clang that made my ears ring. I pulled it clear and
staggered around to see a noncommissioned Jap brandishing
a club the size of a child's baseball bat. He was squealing
and pointing to the dented helmet. He lifted the club again.
I threw the helmet into the ditch and he motioned me to
march on. Like many of my comrades, I now was without
protection against the merciless sun.

Jap artillery was opening up all along the southern tip of
Bataan. The area behind us re-echoed to the thud and crash
of heavy gunfire. Grayish smoke puffs speckled Corregidor's
sides. The Rock was blasting back at the Japs, but most of
its shells were falling in the Mariveles region whence we had
come.

At sundown we crossed Cabcaben airfield, from which our
planes had taken off not thirty-nine hours before. Here again
Jap artillery was going into action. We were marched across
the field and halted inside a rice paddy beyond. We had had
no food or water, and none was offered, but we were grateful
of the opportunity to lie down on the earth and rest. The
guards kept to the edges of the paddy, leaving us plenty of
room.

I was just dropping off when there came an outburst of
yelling and screeching. The Japs had charged in among us
and were kicking us to our feet. They herded us back to the
road and started marching us eastward again. During the
brief respite leg muscles had stiffened. Walking was torture.

It was dark when we marched across Bataan field, which
with Cabcaben field I had commanded two days before. It
was difficult walking in the darkness. Now and again we
passed the huddled forms of men who had collapsed from
fatigue or had been bayoneted. I didn't kid myself that I was
safe simply because I was keeping up the pace. I would not
have been surprised at any time to feel a Jap blade slide be-
tween my ribs. The bloodthirsty devils now were killing us
for diversion.

73

The march continued until about 10 P.M. When we were
halted some naive individual started a rumor that we were to
be given water. Instead we were about-faced and marched
back to the westward. For two more hours we stumbled over
the ground we had just covered.

It was midnight when we recrossed Bataan field and kept
going. We were within a short distance of Cabcaben field
when the Japs diverted the line into a tiny rice paddy. There
was no room to lie down. Some of us tried to rest in a half
squat. Others drew up their knees and laid their heads on
the legs of the men next to them. Jap guards stood around
the edges of the little field, their feet almost touching the
outer fringe of men.

I heard a cry, followed by thudding blows at one side of the
paddy. An American soldier so tortured by the thirst that he
could not sleep had asked a Jap guard for water. The Jap
fell on him with his fists, then slugged him into insensibility
with a rifle butt.

The thirst of all had become almost unbearable, but re-
membering what had happened to the colonel earlier in the
day we asked for nothing. A Jap officer walked along just
after the thirsty soldier had been beaten. He appeared sur-
prised that we wanted water. However, He permitted several
Americans to collect canteens from their comrades and fill
them at a stagnant carabao wallow which had been addition-
ally befouled by seeping sea water. We held our noses to shut
out the nauseating reek, but we drank all the water we could
get.

At dawn of the second day the impatient Japs stepped
among and upon us, kicking us into wakefulness. We were
hollow-eyed and as exhausted as we had been when we went
to sleep. As we stumbled into the road we passed a Jap non-
commissioned officer who was eating meat and rice.

"Pretty soon you eat," he told us.

The rising sun cast its blinding light into our eyes as we
marched. The temperature rose by the minute. Noon came
and .went. The midday heat was searing. At i P.M. the col-
umn was halted and Jap noncoms told American and Fill-

79

pino soldiers they might fill their canteens from a dirty pud-
dle Beside the road. There was no food.

During the afternoon traffic picked up again. Troop-laden
trucks sped past us. A grimacing Jap leaned far out, hold-
ing his rifle by the barrel. As the truck roared by he knocked
an American soldier senseless with the gun's stock. Other
Japs saw this and yelled. From now on we kept out of reach
if we could. Several more American and Filipino prisoners
were struck down.

At 2 P.M. we were told it would be necessary to segregate
the prisoners as to rank; colonels together, majors together,
and so on. This separated all units from their officers and
afforded opportunity for another hour of sun treatment.
There was no mention of food.

The line of march was almost due north now. We reached
Balanga, about twenty miles from Cabcaben field, at sun-
down. We were marched into the courtyard of a large prison-
like structure, dating to the Spanish days, and told we would
eat, then spend the night there.

At one side of the yard food was bubbling in great
caldrons. Rice and soy sauce were boiling together. Jap
kitchen corpsmen were opening dozens o cans and dumping
Vienna sausage into the savory mess. The aromatic steam that
drifted over from those pots had us almost crazy. While we
waited we were given a little water.

We imagined the rice and sausages were for us, though we
saw hundreds of ragged and sick Filipinos behind a barbed
wire barricade near-by who had only filthy, fly-covered rice
to feat. After drinking we were ordered into the line for what
appeared to be a routine search. When it was finished an
officer shouted something and the attitude of our guards
swiftly changed.

They ordered us out of the patio and lined us up in a field
across the road. As we left, grinning Japs held up steaming
ladies .of sausage and rice. The officer followed us to the field,
then began stamping up and down, spouting denunciations
and abuse. When he calmed enough to be understood w/>
heard this:

80

Prisoners
"Sun Treatment"

AIR FIELD
>SP!TAL NO. 2
HOSPITAL NO. I

Scale of Mite
5 10

15-

-8-1

"When you came here you were told you would eat and
be let to sleep. Now that is changed. We have found pistols
concealed among three American officers. In punishment for
these offenses you will not be given food. You will march to
Orani (five miles to the north) before you sleep."

The accusation was a lie. If a pistol had been found, the
owner would have been shot, beaten to death, or beheaded
on the spot Besides, we knew that the searchers hadn't over-
looked even a toothbrush, to say nothing of a pistol. The Japs
simply were adding mental torture to the physical. The Jap
officer saw he wasn't believed. He did just what a Jap might
be expected to do. Shortly after we resumed the march a staff
car pulled up beside us.

Three American officers were dragged out of line and
thrown into it. This in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan's
Pooh Bah was "corroborative detail, intended to lend artistic
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narra-
tive." We never saw the three officers again, though it is not
hard to guess their fate. Men who had stood near two of them
during the search said no guns had been found.

Our guards had been increased for the night march, and
rigid discipline was imposed. We were formed into columns
of fours. A new set of guards came up on bicycles and we
were forced to walk practically at double quick to keep up.
After two hours these guards were replaced by a group on
foot who walked slowly with short mincing steps. The change
of gait so cramped our leg muscles that walking was agony.

We had learned by rough experience that efforts to assist
our failing comrades served usually to hasten their deaths and
add to our own misery and peril. So we tried the next best
thing encouraging them with words. Talking had not been
forbidden.

It was during a period of slow marching that an old friend,
a captain in the medical corps, began dropping back through
the ranks. Presently he was beside me. It was plain he was
just about done in. I said:

"Hello, Doc. Taking a walk?"

82

"Ed/' he said slowly, "I can't go another kilometer. A little
farther and I'm finished."

"Well, Doc, I'm about in the same fix," I told him. Nothing
more was said until we had covered two or three kilometers.
Every now and then Doc would begin to lag a little. When
this happened, the fellow on the other side of Doc would
join me in slipping back some and giving him a little shove
with our shoulders. He always took the hint and stepped up.
At length he spoke again.

"I'm done, Ed. You fellows forget me and go on. I can't
make another kilometer."

"I don't think I can either, Doc. I feel just about as you
do."

That was the way we passed the night. Kilometer after
kilometer crawled by, but Doc didn't fall out. If he had, his
bones would be bleaching now spmewhere along that road
of death that led out of Bataan.

The hours dragged by and, as we knew they must, the
drop-outs began. It seemed that a great many of the prisoners
reached the end of their endurance at about the same time.
They went down by twos and threes. Usually, they made an
effort to rise. I never can forget their groans and strangled
breathing as they tried to get up. Some succeeded. Others
lay lifelessly where they had fallen.

I observed that the Jap guards paid no attention to these.
I wondered why. The explanation wasn't long in coming.
There was a sharp crackle of pistol and rifle fire behind us.

Skulking along, a hundred yards behind our contingent,
came a "clean-up squad" of murdering Jap buzzards. Their
helpless victims, sprawled darkly against the white of the
road, were easy targets.

As members of the murder squad stooped over each hud-
dled form, there would be an orange flash in the darkness and
a sharp report. The bodies were left where they lay, that
other prisoners coming behind us might see them.

Our Japanese guards enjoyed the spectacle in silence for
a time. Eventually, one of them who spoke English felt he
should add a little spice to the entertainment.

"Sleepee?" he asked. "You want sleep? Just lie down on
road. You get good, long sleep!"

On through the night we were followed by orange flashes
and thudding shots.

CHAPTER SIX

AT 3 A.M. OF APRIL 12, 1942 the second day after our sur-
renderwe arrived half dead at Orani, in northeastern
Bataan, after a twenty-one-hour march from Cabcaben near
the peninsula's southern tip. That thirty-mile hike over rough
and congested roads had lasted almost from dawn to dawn.

It would have been an ordeal for well men. Added to the
strength-sapping heat and blinding dust were the cruelties
devised by the Jap guards. Considering our condition, I often
wonder how we made it. We had had no food in days.
Chronic exhaustion seemed to have possessed us. Many were
sick. I know men who never could remember arriving at
Orani. They were like Zombies the walking dead of the
Caribbean.

Near the center of the town the Japs ordered us off the
road to a barbed wire compound a block away. It had been
intended for five hundred men. Our party numbered more
than six hundred. Already in it, however, were more than
1,500 Americans and Filipinos.

The stench of the place reached us long before we entered
it. Hundreds of the prisoners were suffering from dysentery.
Human waste covered the ground. The shanty that had
served as a latrine no longer was usable as such.

Maggots were in sight everywhere. There was no room to
lie down. We tried to sleep sitting up, but the aches of ex-
haustion seemed to have penetrated even into our bones.

Jap soldiers told us there would be rice during the morn-
ing. We paid no attention. We not only didn't believe them,
we were too miserable to care. The sun came up like a blaz-
ing ball in a copper sky. With the first shafts of yellow light
the temperature started up and, it seemed to me, the vile
stench of the compound grew in intensity. Breathing the
heavy heated air was physically painful.

I remember pondering that even if we had firearms none
of us would be capable of using them. We were succumbing
to the oriental tortures that subdue men, break their spirits,
and reduce them below the level of animals.

As the sun climbed higher, Americans and Filipinos alike
grew delirious. Their wild shouts and thrashings about dis-
sipated their ebbing energy. They began lapsing into coma.
For some it was the end. Starvation, exhaustion, and abuse
had been too much for their weakened bodies. Brief coma
was followed by merciful death. I had a blinding headache
from the heat, glare, and stench. Several times I thought my
senses were slipping.

When it was observed that men were dying, Japanese non-
commissioned officers entered the compound and ordered the
Americans to drag out the bodies and bury them. We were
told to put the delirious ones into a thatched shed a few hun-
dred feet away. When this had been done the grave digging
began.

We thought we had seen every atrocity the Japs could offer,
but we were wrong. The shallow trenches had been com-
pleted. The dead were being rolled into them. Just then an
American soldier and two Filipinos were carried out of the
compound. They had been delirious. Now they were in a
coma. A Jap noncom stopped the bearers and tipped the un-
conscious men into the trench.

The Japs then ordered the burial detail to fill it up. The
Filipinos lay lifelessly in the hole. As the earth began falling
about the American, he revived and tried to climb out. His
fingers gripped the edge of the grave. He hoisted himself to
a standing position.

Two Jap guards placed bayonets at the throat of a Filipino

5

on the burial detail. They gave him an order. When he
hesitated they pressed the bayonet points hard against his
neck. The Filipino raised a stricken face to the sky. Then he
brought his shovel down upon the head of his American com-
rade, who fell backward to the bottom of the grave. The
burial detail filled it up.

For many of those who had been taken into the shade of
the thatched shed the respite came too late. One by one their
babblings ceased and their bodies twisted into the grotesque
postures that mark a corpse as far as it can be seen.

During the long afternoon, stupor served as an anesthetic
for most of the prisoners in the compound. There was no
food. Toward evening the Japs allowed Americans to gather
canteens and fill them at an artesian well. It was the first
good water we'd had. Night brought relief from the heat,
though there still was no room to lie down, despite the num-
ber of dead and delirious removed from the compound.

Dawn of April 13 our fourth day since leaving Mariveles
seemed to come in the middle of the night. Its magnificent
colors and flaming splendor meant to us only the beginning
of new sufferings. We averted our heads as the coppery light
flooded our filthy prison. The temperature seemed to rise a
degree a minute.

At 10 A.M., just as I was wondering how I could get
through another day, there was a stir at the gates. Guards
filed in and began lining us up in rows. Out of one of the
dirty buildings came kitchen corpsmen, dragging cans of
sticky gray rice which they ladled out one ladleful to each
man. Those of us who had mess kits loaned the lids to men
who had none. There were not enough kits and lids to go
around, so some of the prisoners had to receive their dole in
cupped hands. The portion given each man was equivalent
to a saucer or small plate of rice.

The food was unappetizing and was eaten in the worst pos-
sible surroundings, but it was eaten. Make no mistake about
that. It was our first in many a day. I began feeling stronger
immediately, despite the growing heat There was not enough

86

of the rice, however, to stay delirium and coma for the weaker
prisoners. There were those for whom it came too late. Scenes
of the previous afternoon were repeated. There were bab-
blings and crazy shouts. There were additional burials in
shallow graves.

The rest of us passed the afternoon in stupor. We contin-
ued to sit while the sun dropped behind the western moun-
tains. In the twilight we were ordered to our feet. It still was
light as we were marched out of the compound, toward the
road. We looked at the artesian well, but the Japs warned us
not to try to fill our canteens.

During the next four hours of marching we were tortured
by the sound of bubbling water. Artesian wells lined the
road. It seemed to me I could smell water. But we knew a
bullet or a bayonet awaited the man who might try to reach
the wells.

About midnight rain started falling. It was chilling, but it
cleansed the filth from our stinging bodies and relieved the
agony of parched dryness. Those with mess kits or canteen
cups held them up toward the rain as they walked. The rain
lasted about fifteen minutes and we shared the water with
those who had no receptacles.

We were refreshed for a time, but as the grinding march
continued men began falling down. The energy derived from
the morning rice and the few swallows of rain water had been
depleted. When I saw the first man go down I began counting
the seconds. I wondered whether the Jap buzzard squad was
following us as it had two nights before the night of April

11.

A flash and the crack of a shot answered my question. The
executioners were on the job to kill or wound mortally every
prisoner who fell out of the inarching line. All through the
night there were occasional shots* I didn't count them. I
couldn't.

Just before daybreak the guards halted the column and
ordered us to sit down. I felt like a fighter who has been saved
by the bell. The ground was damp and cool. I slept. Two

87

hours later we were prodded into wakefulness and ordered
to get up. The sun had risen.

Our course was northeasterly now and we were leaving
the mountains and Bataan behind. The country in which we
found ourselves was flat and marshy. There were small rivers
and creeks and many rice paddies. This was Pampanga prov-
ince.

I was somewhat refreshed by the rest, though walking now
was much more difficult. Our stay on the damp ground had
caused leg muscles to set like concrete. Even my bones seemed
to ache. This was the cool of the morning, yet my throat
still was afire with thirst.

And just across the road bubbled an artesian well. Its
splashing was plainly audible and the clear water, glistening
in the morning sun, was almost too much for my self-control.
I thought once if I could reach that well and gulp all the
water I wanted the Japs could shoot me and welcome. The
next minute I told myself I was balmy even to entertain such
a thought.

The Japs were aware of the well and they must have
known what was passing through our minds. I have no doubt
that they were expecting the thing that happened now. A
Filipino soldier darted from the ranks and ran toward the
well. Two others followed him. Two more followed these,
then a sixth broke from the ranks.

Jap guards all along the line raised their rifles and waited
for the six to scramble into the grassy ditch and go up on the
opposite side, a few feet from the well. Most of the Filipinos
fell at the first volley. Two of them, desperately wounded,
kept inching toward the water, their hands outstretched. The
Japs fired again and again, until all six lay dead. Thus did
our fifth day of the death march start with a blood bath* I
needed all the control I could muster.

Men had been murdered behind me all night, but the
deeds had been veiled by darkness. There had been nothing
to veil the pitilessness and wantonness of the murders I had
just seen. I walked a long time with my head down and my

88

Where GviHans

Tried to Slip Food

fo Prisoners

Captives Reach Orani
After 21 -hour March

fists clenched in my pockets, fighting to think of nothing at
all.

I was partly successful, enough so that from then on I prac-
ticed detaching myself from the scenes about me. I have no

8q

doubt my cultivated ability to do this saved my sanity on
more than one occasion in the days to come. I remember
little of the two miles we walked after the six murders at the
well. We were at the outskirts of Lubao, a sprawling city of
30,000, before mutterings about me brought me back to earth
to look upon a new horror.

I saw that all eyes were directed toward an object hanging
on a barbed wire fence that paralleled the road* It had been
a Filipino soldier. The victim had been bayoneted. His abdo-
men was open. The bowels had been wrenched loose and
were hanging like great grayish purple ropes along the strands
of wire that supported the mutilated body.

This was a Japanese object lesson, of course. But it carried
terrible implications. The Japs apparently had wearied of
mere shootings and simple bayonetings. These had served
only to whet the barbaric appetite. What might lie ahead for
all of us we could only guess.

These thoughts still were in mind as our scarecrow proces-
sion began passing through the rough streets of Lubao. We
were in a residential section. Windows of homes were filled
with faces turned to us that bore compassionate expressions.
News of our arrival raced down the street ahead of us.

Presently from the upper windows of a large house a
shower of food fell among us. It was followed quickly by other
gifts, tossed surreptitiously by sympathetic Filipinos who
stood on the sidewalks. There were bits of bread, rice cookies,
lumps of sugar and pieces of chocolate. There were cigarettes.

The Jap guards went into a frenzy. They struck out right
and left at the Good Samaritans, slugging, beating, and jab-
bing bayonets indiscriminately. Japs tried to stamp on all the
food that hadn't been picked up. They turned their rage
upon us. When the townsfolk saw their gifts were only add-
ing to our misery they stopped throwing them.

Some Filipinos asked the Jap officers if they might not help
us. The petitioners were warned to stay away. I recall a mer-
chant who wanted to open his store to us. We could have
anything we wanted free, he said. A Jap officer denounced
him, warned him to keep his distance; This was at San Tomas

or Santa Monica, the two small settlements between Lubao
and Guagua, about three miles to the northeast.

In Guagua the Filipino civilians also tried to slip food to
us. For that they were beaten and clubbed as we were. We
passed through the hot streets without a halt.

Our next stop, just outside the city of Guagua, came near
being a permanent one for me. At a long, muddy ditch we
were allowed to dip up drinking water. After canteens had
been filled I determined to soak my aching feet in the ooze
at the ditch's edge. I was doing so when the order to resume
the march was sounded unexpectedly. Putting on my shoes
delayed me a few seconds.

I heard a guard shout in my direction, but I continued to
struggle with the footgear. When I looked up the guard was
raising his rifle. I snatched my shoes and plunged through the
ditch toward the column of prisoners. I dodged from side to
side with a prickling feeling all over my back. But the bullet
didn't come. The guard probably would have missed the
Japs are bum shots but I didn't think so then.

As I fell in step beside Doc, he pointed toward an officer
just ahead of us. This was Captain Burt, who had given the
alarm on our last night at Bataan field. He was eating a long
sugar lump he had managed to secrete.

"I'm glad somebody got something," Doc said.

But in a minute or two Burt had dropped back beside us
and was holding out the sugar. We each took a bite and tried
to give it back. Burt shook his head.

"Split it, fellows," he said. "I've already had more than
that."

I've never had such a quick reaction from anything.
Strength flowed into me. I told Doc I felt as if I'd had a tur-
key dinner. This was an exaggeration, of course, but it illus-
trates what just a little food would have done for all of us.
The Japs were starving us deliberately.

We neared San Fernando, Pampanga province, during the
afternoon of our fifth day's march. It was at San Fernando,
according to rumor, that we were to be put aboard a train and
carried to a concentration camp.

From among the six hundred and more American and Fili-
pino military prisoners who had started with me from Mari-
veles, many familiar faces were missing. We had come almost
eighty-five miles with nothing to eat except the one ladle of
rice given to us more than twenty-four hours before.

We had struck the railroad at Guagua and now could see
the tracks which ran alongside the highway, amid the lush
vegetation of the flat, marshy countryside. We could have en-
trained an hour before. I doubted, therefore, that the railroad
figured in the Japs' plans for us. I was becoming certain that
this was to be a march to the death for all of us. And the
events of the next quarter hour did nothing to banish this
belief.

Just ahead of me, in the afternoon heat, were two Ameri-
can enlisted men, stumbling along near the point of collapse.
I wasn't in much better shape. At this moment we came
abreast of a calasa [covered cart] which had stopped beside
the road.

An American colonel who also had been watching the two
enlisted men, observed that no Jap guard was near us. He
drew the two soldiers out of line and helped them into the
cart, then got in also. The Filipino driver tapped his pony.
The cart had moved only a few feet when the trick was dis-
covered.

Yammering Jap guards pulled the three Americans from
the cart and dragged the Filipino from the driver's seat. A
stocky Jap noncommissioned officer seized the heavy horse-
whip. The enlisted men were flogged first. The crackling lash
slashed their faces and tore their clothing. The searing pain
revived them for a moment. Then they fell to the ground.
The blows thudded upon their bodies. They lost conscious-
ness.

The colonel was next. He stood his punishment a long
time. His fortitude enraged the Jap, who put all his strength
behind the lash. When the American officer finally dropped
to his knees his face was so crisscrossed with bloody welts it
was unrecognizable.

The trembling Filipino driver fell at the first cut of the

9*

whip. He writhed on the ground. The lash tore his shirt and
the flesh beneath it. His face was lacerated and one eye swol-
len shut. When the whipper grew weary, he ordered the
driver on his way. The colonel, bleeding and staggering, was
kicked back into the line o American prisoners.

I don't know what became of the enlisted men. I never saw
them again. During the remaining two miles we marched to
San Fernando I listened for shots, but heard none. The sol-
diers probably were bayoneted.

The sun still was high in the sky when we straggled into
San Fernando, a city of 36,000 population, and were put in a
barbed wire compound similar to the one at Orani. We were
seated in rows for a continuation of the sun treatment. Con-
ditions here were the worst yet.

The prison pen was jammed with sick, dying, and dead
American and Filipino soldiers. They were sprawled amid
the filth and maggots that covered the ground. Practically all
had dysentery. Malaria and dengue fever appeared to be
running unchecked. There were symptoms of other tropical
diseases I didn't even recognize.

Jap guards had shoved the worst cases beneath the rotted
flooring of some dilapidated building. Many of these prison-
ers already had died. The others looked as though they
couldn't survive until morning.

There obviously had been no burials for many hours.

After sunset Jap soldiers entered and inspected our rows.
Then the gate was opened again and kitchen corpsmen en-
tered with cans of rice. We held our mess kits and again
passed lids to those who had none. Our spirits rose. We
watched as the Japs ladled out generous helpings to the men
nearest the gate.

Then, without explanation, the cans were dragged away
and the gate was closed. It was a repetition of the ghastly farce
at Balanga. The fraud was much more cruel this time because
our need was vastly greater. In our bewildered state it took
some time for the truth to sink in. When it did we were too
discouraged even to swear.

We put our mess kits away and tried to get some sleep. But

the Japs had something more in store for us. There was an
outburst of shrill whooping and yelling, then the guards
poured into the compound with fixed bayonets. They feinted
at the nearest prisoners with the sharp points.

Those of us who were able rose to our feet in alarm. Evi-
dently we did not appear sufficiently frightened. The Japs
outside the compound jeered the jokesters within. One Jap
then made a running lunge and drove his bayonet through
an American soldier's thigh.

This stampeded several other prisoners who trampled the
sick and dying men on the ground. Some prisoners tripped
and fell and were trampled by their comrades. The Japs left,
laughing. There was little sleep that night. The stench was
almost unbearable. Hundreds of prisoners were kept awake
by sheer weariness. There were shouts of delirium. There was
moaning. There were the sounds of men gasping their last.

At dawn of April 15, 1942, the sixth day of our ordeal, we
were kicked to our feet by Jap guards and ordered to get out
of the compound. The Japs did not even make a pretense of
giving us food or water. Our canteens had been empty for
hours. Only muddy scum inside them reminded us that we
had filled them at the ditch outside Guagua the afternoon
before.

Enough prisoners had been brought out of the compound
to form five companies of 1 15 men each. In this formation we
were marched to a railroad siding several blocks away where
stood five ancient, ramshackle boxcars. None of these could
have held more than fifty men in comfort. Now 115 men were
packed into each car and the doors were pulled shut and
locked from the outside.

There was no room to move. We stood jammed together
because there wasn't sufficient floor space to permit sitting. As
the day wore on and the sun climbed higher the heat inside
the boxcars grew to oven-like intensity. It was so hot that the
air we breathed seemed to scorch our throats.

There was little ventilation, only narrow, screened slits at
the ends of the cars. A large per cent of the prisoners was
suffering from dysentery. The atmosphere was foul beyond

94

description. Men began to faint. Some went down from weak-
ness. They lay at our feet, face down in the filth that covered
the floor boards.

After a seemingly interminable wait the train started with
a jerk. A jolting, rocking ride began. Many of the prisoners
in the boxcar in which I stood were seized by nausea, adding
to the vile state of our rolling cell. The ride lasted more than
three hours. Later I heard that a number of men had died in
each of the five cars. I don't know. I was too far gone to notice
much at the journey's end.

When the doors were opened, someone, I can't remember
who, said we had reached Capas, a town in Tarlac province,
and that we were headed for O'Donnell prison camp named
for the town of O'Donnell.

When the prisoners tumbled out into the glaring sunlight
the wretchedness of their condition brought cries of com-
passion from Filipino civilians who lined the tracks. The surly
Jap guards silenced these sympathetic voices with stern warn-
ings.

We were marched several hundred yards down the tracks
to a plot of bare scorching ground amid the tropical under-
growth. It was another sun treatment. There was no breeze.
The ground was almost too hot to touch. The heat dried the
filth into our pores. .

The Jap guards formed a picket wall around us to forestall
the friendly Filipinos who had come to give us food and
water. Some of these, however, hurled their offerings over
the heads of the Japs, hoping they would fall into our midst.
Then they took to the bush, outrunning the guards who pur-
sued them.

We sat for two hours in the little clearing before the Japs
ordered us to our feet. A seven-mile hike to O'Donnell prison
was ahead of us. As we filed into the narrow dirt road that
wound through the green walls of the jungle, it became ob-
vious that more than a fourth of our number never would be
able to make it.

We expected mass murder of those too weak to walk. In-
stead, the Jap officers indicated the stronger ones might assist

95

LUZON
ISLAND

REACH PRISON CAMP
IN 7 MILE HIKE

WHERE PRISONERS

WERE JAMMED INSIDE

BOX CARS ON 6TH DAY

JAP HORSEWHIPS

3 AMERICANS ON 5TH

DAY OF MARCH

ROUTE TAKB4
BY PRISONERS

BY MARCH
BY RAM.

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess

-". S. Army Air Forces Photo

Officers' Mess at Bataan Field
Lt. Col. (then Capt.) Dyess second from end on left side of table.

nrr^o^ r* i v -rt - . u - S ' Arm y A * r forces Photo

Dyess Celebrates Raid

Capt. Dyess and Lt. "Lefty" Eades eat hot cakes cooked by the late
Brig. Gen. (then Col.) Harold H. Georcrp y e

U. S. Army Air Forces Photo

Captain Dyess after His Bombing Raid in Subic Bay
(Bataan Field, March 3, 1942).

V. S. Army Air Forces Photo

A Shelter near Bataan Field

Col. George in front of shack. Capt. Dyess lived in such a shelter
in the early spring: of

Photograph from European

Major General King and His Staff after Capture by the Japanese

. T

Photograph from European

Prisoners Being Disarmed by the Japanese at Mariveles

Articles Carried on Death March

Crucifix and other possessions of Lt. Col. Dyess. The tobacco
can was his billfold.

Dyess Trophy: a Moro Kris

This deadly weapon, brought back by Lt. Col. Dyess, is on
display in his home town, Albany. Texas.

The Dyess Diary

In this diary was kept a day by day record of events
during the escape from the 'Japanese,

Captain Samuel C. Grashio

Capt. Grashio fought alongside Col. Dyess and escaped with him.
He holds a native Filipino dagger.

Priaon tep ;&. 2,

ARMY

!. . I am iftonrd at \^
2, My hrilth k fxtrilent;

I *m

fair; poor.

v

; brtter;

' " '

pvr

^%^A::^^c^4fry^

A Message from the Prison Camp
Photostatic copy of first card sent, from Prison Camp No. 2, to Mrs. Dyess.

Signal Corps Photo

General MacArthur Greets Escaped Heroes

Left to right: Lt. Col. Dyess, Lt. Comdr. M. H. McCoy,
Gen. MacArthur', Major S. M. Mellnik.

Tostal Tthq

tosiia-*. v

it? mt& t

.ff

*^ VIA .

Dyess's Cablegram Announcing Escape

The Prison Food
Typical food provided in prison camps.

Co,

How He Downed a
ChHs Me yer , in

it

Colonel Dyess in Hospital

Col. C. M. Beck, commander of military hospital at White
Sulphur Springs, with Lt. Col. Dyess.

Dyess Relates His Experiences
Other wounded officers in hosoital listen to the Dyess story.

In the Summer of 1 943

Mrs. Marajen Dyess (left), Mrs. Elizabeth Nell Denman, Dyess's
sister, and Mrs. Vicellio at Champaign, 111.

At White Sulphur
Photographer Swain Scalf, Mrs. Dyess, Col. Dyess, and Charles Leavelle.

the weaker ones. This was something new. There were pre-
cious few stronger ones, however.

As we straggled on we had ample reason to bless the kindly
Filipinos of Capas. Having seen other prisoners pass that way,
they had set out cans of water among the bushes and in high
grass along the road.

The Japs found many of these and kicked them over before
our eyes. But some were overlooked and a few of us were able
to take the edge off our thirst. One gaunt American officer
said he believed he owed his life to the good and thoughtful
townfolk of Capas.

My first good look at O'Bonnell prison was from atop a
rise about a mile off. I saw a forbidding maze of tumbledown
buildings, barbed wire entanglements, and high guard tow-
ers, from which flew the Jap flag.

I had flown over this dismal spot several times, but never
had given it more than passing appraisal. I wondered as I
looked at it now how long I would be there; how long I
could last.

As we stood, staring dazedly, there came to me a premoni-
tion that hundreds about to enter O'Donnell prison titiis April
day never would leave it alive. If I could have known what
lay in store 2or us all, I think I would have given up thle
ghost then a*id there.

Sharp commands by the Jap guards aroused me. We started
moving.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE LONG LINE OF PRISONERS straggled through the eastern
portal of O'Donnell prison camp, between high towers upon
which were mounted machine guns. Gates in the barbed wire

97

barricade closed behind us. Our guards marched us up a hill
just south of the gate and seated us in the blazing sun near
Japanese military headquarters.

We were given to understand we shortly would be "wel-
comed" by the enemy captain commanding the prison. Dur-
ing the searing forty-five-minute wait I studied the dismal
reservation which stretched to the south, west, and north of
the hill upon which we were seated.

The camp covered a wide area, probably several hundred
acres. The road by which we had entered bisected it in the
center. Lesser roads branched off to the north and south. The
main road was flanked by barbed wire entanglements. The
reservation was divided by similar barricades into several
large square compounds.

In these were the unfinished and already dilapidated build-
ings that had been intended for use as a Filipino military
establishment. Work had been abandoned at the start of the
war.

The northwestern section now had been set aside for air
forces, prisoners learned. Just east of this, prisoners from the
tank corps were together.

The northeast section had been allotted to prisoners from
the coast artillery. A sluggish, muddy stream snaked its way
across the camp, entering from the east and wandering west-
ward until it reached the tank corps compound, where it
turned to flow in a southerly direction.

I was taking all this in when there arose a babble of high-
pitched voices from our Jap guards and we had to stand up
for a search. On the march from Bataan all our personal pos-
sessions had been taken from us. We had nothing left except
our United States army blankets, which we had carried from
Mariveles. These now were taken away and we sat down
again to wait for the Jap captain.

Finally he appeared: a gnarled, misshapen creature, as
grotesque as anything supposedly human I ever have looked
upon. We learned he had been retired, but had been called
l>ack to duty at the start of the war.

He had squint eyes. He roared at us with a pomposity

reminiscent of Mussolini's. But the loose-lipped vacuity of
his expression was that of an idiot. The captain mounted a
low platform and stared at us. Beside the dais stood a fat
Filipino-Japanese boy, holding a straw hat in both his pudgy
hands.

At length, the captain began to speak. After each long burst
of gibberish the fat interpreter translated for us in a purring,
lackadaisical monotone while the captain glared up and down
our ranks.

"The captain, he say Nippon has capture Jawer [sic],
Sumatter, and New Guinyah," the fat boy said. "Captain,
he say we soon have Austrayler and New Zealyer."

The interpreter stepped back while the Jap captain yelled
at us again.

"The captain, he say America and Nippon enemies," the
interpreter continued. "Always will be enemies. If Nippon
do not defeat America this time, Nippon fight again and
again until America defeated. Always will be war until
America is Nippon's."

And now came the part of the "welcome" which was of
most significance to us. The captain delivered it with par-
ticular violence, but it came to us in the interpreter's sibilant
whisper:

- "Captain, he say you not prisoners of war. You are sworn
enemies of Japan. Therefore, you will not be treated like
prisoners of honorable war. Captain, he say you will be
treated like captives. He say you do not act like soldiers. You
got no discipline. You do not stand at attention while he talk*
Captain, he say you will have trouble from him."

It is true that in our state of hunger, thirst, and fatigue,
many of us had paid little attention to the harangue. Some,
indeed, actually had their backs turned toward this agent of
the Son of Heaven. As to his threats of trouble, we figured he
would have to be a genius to cause us any more trouble than
we had had. The captain now was demanding that our com-
manding officer be pointed out. We didn't bother to answer.

The interpreter spoke rapidly to the captain, explaining,
as we later learned, that we were remnants of many organiza-

99

tions; that no officer was in charge. The captain glared at us
a while longer, then stepped down and strutted away, fol-
lowed by the waddling interpreter who still held his straw hat
in both hands. The guards lined us up and we marched from
the hill to the tumbledown buildings in the northernmost
section of the camp.

Our first thoughts were of water, to drink and to bathe in.
But there was very little. In our section of the camp there
was only one faucet. The water was piped from a well across
the road. The well's asthmatic gasoline pump broke down
every hour or so and was out of commission usually for two
or three.

We stood in line in the glare and heat, waiting to fill our
canteens with tepid water. This eased our thirst somewhat,
but we all were so dehydrated we could have drunk a gallon
and still have felt need for more. Even our pores cried out
for cool, clear water.

Soon afterward we each got one mess kit of rice. There was
no bread, meat, or fruit. Except for the ladle of rice at Orani
and two bites of sugar on the road, this was my first food in
six days of marching. It developed later that some of the
American prisoners were kept on the road in the heat and
dust as long as twelve days. Casualties among them were very
high.

With twenty-two other officers of the air forces I was as-
signed to a ramshackle structure fourteen feet wide and
twenty feet long. The unfinished roof was open in the center,
admitting the burning sunshine and the rain. There were
neither cots nor mats. We pulled grass and weeds to lie on in
dry weather. When it rained we crawled under the flooring.

There were no lights in the barracks, but there were plenty
around the camp at night. Searchlights at Jap headquarters
and atop the towers were trained along the barbed wire.
Walking patrols were abroad at all times. Escape seemed im-
possible. A delirious soldier, who got out somehow, was
flogged unmercifully and tied up by the wrists in the sun in
front of headquarters.

The next day he was put into an open compound from

100

which he also escaped. After the Japs seized him he was
flogged within an inch of his life. Torn and bleeding, he
again was exposed to the sun all day. He disappeared on the
following night. We never saw him again, but we know he
didn't escape.

When I began to get about the camp a little, I found that
the quarters we had thought so miserable really were luxuri-
ous as compared to those provided some of the men. Many
had no shelter whatever.

When we had been at O'Donnell about a week, the daily
death rate among the Americans was twenty a day. Filipinos
were dying at a rate of 150 a day. In two weeks fifty Amer-
icans were dying each day. The Filipino death toll had
soared to 350 each twety-four hours.

The burial problem was serious. It was difficult to find
men strong enough to dig graves. Regulation burial was un-
known. Shallow trenches had to serve. Into these ten or twelve
bodies were dumped often without identification tags and
covered by a thin layer of earth.

Many new prisoners arrived daily. Most of them were sick
and all were in varying stages of starvation. The disintegrat-
ing building that passed as a hospital soon was packed. Men
were laid shoulder to shoulder on the bare floor. There were
no blankets. Many of the sick and dying were naked.

When all floor space had been taken, the patients were laid
out on the ground beneath the floors. The stench of the. place
was beyond description.

The Japs provided no medicine. American doctors who
were prisoners in the camp were given no instruments, medi-
cines, or dressings. They were not allowed sufficient water to
wash the human waste from the sick and dying men. When all
"hospital" space was gone many American soldiers lay out in
the open, near the latrines, until they died.

In the early days of our stay at O'Donnell there were no
latrines or other sanitary facilities* There were flies by the
millions. They droned all day long, settling alternately upon
the filth, then upon the containers of gray rice the Japs issued
to the prisoners. When the Japs at last issued shovels for dig-

101

ging latrines, most of the men were too weak to use them.

Starvation was everywhere. Men who had weighed two hun-
dred pounds or so now weighed ninety or less. Every rib was
visible. They were living skeletons, without buttocks or mus-
cle. On seeing a man lying asleep it was difficult to say
whether he was alive or dead,

We hadn't the strength to move about much. My only
walking was done on trips to the hospital to visit the men of
the 2 ist Pursuit Squadron. I found one of my technical ser-
geants on the floor. He was naked and covered with defeca-
tion and flies. There were sores on his body evidence of the
violence he had done himself while delirious and there was
no antiseptic.

When I found him he was unable to drink water, eat rice,
or recognize his friends. While on Bataan this man had
weighed 185 pounds. When he died soon after I came upon
him I doubt that he weighed ninety.

Another man from the 2ist had been stuffed beneath a
building. His condition was about the same as that of the
first. This time, however, I was able to buy for five dollars a
small, flat tin of fish from a Jap soldier and we thought we
could save our friend. We stole water and washed him, then
moved him into a building and covered him with a blanket.

We fed him the fish, mixed with rice. But it was too late.
He died the next day.

The most commpn causes of death at O'Donnell were
malaria, dysentery, and beriberi, none of them necessarily
fatal if even elementary care is provided. Many of us were af-
flicted with all three of these at once. Mosquitoes descended
upon us in clouds. Few of the prisoners had blankets, mos-
quito nets, or any other protection.

Frequently, when they were inspecting the wretched area,
the Japs promised us medicines. They never delivered them,
except on one occasion when the Red Cross was permitted to
send in quinine from Manila for malaria patients. We never
learned how much was sent. Though thousands were sick and
dying of malaria, the Japs issued just enough quinine to take
care of about ten cases.

102

Suffering was worst among the hundreds afflicted with beri-
beri, a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamins in the
diet. Feet, ankles, and legs were swollen almost double nor-
mal size. Faces were puffed up like balloons.

When the condition affected the heart, death followed
quickly. There is no need here to describe the anguished
deaths of the dysentery victims.

In our first week at O'Donnell camp the Japs began im-
pressing American and Filipino prisoners into labor gangs
despite the appalling physical condition to which they had
been reduced by starvation, disease, and lack of medical at-
tention.

Each day the Jap guards led out the details of men, half of
whom were unable to stand, let alone work. Oftener than
not, these men failed to return in the evenings. There were
deaths by the dozens in the barracks each night. And these
were men the Japs contended were physically able to work.

The prisoners were organized into companies of two hun-
dred each with an American officer at its head. The officers
went along with the men, but were not allowed to supervise
the work. If we could have assigned the men to the tasks,
sparing the enfeebled soldiers and shifting the heavier work
to the stronger ones, we might have been able to save many
lives.

But we were used chiefly as interpreters and as butts for the
jokes, insults, and abuse of the Japs. By May 15, a month after
our internment at O'Donnell, less than twenty men of each
company were able to go on detail and not many of these
were able to labor in the equatorial sun.

For those unable to go on detail the Japs had another treat-
ment. Regardless of physical condition they were lined up,
each time when the heat was greatest, supposedly to stand in-
spection.

Most of these inspections never came off. At other times the
Japs would pretend to count us. The idea was to keep the
prisoners standing as long as possible in the glaring heat.
Many collapsed and died.

In the two months we spent at O'Donnell more than 2,200

103

WHERE DYESS AND
HIS COMPANIONS WERE
CONFINED IN A
PRISON CAMP

UMGAYEN

'tXHMELL

HARIVELES
CORREGJDOR

104

American war prisoners died. The Filipino death toll was
many times this. Most of the deaths were caused by disease
bred of mosquitoes, filth, heat, and abuse. But if the Japs had
allowed us just a little more food I am convinced there would
have been far fewer deaths.

The Philippines were a land of plenty. In addition to their
own food supply, brought with them when they invaded, the
Japs had vast stores captured from %e Americans and had ac-
cess to the bountiful natural food resources of the islands.
Therefore, the conclusion is inescapable that the Japs de-
liberately had set out to starve us.

Our diet was chiefly rice, served three times a day. The Japs
gave us meat twice in two months. Neither time was there
enough to flavor our watery soup. On these two occasions less
than a fourth of the men got any meat to eat and the portion
for those who did was one piece, less than an inch square.

Once in a while they gave us inferior sweet potatoes. Many
of these were too rotten to eat. Nevertheless, it was necessary
to post guards at the garbage dumps to prevent starving men
from eating those that had been thrown away. The sweet
potato ration per man was usually one spoonful.

Until the last of our stay at O'Donnell there were no knives
with which to peel the potatoes. They were boiled with their
skins on and mashed with a two-by-four timber in a fifty-five-
gallon oil drum.

Occasionally we were given mango beans, a kind of cow
pea. These were considered a great delicacy. A spoonful of
beans plus some of the watery soup in which they had been
cooked helped make a tasty meal when poured over rice.

Once or twice there was flour, which we mixed with bean
juice to make a pasty gravy/The issues of coconut lard prac-
tically our only protein totaled one teaspoonful for the two
months. A little food trickled through from the American
and British Red Gross, but the parcels the Japs permitted to
reach us were scanty in relation to our needs.

Japanese authorities forbade outside purchases by those
who had managed to secrete their money. As a result, Jap
soldiers set up an intramural black market. The tiny tin of

105

fish which we purchased for five dollars for our dying squad-
ron mate was typical of the goods and prices in the black
market.

The filth that pervaded the camp was not absent in the
kitchens. These were shacks with dirt floors. They hummed
with flies and mosquitoes. There were no cleaning facilities.
Each American kitchen was provided with two cauldrons, a
shovel for scooping up rice, and the fifty-five-gallon drum al-
ready mentioned. There was no water for washing these uten-
sils or the food.

There was water only for cooking and drinking. I was in
O'Donnell prison thirty-five days before I had a bath in one
gallon of stolen water. My clothing was unchanged and un-
washed for six weeks.

The stream that meandered through the reservation was
befouled from the dysentery epidemic. Delirious men had to
be restrained forcibly from drinking its vile waters. Several
Filipinos eluded the self-appointed guards, drank from the
stream, and were dead in a few days.

During the last ten days at O'Donnell the rains came, flush-
ing out the little waterway. We washed our clothing and
bathed without soap, of course. No razors were allowed in
camp, so we had long straggly beards.

Our talk and thoughts were almost continually of food;
food we had enjoyed in the past, food we craved now, and
food we intended to enjoy upon our release. At first I wanted
steaks; big Hereford steaks from Shackelford county, Texas.
Then my fancy settled upon eggs. I wanted them fried and
by the platter.

Each night as I lay down to sleep I was tortured by this
craving. I dreamed of them. Sometimes it seemed I was wal-
lowing in Gargantuan plates of eggs, smashing the yellows
and absorbing them through my pores.

As it always is in dreams, I never could taste or smell the
eggs. Invariably I awakened, madder than hell and hungrier
than before. When a man actually is starving he loses all
desire for food and merely grows weaker and weaker. The

106

artful Japs gave us just enough food to keep us in an agony
of hunger at all times.

Our talks about food sometimes almost drove us crazy*
I recall one agonizing session that had to do with chocolate
milkshakes. I said if I could have all the thick milkshakes
I could drink I would give five hundred dollars for them.
This seemed to hit the spot with the others. Our misery de-
scended to new depths.

There was little talk about the folks at home. Our thoughts
of them we kept bottled up within ourselves. When I thought
of my parents, my sister, and my wife I always calculated the
time of day where they were.

This was done by subtracting twenty-four hours from
Manila time and adding eight hours, This gave me San Fran-
cisco time. Addition of two more hours gave me central war
time, which is observed at Albany, Tex., and Champaign,
111., the homes of my loved ones. But I never mentioned them
to the other fellows.

Some of the men became more and more reticent and
eventually ceased to talk at all. A captain in our immediate
group would allow days to pass without uttering a syllable.
Another captain talked incessantly to anyone who would
listen and to himself. He had been strafed and bombed re-
peatedly. The doctors said he was demented.

As is always true of men cast away in adversity, we began
to think a great deal of religion. This was chiefly in our minds
and souls, however. There was little surface indication of the
trend except for Bible reading. A few Testaments had been
smuggled into the camp and the Red Cross had sent in a few.

During the entire time I was in Japanese prisons I never
saw an idle Bible. In the daylight hours those little volumes
were being read constantly. You never saw men on their
knees at prayer, either singly or in groups. But there was a
very definite communion between ourselves and God.

In the early days at O'Donnell prison the Japs forbade us
to hold divine services. Later the Protestant and Catholic
chaplains who, like ourselves, were prisoners of war, renewed
their appeals and permission was granted.

10*7

Protestant services were held outdoors each Sunday in the
early morning, before the sun grew too hot. The fellows sat
on the ground around the chaplain. They sang a few hymns
everyone knew. The sermons impressed me greatly. They
were simple, yet solid. Oratory and what is known as "pulpit
personality" were absent.

The chaplains spoke to us as God might have; simply and
directly. A lot of us embraced religion, but it was not a
whooping and hollering religion. We prayed, silently. I asked
for help and strength and for forgiveness when I felt I had
transgressed or had shirked my duty as a Christian.

I never thought of God or addressed Him as a distant, awe-
some being somewhere in the sky. I felt much closer to Him
than that. It may seem strange to some; but I thought of Him
as "The Old Man" the affectionate, respectful title soldiers
apply to a commanding officer.

When it was necessary to take a long chance I would say
to myself: "I have nothing to worry about. The Old Man
will see me through."

I was brought up a Presbyterian and had been taught pre-
destination and fatalism, but it was a Jap bullet that crystal-
lized these teachings into belief. I was over the enemy lines
in a P-4O when a slug came up from below, knocked off part
of my radio set, and zinged out through the top of the plane.
If I hadn't been leaning over to look out the left side of the
cockpit it would have caught me just back of the chin and
have plowed upward into my brain.

I thought about this a great deal when I got down. What
prank of fate had saved me from that bullet? I decided it
could have been only one thing: it simply had not been my
day to get it.

When I had pursued that line of thought to its conclusion
I was a fatalist. This fortified me in the last days of Bataan
and through the tragic days I spent in Japanese prisons.

We had just begun to look forward to the Sunday services
when the Japs ordered them discontinued. After a couple of
weeks, however, the ban was lifted.

The Catholic boys attended mass in one of the prison

108

buildings. There was no altar, the priests having to use
benches or whatever was available. There were, of course, no
candles or vestments.

The Japs allowed the priests enough flour to make the
thin, unleavened wafers or Hosts used in Holy Communion.
In camps where we later were confined, the priests were sup-
plied with vestments by the International Red Cross. The
Japs in the other camps permitted construction of altars.

None of us ever was able to understand why the Japs al-
lowed us the solace of religion. It was a strange departure
from their policy of inhumanity. There probably was a selfish
reason. Maybe they thought religion would soften us. If they
figured that way they figured wrong.

The worst jolt I got at O'Donnell prison camp came soon
after we had arrived. On one stiflingly hot morning a Jap
anese officer stepped into our barracks.. He called out my
name and the name of another man.

I had expected to be questioned by Japanese intelligence
officers, but the thing that shocked me was the other name the
Jap called. It was that of the captain beheaded on Mariveles
airfield at the start of the Death March.

Why we should have been summoned together I couldn't
understand. The captain, of . course, didn't answer. As I
walked up the hill with the Jap I was nervous.

At Japanese military headquarters I was halted in front
of a desk occupied by a thin-faced, intelligent looking officer.
Beside the Jap sat a Filipino captain who seemed to have been
pressed into service as an interpreter. It was quickly ap-
parent, however, that the Jap knew more English than he was
likely to let on.

He asked at once for the other man. I said that so far as I
had been able to learn he never had reported at O'Donnell.
The Jap made a note upon a dossier. I then saw he had a
dossier for me. My name had" been typewritten at the top,
but the rest of the document was in Japanese.

I grew more worried. How much did they think they knew
about me? The next question reassured me somewhat*

"What do you do with 2ist Pursuit Squadron?"

10Q

"I was a pilot," I told him.

"Only a pilot?"

"Only a pilot."

"Not officer?"

I said, "No." He was suspicious and I wondered if he could
have known I was squadron commander. He appeared to be
satisfied for the moment about my status with the 2ist Pur-
suit. He then wanted to know about our airfields and our
"hidden planes."

I told him there were no hidden planes; that they all had
been shot down. He knew the airfields as well as I did, so I
named them off for him. He asked about radio and air alarm
service. I told him I knew only about the radio in our planes.

After each question and answer the Jap would look at me
keenly and ask abruptly:

"And you only a pilot? Not officer?"

"Only a pilot," I would say, as cheerfully as possible.

His questions covered practically everything. How fast
would our planes fly? That, I told him, depended upon the
condition of the plane; sometimes very fast, sometimes not so
fast.

How far could our radios send and from how far could
they receive? Well, that depended upon conditions. Some-
times very far; sometimes not so far.

How far in miles, usually? Two miles, as a usual thing, but
occasionally as far as thirty.

The Jap was getting nettled.

The Filipino captain undoubtedly saw I was giving the Jap
the runaround, though he never let on. He could have helped
him out several times. I began to feel a little better. I was
told, however, to be back the next day for "new questions/'

I didn't like the sound of that. I figured he intended to do a
little investigating. Apparently he was not able to, because
his questions the next day all had to do with* radio. I told him
I knew nothing about codes. I was strictly a flier, I said, and
had nothing to do with communications.

"You go back," the Jap said. "There is communications
officers in camp. You go find and bring back here tomorrow."

no

Back in our compound I looked up a young lieutenant who
had been communications officer in our squadron. His name
was Leroy. I told him about the grilling. I asked him if he
would like to take a swing at a little questioning. He said he
surely would. The next day we were escorted up the hill to-
gether.

The kid was a whiz. He started shooting technical data at
the Jap officer at a great rate. His words didn't make sense.
The Jap soon was so befuddled he had to appeal to the Fili-
pino captain, who threw up his hands and said in effect that
it was too deep for him.

When our inquisitor had taken five or six pages of notes
in Japanese he gave it up and turned back to me. He wanted
to know the complete setup of an American air squadron;
officers, technicians, crew everything. And he wanted a dia-
gram of it. He got one.

When, finally, I had finished covering a large sheet of paper
with labeled squares and circles, connected by lines, the
chart was so confusing it looked almost like the real thing.
I was proud of it. Leroy and I were dismissed and the last I
saw of the Jap intelligence officer he was looking hopelessly
and with furrowed brow from my diagram to Leroy's radio
data and back to the diagram. I wasn't bothered again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT MAY SEEM RIDICULOUS, but in the face of all our adversi-
ties, we continued hopeful and optimistic during the. first
month of captivity. Indeed, there were many of us who never
despaired of regaining our freedom, even though hope after
hope was blighted.

111

In the early days our faith and wishful thinking were cen-
tered upon Corregidor. Rumors trickled through that the
Rock was taking a terrible pounding from artillery on Bataan
and from the Japanese air force. Our guards would tell us
nothing, but day in and day out we could see and hear the
heavy bombers as they passed in the vicinity of O'Donnell,
en route to and from Corregidor. We knew that so long as
they continued to go and return we could be sure the Rock
still was holding out.

We had no hope that the Corregidor garrison eventually
would launch a counterinvasion and rescue us. That was out
of the question. But there were definite reasons why our
spirits should rise with each additional day the fortress held
out. One was that the Japs might consider the extended siege
too costly in time, men, and materiel, and offer generous sur-
render terms that would include us. We later were to hear
rumors that just such a thing had come to pass.

Another reason for hope was that if Corregidor could hold
the Japs at bay long enough, the aroused American people
might demand that a force be sent to rescue the gallant de-
fenders and that the rescue would include us.

We didn't think for one minute that we had been aban-
doned to our fate, even though some of the fellows did sing
snatches of the malicious song that went something like this:

"We are the orphans of Bataan,

"No mama, no papa, and no Uncle Sam!"

We were sure Uncle Sam was coming after us. It was just
a matter of how soon. Thus we continued to hope. And when
immediate hopes collapsed, we always could fall back on that
nebulous one of possible escape from the prison camp, the
possible theft of a sailing canoe, and possible arrival at Aus-
tralia or some other friendly haven.

And there came the day, of course, when the number of
bombers passing over was greatly reduced. This was on May
7 or 8. The next day there were fewer still. Then only one
or two came over and, at length, none at all. There was a
silence of many days. Word trickled in through Filipinos that

112

the Rock had surrendered. Beyond that we could learn
nothing.

It was during the third week in May that the rumors began
to flood into our prison by the hundreds. Most of them were
too fantastic for even the most wishful of us to credit. There
were others, however, that could have had a foundation of
truth. It was upon these that we lived.

One of the better ones was to the effect that the Rock's
surrender had contained a provision for sending home all the
survivors of Gorregidor, Bataan, and the southern islands.
You will say this simply didn't make sense. But consider that
nothing the Japs had done thus far had made sense.

Consider, too that this report was followed by another from
a pretty solid source, which said the steamer Blackhawk was
in Manila bay being painted white for the transfer of prison-
ers to the United States. And on the heels of this, a Filipino
smuggled in a package of cigarettes containing a note which
read: "Be brave. You will soon be free."

I saw the note. I can't say I really believed it, but I stopped
throwing cold water on the hopes of others who were in much
worse condition than I and who gleaned from these notes
enough encouragement to keep on living. To say that many
of our men actually kept alive on these hopes is no exaggera-
tion.

It was just after seeing the cigarette package note that I
heard one of the technicians from my squadron was down at
the hospital. He was a man who knew just about all there was
to know about airplane mechanism. He had weighed two
hundred pounds when Bataan fell; a magnificent physical
specimen. Yet that day at the hospital I passed him without
recognition. I walked to the end of the row and was returning
when I heard my name called in a husky whisper

I looked at the speaker a full minute before I identified
him. He was a bundle of bones and sagging, yellowed flesh.
He couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds. I saw at
a glance that he was finished. It was too late for food* There
was nothing I or any of us could do. I knelt beside him on
the filthy floor,

"Ed," he whispered, "what do you think of these rumors
that are going around?"

I knew then that I believed none of them, just as I knew he
never would see home again. But the hope that glimmered in
his eyes was too much for me. You can see the same look in
the eyes of homeless, hungry puppies that think they have
found a friend. I couldn't tell him. I said as cheerfully as I
could:

"I don't know what you've heard, but those reports about
the Japs wanting to send us home and the Blackhawk being
painted white for the trip sound mighty good to me."
"Do they, Ed? Sure enough?"

"Sure enough, boy. They do. I'm banking on getting home.
But you've got to pull yourself together and begin to get
strong so they'll let you go and not keep you here for treat-
ment."

He really brightened up. He said he would do whatever
I told him. Our talk had made a new man of him, he told me.
That boy died the next morning.

And within a few days the hopes of those who had believed
the rumors died also. The prisoners from Corregidor began
coming in. There were not many of them. Most of the 10,000
who had surrendered were sent to Cabanatuan prison camp,
several miles to the east of O'Donnell. From those who did
come to our camp we learned the details of the Rock's sur-
render and what followed. It was a story of Japanese treach-
ery and ruthlessness that paralleled our own experiences.

I tell Corregidor's story here because, like our own, it was
withheld for a long time by military authorities and because
I heard it first hand from men in whose minds it remained
vivid in all its horror. I have said that I heard the opening
cannonade as we marched out of Bataan on April 10. This
continued, fairly steadily, until the last week in April. Then
the Japs^ doubled and tripled the intensity of their fire,
keeping it up day and night and augmenting the artillery
bombardment by heavy bomber raids from morning to night.
How many thousands of projectiles and bombs exploded on
and in Corregidor never will be known.

114

At this time, it should be remembered, American forces
still were holding out in the southern islands, The snakish
rage of the Japanese had been directed particularly at these
forces and at Corregidor because when General King sur-
rendered Bataan, he had refused to surrender the Rock and
the southern garrisons on the ground that General Wain-
wright was chief in command and that only Wainwright
could act for the others.

In the first days of May the relentless hammering knocked
out the last of Corregidor's major batteries. After dark of
May 5 the Japs laid down a devastating artillery barrage to
cover their landing parties. The Rock's garrison waged a des-
perate and gallant defense, taking a staggering toll of the
invaders. But the rain of shells was too much. The Japs
landed in numbers. Shortly before dawn Corregidor's plight
was hopeless. It was decided to surrender as soon as materiel,
stores, and such naval vessels as remained could be destroyed.

In the last hours, thousands of dollars in American cur-
rency were fed to the flames to keep it out of the Japanese
war treasury. Wireless sets, air warning systems, the remain-
ing ordnance, and coding paraphernalia were smashed. The
surrender was effected and the horde of Jap soldiers swarmed
through the tunnels of the Rock, looting and wrecking.

This, however, was a minor irritation. The merciless shell-
ing and bombing had ended, and in the silence that pervaded
the galleries and tunnels of Corregidor taut nerves began
slowly to relax.

But behind the scenes, General Wainwright and his staff
were engaged in a stormy session with the Japanese com-
manders, who demanded that Wainwright order the sur-
render of the three generals in the southern islands. Wain-
wright argued in vain he had no control over them. The
Japanese, who had been civil, even courteous, at first, now
delivered their ultimatum. Unless all American and Filipino
forces surrendered at once, the 10,000 Corregidor prisoners
would be massacred. Apparently Wainwright believed the
Japs were bluffing. He refused to yield.

On the morning of May 7 the eighteen-hour respite ended*

"5

The silence that had hung over the Rock and lower Bataan
was shattered by the crash of heavy artillery, fire, the roar of
motors and explosions of shells and bombs. The Rock, ut-
terly defenseless now, was getting it again.

The prisoners to whom I talked were convinced this was
done to show General Wainwright the Japs were not bluffing;
that death awaited the Corregidor captives unless all de-
mands were met.

There were reports that the Jap command had forced Gen-
eral Wainwright to view the attack and that he was an
unwilling watcher as the 10,000 prisoners were marched out
of the fortress and installed in the gand Field Garage area
where, it was announced, they would remain until all Ameri-
can resistance ceased or until time for their own executions.

There were no latrines. The area soon became unspeakably
filthy. There was only one water hydrant for these thousands
of men and the Japs sent no water from the outside. During
the first week there was no food except the bits prisoners had
been able to smuggle in on their persons. After that there
were doles of rice once a day, sometimes with a watery vege-
table broth*

From dawn to dark the heat was stupefying. The Japs at
first refused to permit the prisoners to cool off in the sea,
which washed one side of the internment area, but when they
saw that the shallow waters had become fouled with the filth
that covered the compound, they amusedly let the prisoners
go in.

The men of Corregidor well knew the seriousness of their
plight. As no word came to assure them General Wainwright
would accede to the Jap terms, they began to look upon each
dawning day as possibly their last. They were under no il-
lusions.

The General, meanwhile, appealed to the American south-
ern commanders to surrender "in the name of humanity."
There were reports that he followed up by sending members
of his staff as messengers to renew the appeal in person.

Within a few days the surrenders began. The last to yield
was Major General William F. Sharp, whose forces thirty

116

miles north of Davao had controlled the island of Mindanao.
He surrendered on May 11.

A little more than a week later the Corregidor prisoners
were informed they no longer were hostages; that they would
be taken to internment camps on Luzon island as prisoners
of war. Just at sundown they were crowded aboard three
freighters for transfer across the bay to Manila. The ships did
not move until morning, however, and the wretched Ameri-
cans and their Filipino comrades spent a night of misery.

When it grew light the steamers got under way. They
passed up Manila, however, and dropped anchor below the
city. Landing barges came alongside, and the prisoners were
loaded into these. They made trip after trip, always stopping
several yards from shore while the guards forced the Ameri-
cans overboard in water neck deep.

As the last of the bedraggled captives pulled themselves
ashore, the sun reached the zenith. No time was allowed for
rest. They were ordered to march. In the hours that followed
they plodded up and down the streets of Manila, exposed to
the sneers and abuse of Jap soldiers. The Filipino civilians
for whom the show had been staged saw nothing glorious
or even funny in the plight of the captured soldiers. There
were looks and even cries of compassion.

After the first few miles, exhausted prisoners began falling
to the ground. The guards pricked them with short jabs of
the bayonet until they got up again or until it was established
they were unconscious. If insensible, the victims were loaded
into trucks. One of those who collapsed was an army colonel.
He died without regaining consciousness. After the march the
prisoners spent the night in Old Bilibid prison. On the day
following they were started for the internment camps. The
great majority went to Cabanatuan and when we of the 2ist
Pursuit Squadron were transferred there I met many friends.

The arrival of the Corregidor prisoners added to crowded
conditions at O'Donnell. Most of them had no shelter, even
though death had reduced O'DonnelTs population by many
hundreds. When the rains came soon after this, deaths in-

117

creased among the more weakened captives. Men huddled to-
gether beneath the filthy, sagging floors for warmth.

The daily downpours did some good, however. They
flooded our compound, cleansing the earth and flushing out
the little stream. It washed our bodies and supplied us with
an abundance of drinking water. Those who were fairly
strong benefited. But because of the rising death toll they
could take no joy in the physical relief thus afforded.

As the rains slackened, there were rumors that some of the
American prisoners were to be transferred to Cabanatuan,
several miles to the eastward. This was some official confirma-
tion, so we got ready.

During the last days at O'Donnell I was chosen to accom-
pany a detail being sent to Clark field the old home of the
sist Pursuit Squadron. We were to clean up the wreckage in
preparation for Jap soldiers who were to arrive later in the
day.

When they came they let us pretty well alone. One officer,
however, whose rank was equivalent to that of an American
first lieutenant, seemed to take a liking to me and made me
follow him around the rest of the day. He had fought at
Singapore, in China, and on Bataan. He spoke some English
and with the few Jap words I knew we could talk quite welL

He was proud of his sword, which he repeatedly pulled half
out of its scabbard. Each bit of conversation ended with this
gesture. Then he would say:

"Japanese soldier very brave; very good. American soldier
no good."

I always would reply: "American soldiers on Bataan very,
very hungry."

"Yaah!" he would say. "American soldier no good!"

Once I asked him what the Japs intended to do with all
the prisoners they had taken in the islands. He laughed
loudly, drew his sword and made a couple of decapitating
motions with it.

He then asked me the value of various articles he had taken
from American soldiers. While he was pulling them out I
looked at one of his watches. It seemed familiar to me. When

ROUTE TAKEN
BY PRISONERS

,
O'DOIIIfH.

I got a better view of it I saw that it was mine an air forces
watch with a twenty-four-hour dial I had bought on a flight
to the island of Cebu. When he wanted to know how much
it was worth I told him it cost only ten dollars.

119

I kept up the conversation, however, because I wanted
some news from him, having had none in six weeks or so.
When he realized what I wanted to know he was eager to tell
me his version of it. He grinned and pulled out a map. He
said: " Japanese soldiers win everywhere. Very brave."

I almost fainted when I looked at the map. It showed the
entire Pacific theater. Japanese flags had been drawn on Java,
Sumatra, New Guinea, Australia, the Hawaiians, and the
Aleutians. Knowing the enemy had crushed us by sheer
weight of numbers and equipment on Bataan, I thought it
possible they had taken the other possessions.

I must have shown my consternation because the Jap now
grinned more broadly than before. And he added: "That not
all."

I wanted to know what else and was glad that I had. The
answer dispelled all my doubts.

"Japanese submarines shell San Francisco/' he said. "Japa-
nese submarines shell Seattle. And, hah! Japanese submarines
shell Chicago!"

I joined him in his laughter. It was the first real laugh I
had had in what seemed like years. I was somewhat relieved.

When I returned to camp I found nearly everyone cheered
up by the prospect of moving. Any place, we thought, would
be better than O'Donnell. So we looked forward to Gabana-
tuan camp, which was to be our new home, according to the
guards.

On the other hand the prospect worried us. A few weeks
before, all the generals and full colonels had been removed
to Japan and Formosa, where they were .slaves in factories
and on plantations. We knew our hope of exchange or escape
would be nil if we were sent to either of these places. And the
Cabanatuan story might be either a ruse to keep us quiet
or the Japanese conception of a joke.

But it turned out the reports were true. It was announced
officially we were going to Cabanatuan, Nuevo Ecija, a camp
for Americans only.

We were told that this time we were to ride in trucks, but
that men who were unable to walk would have to be carried

120

by the others to the north barricade of the prison. There we
were to meet the trucks.

We spent all afternoon and the following night carrying
men from our quarters to the loading place. We slept on the
wet ground until time to start. Then we were lined up in the
sun. There were no trucks. We were ordered to march.

Supporting those who were too weak to walk alone we
straggled down the feeder road to the main highway. As we
passed through the gates and into the hot highway I figured
that we were on another death march and that we would
lose about half our several hundred men.

Then the trucks came. They were Japanese army trucks,
but they looked like home. There were Fords, Chevrolets,
GMCs, and many others. The sight of them brought back
memories of that terrible day when we left Bataan.

The Japs overloaded every one of them, packing prisoners
in until there wasn't room to move. We didn't care, however.
We were riding.

We probably wouldn't have been so cheerful if we had
known what was in store for us at Cabanatuan. After two and
one-half hours of jolting and jogging we were there.

CHAPTER NINE

WHEN WE FIRST SAW the new prison camp we were overjoyed.
It was far better than O'Donnell. As with O'Donnell, it had
been built as a Filipino army camp, but it was a much better
one and looked as though it had been completed.

On this trip the Jap guards lacked the venom the others
had shown. The American-made trucks rolled us in through
the western gate and along a road which ran between a Japa-

121

nese army camp and hospital area on one side and the prison
section on the other.

Our part of the camp was divided by barbed wire from
the rest. There were large compounds; three for us with
permanent wooden buildings and a fourth for Japanese re-
cruits.

Along the east side were machine gun emplacements and
three towers about forty feet high topped by guards, more
machine guns, and the Japanese flag. Prisoners from Bataan
and Corregidor already were there when we arrived.

They had named all roads and trails that connected the
three compounds. There were Broadway, Market street,
Michigan avenue, Main street, and many others.

A Milwaukee man had named a path for himself. It was
Buboltz boulevard and led to the latrines.

Compounds No. 2 and No. 3 were upon high ground and
well drained. Compound No. i was low and caught all the
water that fell upon the high ground. The mud, we were to
find, was knee deep. We were unloaded into compound No. 3.

As we piled out of the trucks that day I spotted some fel-
lows I had known on Bataan. They had got to Corregidor
and had been captured there. They didn't know me at first
because of my ferocious looking beard, but they answered my
wave.

We disposed of our sick. Then we mingled with the Cor-
regidor boys and heard some good news. They had brought
in razor blades. I found this out when I made myself known
to four of them: Larry, Frankie, Bake, and Bill. Larry shaved
off my beard and reported to the whole camp tllat, he had
found two Jap intelligence officers hiding in ^t with flare
guns.

.The first thing we thought about after getting shaved was,
erf course, eating. There had been no objection from the Jap
guards about Larry's tonsorial activities.

Gift-first meal was of rice only. It was cleaner than that we
bad had at Q'Donnell. As at O'Donnell, we had three meals
i day; lugao (w r etTfce) for breakfast and drier rice for dinner

122

and supper. After the first week there was green squash and a
little of the juice from it.

Once a week each of us got a dried fish about four inches
long and as thick as a man's finger; "dried stinkers," we called
them. The Jap's provided canned milk, one and one-half
ounces a day for the sick men at the start.

In the early days also, the men who went out on work de-
tails were given one hard bun to go with their rice. But as
in the case of the milk the buns soon were discontinued.

The black market ran full blast. Jap soldiers bought food
and other articles from Filipinos and smuggled them into the
kitchens. There this stuff was parceled out to American
soldiers and sailors on duty. The articles were peddled among
the other prisoners at enormous profit to the Japs.

There was hardly an item such as tinned fish, bar candy,
or cigarettes that didn't sell for five dollars. In the last days
at Cabanatuan the Jap authorities established a sort of com-
nfissary in which most things that had sold formerly for five
dollars were reduced to about forty cents. By that time, how-
ever, practically all our money had been spent in the black
market. I had secreted my money when I had it inside my
socks; between my toes to be exact It was in fairly large bills
and while it jiibbed blisters and sometimes made walking
painful, I Ijdd on to it

The bast eating at Cabanatuan was called "quan," a dish
the prisoners dey doped. Quan is a Filipino word that has
littWmeaning and can, therefore, be applied to almost any-
thing. We used it to designate such extra food as we could get
by fair means or otherwise.

We tried always to have among us some of the small tin
buckets that were issued at the camp. These we called "quan"
buckets. The recipe for "quan" follows:

Obtain from the black market or commissary a small can of
fish and some coconut lard. At chow time get a mess kit filled
with rice. After lining a "quan" bucket with lard, put in the
rice along with some wild red peppers you have managed to
gather while on jungle detail.

The bucket then goes into a bed of hot coals and the food

123

in it bakes. We thought it mighty fine, but if I never see
any more of it, it will be all right with me.

This brings a memory of Lugao, of his short life and un-
deserved end. Lugao was a little white dog that wandered
into Cabanatuan. He was just a handful of white fur and a
bag of bones when he arrived. The boys on duty in the mess
hall started feeding him on wh^t rice and scraps they could
spare. Dogs and cats in the Philippines eat rice, just as ours
eat meat and drink milk.

Lugao [as has been said, the name means wet rice] began
to fill out. Soon he was plump and sleek. Then, one day, he
was missing.

Diligent inquiry eventually disclosed the facts. Lugao had
wandered into a secluded spot where two sailors and a soldier
were sitting thinking about how hungry they were. Lugao
was "quanned."

Our food, however, was no more primitive than our
method of eating it. There were no mess halls and we began
taking the food to our barracks, but we gave up this practice.
The rice drew flies which, like most undesirable mealtime
guests, remained the rest of the day. So we took to squatting
in the open to dine.

This started talk about the probability we wouldn't know
how to act at splendid functions after the war. We wouldn't
be able to balance teacups and salad plates on our knees or
handle the table silver of civilization.

Furthermore, we wouldn't have read anything or have
heard the latest songs. We probably would be busts at any
gathering we might attend. So we worked out two surefire
ways to distract attention from our awkwardness.

We decided that when food was served we would take our
salads and teacups into a corner and eat like a pack of wolves.
This would be taken by our hostess as (i) our peculiar
whimsy or (2) would so startle her and the other guests that
there would be no comment,

We agreed also that when anyone should approach and
begin:

124

"My dear captain, have you read " we would interrupt

with:

"Now when I was on Bataan ."

It seemed to us that after this had happened four or five
times in a single evening the words: "Now when I was on

Bataan " would be the signal for the hostess to whisper

loudly: "For the love of Mike! Give the old fool a drink and
shut him up!"

We liked this one so well that for a long time when you ad-
dressed a fellow prisoner he was quite likely to turn on you
and yell: "Now when I was on Bataan 1" I think horse-
play such as this did us more good than extra mess kits of rice.

The Jap guards, of course, thought we were deranged.
Maybe we were. They were no less brutal than at O'Donnell,
but they made this concession to officers: we were not re-
quired to go on labor details. Many did go because it seemed
to us that the Japs pulled their punches somewhat when we
were along.

These details of starved men were engaged in such work as
wood chopping, path building, and barbed wire stringing.
In addition they were sent out on heavy salvage work, pick-
ing up abandoned American and Japanese equipment on
Bataan and in Manila. They helped build bridges and served
as cargadores for the Jap troops hunting guerrilla forces in
the hills.

It was not uncommon that twenty per cent of each detail
would die on the job in a day or in the barracks that night.
On one occasion nine men of a detail of twelve were left
dead where they had fallen.

After seeing the type of work our soldiers and sailors were
being required to do, I wondered that the casualties weren't
one hundred per cent a day. The barbaric treatment that
accompanied it was almost unbelievable.

Soon after our arrival the mass of incoming prisoners made
it necessary that we move some wooden houses from the Jap
military compound into our own. This operation was per-
formed by running long poles beneath the structures, then
lifting them to be carried across the road.

125

One Jap a stocky, evil caricature on the human race was
armed with the shaft of a golf club. As the weakened men
struggled to lift the building he ran up and down behind
them, screaming like a maniac and beating them as though
they were mules. Many fell under his blows, but that didn't
end their beatings.

He is one Jap I'm going to catch if I have to chase him to
Tokio. And I'm going to kill him, not with any weapon, but
with the two hands God gave me*

[Editors note When this was written, Colonel Dyess had
applied for reassignment to the Pacific theater.]

Some other Japs I hope to kill personally are those con-
cerned in punishment inflicted upon some American soldiers
who were caught accepting morsels of food slipped to them
through the fence by kindly Filipino peasants, living near-by.
These people took appalling risks to help us.

The soldiers involved were stripped of their shirts and
flogged until their backs were raw. After the beating, an
American doctor, also a prisoner, applied dresings. When he
had ministered to the men and had gone, they were tied up
again and flogged until the dressings were beaten into the
open wounds.

This occurred in July, 1942. Up to this time I had escaped
any major disaster, such as serious illness. I had taken my
beatings and kickings along with the rest and had hoped I
would keep my health. But my turn was just around the
corner.

Through the steaming and filthy camp that month, there
swept a series of epidemics that took an appalling toll of lives.

Sanitary conditions at Cabanatuan, while better than those
at O'Donnell, were, nevertheless, terrible. The latrines were
long, open ditches that filled the area with an ever present
stench and bred millions of flies and mosquitoes. Bathing and
laundry work were done in muddy sinkholes.

I lived now with twelve other fellows in a building in the
lowlands, having been transferred from the higher ground of
the camp. Our room, about sixteen by eighteen feet, was

126

filthy because we had no way of cleaning it. We all slept on
the floor.

I first fell victim to yellow jaundice, which was present in
epidemic form. Diphtheria also was prevalent, but I escaped
that. Next a dengue mosquito got me, so I had jaundice and
dengue fever at die same time.

My first intimation that I really was sick came during a
game of soft ball one Sunday afternoon. You may think it was
idiotic of men in our condition to play athletic games, but
our desire for something like normal recreation was almost
as strong as our physical hunger. We felt that anything ap-
proximating the social gatherings and routine of the world
outside would ease our minds.

After we had been at Cabanatuan two weeks, the Japs
yielded to the entreaties of our Protestant and Catholic chap-
lains that we have Sunday services. This accomplished, the
chaplains began suggesting recreation of some sort. One of
them had a happy thought and intimated we might work
better if given a little time to play. The Japs seized upon
that. We were allowed to hold an amateur variety show once
a week, for the entertainment of ourselves and the Jap sol-
diers.

We had a guitar and trumpet, complete with players, and
some good singers. We all joined in on the old songs "Let
Me Call You Sweetheart," "My Old Kentucky Home,"
"There's a Long, Long Trail," and others. Military and patri-
otic songs were barred. We did skits that burlesqued one
another. We would have dearly loved to present a couple
putting Hirohito and Tojo on the pan, but there were too
many Jap guards around the low platform on which we staged
the shows.

Though they could understand little of what went on, the
Japs appeared to enjoy our entertainments and in a burst
of generosity announced we might play American baseball.
They even came up with a soft ball.

We carved bats of native wood and laid out a diamond
on the inspection ground. Before long, however, we found we
were overtaxing ourselves and building monumental appe-

1*7

tites so we slowed down considerably. I remember thinking
as I watched the play one day that it was like a slow-motion
film of a normal game.

The game that caused my ailments to flare up was played
on an extremely hot afternoon. I had knocked a ball past
shortstop and was hotfooting it for first base, when I felt
suddenly as if I were passing out. I got on the ground as
quickly as possible. When the dizziness passed I tried to walk
back to the bench. Another wave hit me and I went down
again. One of the fellows helped me totter over to the bar-
racks.

I turned the color of lemon rind and was unable to eat.
Growing rapidly weaker, I realized I'd have to force myself
to retain some food. But day after day as I approached the
stench of the kitchens I would have to turn back.

I felt that if I could get some milk, eggs, or Albany [Tex.]
fried chicken I'd be all right. Then it seemed that dreams
were about to come true. The Jap guards announced chicken
and eggs were to be served to the prisoners. They were.

There were three chickens to be divided among five hun-
dred men/There were eighteen eggs for the same group. But
we never saw any more chicken or any more eggs.

[Editor's noteShortly after this the Tokio propaganda
radio announced that American prisoners in the Philippines
were being fed on chicken and eggs.]

I don't want to seem to be dwelling upon my sufferings.
I do it simply because mine were typical of the diseases that
racked many another American soldier. And most of the
others probably are not alive today.

Some of the boys in our room set out to forage for me
when it seemed my sickness was taking that turn we all knew
so well. All of us were out of money, having spent it in the
black market maintained by Jap soldiers. The commissary
recently established by Jap authorities therefore was closed
to us.

Captain Burt whose full name I wish I could tell man-
aged somehow, somewhere, to get money and to buy a can of
American yellow clingstone peaches and a can of fish. A kid

128

we called Potee succeeded in snaking some sugar out of the
kitchen. These things saved me.

The Japs would do nothing except tell me to go to the
hospital. That, I was determined not to do, knowing that
those who entered that disease-ridden sty rarely came out
alive.

The hospital was a place without beds, the men lying on
raised bamboo shelves. There was a primitive operating room
that almost never was in operation and a dispensary that sel-
dom dispensed anything.

When a man neared death from dysentery, malaria, wet or
dry beriberi, diphtheria, or any one of the other plagues that
were sweeping the place, he was removed to another building
which we called St. Peter's ward. And there he died.

The death rate at Cabanatuan prison in July was thirty
Americans a day. It went up steadily. In the first few months,
the Japs contended there were no medicines for anyone, not
even themselves.

Later in the summer they permitted the International Red
Cross in Manila to ship in some medicines, but these they
left in the packing cases for weeks, while hundreds of men
died. We knew the medicines were there, because we had
unloaded them from trucks and had read the labels.

The shipment included serum which would have saved
many diphtheria victims, quinine which would have cut to a
minimum the malaria deaths, dressings and antiseptics for the
wounds the Japs inflicted daily, and precious, nourishing
products that would have enabled the patients to fight beri-
beri and blindness that resulted from lack of vitamins. The
last cases were the most heartrending of all.

Every man values his sight. Knowing what an airplane
pilot's sight means to him, it almost destroyed me to see some
of them groping their way around the stinking prison of
Cabanatuan.

One of these men insisted that something be done for him.
And for once the Jap operating room operated/The pilot
was relieved of one of his blind eyes.

When I recovered what passed for health in Cabanatuan

after six weeks of being flat on my back my weight was 120
pounds. Normally it is around 175. But even at 120 I was
considered a fat man so skinny were the others. When I left
the camp on October 26, 1942, there were 2,500 Americans
sick in their barracks, in the hospital, or in St. Peter's ward.
I doubt that any of them recovered.

The basic reason for these deaths was malnutrition. It was
proved by autopsies performed both by American and Jap-
anese doctors. When it had been established, beyond doubt,
that the men were starving to death, the Japs were forced to
admit it. Their answer was that they were sorry; the circum-
stance was regrettable: there simply was no food. Yet the
islands all of them had an abundance of food, as we all
knew.

I could talk all year about conditions at Cabanatuan. I
could tell about our futile rage at the daily sight of the Stars
and Stripes being used as a scrub rag, pot wiper, and floor
mop in the reeking Japanese kitchens. Sometimes the flag
was used to wrap up scraps and remnants. It was even kicked
around underfoot.

United protests by officers and men brought blank silences
or sneers. One day the flag disappeared. We heard a Japanese
officer had ordered its removal from the kitchen. But I like
to believe that some American succeeded in rescuing and
destroying it in the manner officially designated; by burning.

In general it may be said that our physical surroundings
were better that those at O'Donnell. We got more food and
our living quarters were somewhat better. But Cabanatuan
far excelled the first camp in sadistic cruelty and barbaric
punishments.

Early in our stay a middle-aged colonel, adjutant of Amer-
ican headquarters a co-ordinating agency set up for assem-
bling work details and keeping count of us was a victim of
uncalled-for brutality. He had personally delivered to Jap-
anese headquarters one of the complicated forms that had to
be filled out daily. There was a slight error and the Jap ad-
jutant went into a rage. The Jap interpreter grew even more
infuriated than his superior. He shouted that all Americans

130

are sons of dogs. The colonel turned to leave the room. The
interpreter sprang after him and beat him insensible with a
blackjack.

During the remainder of my stay there the American officer
was a victim of violent headaches, They would prostrate him
forty-eight hours at a time. He was stricken at least twice a
week.

Soon after our arrival the Japs set out to impress us with
the futility of attempting to escape. They advised that we
organize an inner wall patrol to save our own men from the
consequences of rash efforts to get away. Every two or three
days we were summoned to attend a spectacle that was sort
of a ghastly parody on the old-time American medicine show.
It will be recalled that some of the nomadic medicine men
used to exhibit deformed or afflicted human freaks to attract
a crowd.

The Jap counterpart of the medicine man was a noncom-
missioned officer who stood on a platform to address us. With
him were his freaks: two American naval officers who had
gotten away, but had been forced by hunger to give them-
selves up. They had been put on a rice and water diet and
set at hard labor. They were like living skeletons and grew
thinner and weaker at each appearance. Sometimes the Jap
also exhibited an American soldier, an Indian, who also had
escaped only to surrender. His feet were hobbled, his arms
tied, and he was led around by a halter fastened about his
neck. On his chest was a sign that read: "I tried to escape/*
The medicine man's speech always was the same:

"It is ver' bad to try escape. You not should try. Conditions
soon big better here. We do everything to make better. You
not should escape." He then would point to his miserable
trio and say:

"These are three that try escape. You see, they come back
to us. You see what is becoming of them. You not should try
escape."

There came a day when the navy officers were seen no
longer. They had not escaped again. We'd have known about
that. They just were no longer there, A few days later the

hobbled and placarded Indian was gone. There was only one
medicine show after that. The Jap noncom, deprived of his
cast, seemed to have lost his stage presence.

The first murders at Cabanatuan the first I witnessed, that
is came soon afterward. They involved five American sol-
diers and a Filipino civilian. The six were engaged in a black
market enterprise. The Filipino obtained the articles of sale-
items of food, razor Blades, soap, and so on, and slipped them
through the fence at night to the Americans. The prices were
much more reasonable than those in the black market op-
erated by the Jap inner guards, who were determined to
break up the rival ring. They watched the compounds and
the fences many nights before they were successful. It never
was established whether the Filipino bribed the Jap outer
guards or whether he knew their movements well enough
to elude them. When the inner guards finally scored, how-
ever, they caught everyone concerned; the Filipino and all
five Americans. The prisoners were kept under guard all
night.

At sunrise they were stripped of their clothing, tied up in
the glaring sunlight and flogged When the sun was directly
overhead, die six were flogged again.

During the afternoon one of the soldiers became delirious
and broke his bonds. He ran to the barracks, drank all the
water he could find, and lay down on his mat. The Japs were
after him in a few minutes. They dragged him back to the
whipping post, trussed him up, and flogged all six of the
prisoners again. Meanwhile, several men had been detailed
to dig a shallow trench a short distance from camp. At sun-
down the sufferers were freed of their ropes and were
marched naked to the trench where a firing squad shot them
to death.

It was the frequent recurrence of such tortures and wanton
murder at Cabanatuan that led eventually to one of the most
terrible spectacles I ever have witnessed.

Two lieutenant colonels of the United States army and a
navy lieutenant determined they would escape if they died in
the attempt They were so desperate that they made their

effort in daylight, practically under the eyes of guards on
towers that overlooked the camp and of Japs waiting behind
machine gun emplacements just outside the barbed wire
barricade.

The American officers planned to crawl on their bellies
down a drainage ditch to a small opening beneath the barri-
cade. The jungle was the only place to which they could have
gone. Without supplies and equipment there, their chances
would have been just about nil. And before reaching the
jungle they would have had to elude the Jap walking patrol,
which supplemented the tower and machine gun guards.

They started inching their way through the filthy ditch
that reeked of human waste. The noon sun blazed down on
them. They had taken nothing with them no water, food, or
maps. They were weaponless, though weapons would have
done them no good. As they were nearing the fence someone
caused a noise and the Jap patrol heard it.

In a second or two there was a hullabaloo of ^shrieking and
chattering from the runts outside the fence. Japs ran from all
directions toward the ditch. The three American officers were
hauled out. This was the first the rest of us prisoners knew
of what was happening.

When I saw the three standing under guard before a Jap
officer, I had a sinking feeling. I thought I knew what was
coming, but I never could have imagined the things that
now took place.

The ragged, faded, and torn uniforms were stripped off
the prisoners by their guards. The naked men then were
marched through the glare of the steaming prison camp. Near
the front, or western gate, they were flogged almost into in-
sensibility.

Bleeding and dazed, they were led outside. Their hands
were tied behind them. Additional ropes were brought and
these were tied to the fastened hands and secured to cross
pieces some feet above the victims' heads. This forced them
to stand always erect, almost on tiptoes. Slumping possibly
would have dislocated the arms at the shoulders. The posture
was agonizing*

133

A short two-by-four timber was placed near-by. As Fili-
pinos approached on the road, the Jap guards, their eyes
glittering, forced the passersby to pick up the timber and
smash each of the three American officers in the face. The
first few blows broke their noses.

As the men revived slightly from each clubbing, Jap guards
laid on with whips. Every blow could be heard down in our
barracks. Every blow brought a flow of blood. The burning
sun rays dried the blood in black clots. It stuck to the offi-
cers' legs and backs like tar.

This all was taking place in view of the other prisoners.
We could hear the crunchy sound as the timber, swung by
unwilling Filipinos, crashed into the faces now almost un-
recognizable. Again and again, between blows, would come
the slither and slash of the whips.

Seeing this go on, hour after hour, put into me a feeling I
icannot define. I can try only to describe it. It was not hatred,
as such. I had been hating the Japs for months. I had taken
pleasure in killing them on Bataan; pleasure derived from
the memories of what they had done to Clark and Nichols
fields and to my friends on the first day of the war.

I had come to hate the Japs through every waking hour and
to dream my hatred when I slept. This feeling now was a
a combination of cold disgust such as you have for a rattle-
snake and a physical sympathetic suffering for those three
victims.

Night came and they still were there. The sun went down.
Lights were visible out by the gate. And, intermittently, we
could hear, above the noises of the camp, the sound of the
whip.

I think I prayed that night that those men could die soon.
I had no hope that they would survive. Yet, when morning
came after I had had an hour or so of tormented sleep
they still were there.

This day passed as had the first. By its end there was no
conversation in camp. No one spoke. We watched these men
in their Gethsemane and could find no words. After another
night, in which I had practically no sleep, it began again.

There were the floggings and the blows in the face with the
two-by-fours. Everyone who came down that road of horror
had to take his turn at slamming the blood-soaked timber
into the smashed faces.

What held them up, I don't know. There are men who can
die easily, if they decide to give up the struggle. Yet you'd be
surprised how hard it is to pound or torture the life spark out
of a man who has willed to live.

In these two lieutenant colonels and the naval lieutenant,
the Japs seemed to have found three who were determined
to live. They would not give up. On the third day a typhoon
swept in.

During the afternoon the three victims stood naked and
shivering in the downpour. The rain cleansed their wounds
and bodies at times, but the Japs opened new wounds with
the whip as often as they thought they could do so without
killing.

At length the rain ceased. There now was little hope on
the part of the Jap officers that the men could survive longer.
There were commands and a stir among Jap noncommis-
sioned officers. We stood wet and bedraggled, watching
through the barbed wire.

In the last flogging, a slash of the keen, hissing whip had
severed one colonel's ear, except for a strip of flesh that kept
it attached. The ear now hung down on his shoulder.

From a building a squad of Japanese soldiers emerged. A
noncommissioned officer carried an armload of rifles. A cov-
ered truck pulled up. The rifles were put in, followed by
the men.

From another direction a file of Jap soldiers carrying shov-
els made their appearance. They also entered the truck, each
with his shovel. At the command of Jap commissioned offi-
cers, the bonds of the American officers were cut and the
three were thrown into the truck.

One of the Jap officers, wearing a heavy sword, seated him-
self beside the driver. The motor was started and they rolled
away, under a lowering sky. We heard the machine stop just
out of sight of camp.

There was a wait, a volley, then another. We didn't un-
derstand why the squad had fired only twice.

Eventually the truck rolled back and stopped. The soldiers
got out and our guards talked to them. Then the guards
came over to the barbed wire barricade, yapping, bobbing
their heads, and gesturing. They told us what had happened.

One colonel and the naval officer had been shot. The Jap
officer had done the other colonel of the United States army
"the honor of beheading him personally/' The three had
been buried at the scene of their deaths.

We slept that night, from sheer exhaustion, I think. There
were not many words exchanged in camp for several days.
And we hardly looked at our guards, but when something
particularly unpleasant was brewing we usually could sense it
from their conduct.

There is one morning in September, 1942, th^t 111 never
forget. Our keepers were angrier and grimmer than I'd ever
seen them.

News spread that a Jap soldier, one of the guards, had been
killed, presumably by a Filipino, the head of a barrio [ham-
let], a mile or so on the road from Cabanatuan. Our only
sorrow at these tidings was that one of ourselves had not
done it.

About 11 A.M., we saw machine gun and mortar units
moving away from Jap military headquarters. They passed
through the gates and disappeared in the direction of the
barrio. At noon we heard them firing and saw long plumes
of smoke rising.

A little later a procession of pro-Jap Filipinos moved down
the road, their arms filled with loot from the burning houses.
Why the Japs let anyone else have any loot always has been a
mystery to me. We learned that all inhabitants of the barrio
had been wiped out by shellfire and flames. These numbered
forty or fifty men, women, and babies.

At the head of the procession, on horseback, was the Jap
officer who had led the expedition of two hundred soldiers.
Behind him marched two soldiers carrying a pole upon which
was stuck the head of a Filipino.

136

This grisly souvenir was paraded through the camp, then
was set up outside the main gate. Beneath the head was an
inscription in English and Japanese: "A Very Bad Man."

CHAPTER TEN

IN OCTOBER, 1942, MY DAYS at Cabanatuan were coming to an
end. And, I thought, so was L But before my days ended
there I was able to pick up some knowledge of the Japs that
should be of great value to me when I face them in battle
again. It may prove helpful to others of our fighting men
who may read this.

It concerns the Japs' national inferiority complex and their
methods of training soldiers for battle. The observations that
follow come partially from experience and partially from
study and inquiry inspired by experience. It has long been
a military maxim that an understanding of your enemy's
thought processes is a powerful weapon against him.

The event that crystallized a number of my half-formed
theories and led to my efforts at understanding the Jap oc-
curred one morning when several American officers were sit-
ting and lounging about on the bamboo floor of our barracks
room. A Jap three-star private entered. We all jumped
up, snapped to attention, and saluted. He acknowledged the
salutes with a grunt and started looting our packs.

Suddenly the Jap uttered an angry yell and held up a watch
he had found in one of them. He walked over and stared at
us fixedly in turn. I was the tallest man there.

He hopped over and walloped me in the face, first with
his right, then with his left hand. He stood roughly five feet,
his head coming about to my breastbone, but he was stocky

137

and strong. By the time he had socked me twenty times or so,
I was practically down to his size. It would have been suicide
to resist. He took a final punch and walked out.

We sat around and talked awhile. The others suggested
the little so-and-so be knocked off and the body dropped into
a latrine. Knowing how the Japs felt about us, however, we
figured they knew pretty well how we felt about them. If one
of their soldiers should turn up missing they'd look in the
latrine.

The result would be the visitation of some terrible punish-
ment upon all the prisoners in camp. But that is beside the
point.

The little slugger's choice of the tallest man present for
his abuse knowing he would be backed up by Jap authority
illustrates the Jap inferiority complex. The Jap always feels
inferior in the presence of the American. If for no other
reason, it is because Americans are white, are taller, usually,
and better looking.

We learned never to look a Jap in the eye even the lowest,
one-star private. No Jap inferior may look a superior in the
eye. They were quick to club us down and kick us when we
forgot we were captives and not honorable prisoners of war.

The Japanese are a nation of houseboys. The treatment
they may expect from their superiors does little to lift them
from their low mental state. This is particularly true in the
Jap army. It has been said the Jap army is the best-disciplined
body of men in the world. There is rigid discipline there, but
it is one of fear. The Jap soldier fears his own officers far
more than he does the enemy.

Jap soldiers must submit to beatings with the fist or slug-
gings with the gun butt when they diplease a superior officer.
Two-star privates are privileged to beat one-star privates. A
commissioned officer can be a courtmartial and executioner
and at two seconds' notice.

At Gabanatuan we had ample opportunity to watch the
training and development of the Japanese soldier. The re-
cruits came in in bunches and were quartered and drilled in
the compound just south of our own.

138

A year is required for a recruit to rise to the rank of pri-
vate. During his first six months he wears a patched, cast-off
uniform bearing a triangular, numbered tag which is sewed
on his blouse over the left pocket. At the end of the first
period he gets an oblong patch, bearing one bar if he has
been a fair to middling pupil and two if he has done excel-
lently. At the end of a year the patch is replaced by a star
and he is a private. The soldier's first promotion gives him an
additional star and his next adds a third.

After one of the early skirmishes near Manila, it was re-
ported by some American troops who didn't understand the
three-star rating system that they had just killed fifty-three
Japanese generals! Three-star privates rate about as cor-
porals do in our army, and we were warned to steer clear of
them. The lowest noncommissioned officer wears one star
with a horizontal bar through it. His rank is comparable to
that of an American sergeant.

Noncommissioned officers are permitted only to slug or
beat the men serving under them. The right of summary exe-
cution with pistol or by beheadal is reserved to the commis-
sioned officers.

There is a popular misconception, which seems to have
become prevalent during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904,
that the Japanese soldier lives on a handful of rice and a
dried fish a day. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I
have seen what they eat under war conditions. They put away
beef, pork, chicken or lamb, high protein soybean sauce,
greens, potatoes, fish, fruits and high potency vitamin tablets.
They are bowlegged and funny looking but they are powerful
physically.

The recruits at Cabanatuan came mostly from Formosa.
After they had been on army rations a few days we could
almost see them begin to grow and put on flesh and brawn.
All day long they would march up and down, goose-stepping,
and practicing with the bayonet, to the accompaniment of
their weird marching chants, which they howled at the tops
of their voices.

The bayonet practice put us into stitches, those of us who

were strong enough to laugh, that is. They have but one
bayonet stroke, a long, lunging thrust. The face sometimes
is averted after the thrust has been aimed at the subject. The
stroke usually is accompanied by a fiendish yell that sounds
like "Yaaaaaah!" Apparently the Jap soldier is taught noth-
ing about the butt stroke or the parrying stroke.

When an American soldier charges he holds his rifle across
his body obliquely, stock down and in the right hand. The
barrel is gripped by the left.

When he is ready to fall prone, to a firing position, the
American soldier drops to one knee, brings the rifle stock
down upon the ground to break his fall, and goes over on his
stomach ready to open fire.

The Japanese rifle will not take this kind of treatment.
The Jap, of necessity, charges with the gun at his side in the
right hand. He gets to the ground as best he can. Often he
simply goes down, losing his rifle as he sprawls. There is a
wild scramble to recover it and start shooting.

Our next best laughs came from watching the bowlegged
Japs as they tried the goose step. The spectacle, as I recall it,
justifies use of an archaic literary expression; it beggared de-
scription. The Jap soldier is a funny little man. But make
no mistake; he is as deadly as a cobra.

His real vulnerability lies in his fear of losing face. This
also is a national trait and is true of all Japs, civil or military,
high or low. The Jap, more than any other national, is con-
cerned by what others think of him. When a majority looks
down upon him or disapproves of his actions he is said to
have lost face. He will either change his ways, try to justify
them, or commit hari kiri, depending upon the seriousness
of the reproach.

This is one of the reasons why I believe disclosure of Jap-
anese cruelty and starvation in the prison camps will redound
to the benefit of the American and Filipino prisoners who
may still be alive there. The entire civilized world will look
in disgust upon Japan when the truth is known. And I feel
that in this case, the Japanese will change their ways.

This belief was shared by my comrades at O'Donnell, Ca-

140

banatuan, and Davao. Their consuming desire was that the
people at home know, in full and stark detail, the barbaric
punishments inflicted upon them by their captors. Once
when we discussed the possibility of the truth some day com-
ing out, someone suggested it might result in rougher treat-
ment from the Japs. But our feeling always was that the Japs
had done everything to us they could; that if they did devise
new horrors we would be willing to take them in the knowl-
edge the American people had been apprised of the truth and
would one day exact a terrible revenge.

There was practically nothing we could do in that direc-
tion; we could not take physical revenge upon our tor-
mentors, but there were many ways we could, and did, outwit
them. There were many things they were itching to find out
about the American army and it strengthened our morale
every time we were able to give them the runaround.

There was an occasion during the last days at Cabanatuan
that will linger in my memory always. It left an unforgettably
pleasant afterglow. I felt as I had the day I shot down my
first Jap plane.

It began one fall morning before dawn when I was routed
out of bed along with two other officers and three sergeants.
We were piled into a Japanese army truck a Ford, inci-.
dentally surrounded by guards. As we rolled through the
gates a Buick, filled with Jap officers, took its place behind
us. We were told only that we were bound for military
headquarters in Manila.

The friendliness and compassion of the Filipino people
has been mentioned before, but on the trip into the city and
while there we had additional and comforting evidences of
it, We had covered about thirty-five of the seventy-five miles
when our truck broke down/When we piled out we saw we
were in front of a bamboo food stand.

The smell of cooking was too much for me. I asked a Jap
commissioned officer if we would be permitted to buy a little
something at the stand. He looked at me in amazement.

"You mean you hungry?" he asked, raising his brows.

Did I mean we were hungry! All six of us wouldn't have

141

tipped the beam at five hundred pounds. I reminded him we
had eaten nothing that day. The Jap pondered this a full
minute. Then he jerked his head toward the stand. "Go!"
he said.

We went. The Filipinos gave us four times the amount of
food we paid for. There were plates of soft, boiled corn;
boiled eggs, rice balls, greens, and fruit. It was the first real
meal we had had since the fell of Bataan. We were new men
when we climbed back aboard.

We were anxious to see what effect the war was having on
Manila. When we rolled in we could see little change, except
that the streets were pretty well deserted both of vehicular
and pedestrian traffic. We saw almost no evidence of bomb
and fire damage. The Filipinos made secret signs of friend-
ship and encouragement. I saw one man looking at us in-
tently.

He was holding a cigarette in the crotch of his first and
second fingers, which formed a V for Victory. Another had
thrust his thumb inside his belt. The downthrust fingers
formed a V. We saw many Vs as we rolled through the streets.

As we pushed in toward the heart of the city, vendors be-
gan tossing sweets into the truck. One man raced along beside
us tossing in his entire, scanty stock. Then he fled down an
alley, abandoning the cart. The guards glared, but did not
pursue. Nor did they interfere as we ate our windfall of
popsicles, ice cream bars, and candy. This was strange be-
havior indeed. We got the idea the Japs wanted something
from us and had ordered we be humored to some extent. And
so it turned out.

Our truck stopped on Taf t avenue, and we were taken into
a building where we were shown photographs of our air
warning equipment. They were old sets and some had been
damaged by explosions. The Japs wanted to know if we knew
what they were. We scratched our heads.

A sergeant said he thought one looked like a radio set. I
said I thought they looked like some new type radio trans-
mitter. These questions told us what we wanted to know. We

142

were forewarned. Our next stop was a Manila hotel and we
paraded our rags and dirt through the splendid lobby.

We were escorted to a suite where we were greeted by high
Japanese officers. They seated us in easy chairs and ordered
ice water for us. Ice water! It was something to dream about.

And all the time they treated us as honored guests. There
were even cigarettes. Then the questioning began. Could we
tell them something of our most efficient air warning service?
Where were the sets located? We told them, of course, that
these matters were kept secret even from officers and that we
knew nothing.

As the questioning went on, it became obvious the Japs
wanted the answer to a specific problem that had been both-
ering them. Presently it came out. They recalled that their
planes had caught us unaware at Pearl Harbor. Considering
our excellent air warning service, how had this happened?

"I never was at Pearl Harbor,'* I said. "I don't know what
happened."

"But," said one officer, "we caught the American planes
on the ground at Clark field, here. How did that happen?"

"I wasn't at Clark field until later. I was at Nichols field
when you caught them." It all connected up in my mind
now. They were trying to find out if the direction and alti-
tude of a bomber's approach made a difference in our sets.
This was proved the next instant.

Pressing more ice water and cigarettes upon us, one of the
officers leaned forward and, in a confidential tone, asked: *

"Would it be better that our planes fly very low or very
high?"

I realized I was wearing out our welcome, but I told him
I never had been told anything about the air warning service;
that I was just a dumb Texas boy, so would not have caught
on if I had been told.

This put a distinct chill into the air, though it was a hot
day. A Jap civilian, who I later learned only recently had
arrived from Washington and I still wonder how he got
there began to get to the root of the matter in a very busi-
nesslike way.

US

There undoubtedly were certain men in the United States
army who knew about air raid warning equipment? I had to
answer that in the affirmative. And there were also schools,
no doubt? I had to acknowledge that also. And now came
the sixty-four dollar question:

"Name and locate these schools!"

I told him I knew of only one. Then I named a little place
where I knew there wasn't any such thing. The Japs thought
they had got their information. Their courtesy vanished and
we were dismissed with grunts.

The guards returned us to our trucks, which took us to
Manila's Old Bilibid prison. There we stayed until we were
returned to camp. Just before we left, however, there were
hints that anyone who wanted to be a camp stool pigeon for
the Imperial Japanese army would do well. But offers like
this were old stuff.

We heard one other thing that was interesting: the Jap
army air force hadn't had the nerve to tackle Pearl Harbor
and had insisted the raid could not be carried off; that they
all would be shot down, the strategy of the Japs would be
exposed without striking an effective blow, and that Japanese
everywhere would lose face.

Opportunists in the Jap navy took the other view. Their
air force, they said, could carry it off. So the stab in the back
attack on Pearl Harbor was a Jap navy show. The army air
force had no part in it.

But the thing that made all us prisoners walk out of there
like new men was the knowledge the Japs knew nothing of
our air warning service, or anything connected with it. And
we had outwitted them. It was a grand feeling.

And another treat was in store for me. A little later back
at Cabanatuan I was summoned to Jap headquarters along
with five lieutenant 'colonels who had served in air force
headquarters on Bataan. We were questioned by two Jap
pilots whose rank would correspond with that of an Amer-
ican first lieutenant.

The same old, oily courtesy prevailed and we were given
glasses of warm milk, bowls of tea, ice water, and American

144

cigarettes. But things quickly took a dangerous turn. They
wanted to know the armament carried by a P-4O putsuit
plane- Knowing that the Japs had examined P-4O wrecks on
Bataan, I told him the truth: Six .5o-caliber machine guns.

The Jap who had assumed the lead in questioning us was
sitting, curling and wiggling his bare toes. Now he leaped
from his chair, dancing, gesticulating and yelling:

"Lie! Lie! Not machine guns; cannon!'* The group of
guards near-by came to alert immediately. I tried to explain
through the interpreter that though the Japs might call them
cannon, we called them machine guns.

One of the colonels told me quickly in a low voice to trans-
late the guns* caliber into millimeters. This I did, and the
Japs readily saw that though there was quite a difference be-
tween his .sy-caliber gun and our .5O-caliber, we simply
called ours machine guns because they were automatic fire.

"Oh! Okay," he said and resumed his seat, wiggling his
toes, Then came the scene I wouldn't mind reliving every
day. The Jap wanted to know what I had done in the war and
I told him I had done very little; that I had had little chance
to fly, as I was one of the inferior pilots.

"Don't be 'fraid,'* he said. "Tell what you done.*' Then,
using the interpreter, he told me this: "Fear nothing/If you
have shot down Japanese airplanes it is a thing to be proud
of."

I was a sap to do it, but the little Jap had appeared so cocky
and proud of himself that I thought I would just hang a few
on him. I told him that I had shot a Japanese plane.

"What happen?" he asked quickly.

I made an upward gesture with both hands and yelled:
"BQOOM!"

"Oooooo!*' he moaned and sat a long time looking at his
toes, which now had ceased wiggling. I think that for the first
time I saw a Jap register sorrow. Eventually, he looked up
again.

"You shoot more than one Japanese plane? Two? Three?
Don't be 'fraid."

I told him that I had shot more than one.

"How many? What happen?" he asked.

So I let him have it with gestures.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM!"

With the last "boom" I realized I probably was the biggest
sap who ever wore an American uniform. I figured the guards
behind me even now were getting ready to go into action.
Nothing happened, however, except that the little pilot gave
the weirdest and most dismal groan I ever have heard and sat
with hands clasped, rocking to and fro in his chair.

There was a long and uncomfortable silence during which
I sat wondering what I had in my head, brains or marbles.
At length the little Jap looked up, gave a few preliminary
wiggles of the toes, and began again. He wanted to know the
names of the pilots who had shot down certain planes near
our airports during the fighting on Bataan. I remembered
some of them and gave him names of pilots I knew to be dead
or who had escaped to Australia before the surrender.

He asked about the pilot who in late March had downed a
plane flown by a Japanese commissioned officer near our pres-
ent prison camp. I remembered the fight well. Lieutenant
Stone had done a neat bit of flying and shooting on that occa-
sion. The Jap pilot had been both brave and clever/Since
Stone was out of reach of the Japs I gave his name. The little
pilot shook his head dolefully.

"This Lieutenant Stone he kill my squadron leader/* he
said in a voice so somber it was almost as though he expected
me to commiserate with him.

It crossed my mind to say: "Tst, tst, tst. Lieutenant Stone
was a bad boy. Always killing Japs. Why, you know, that boy
killed every Jap he saw." But this time I had sense enough to
keep my big mouth shut. I next was asked about the relative
speeds of our planes.

"P-40. We hear it go 660 kilometers (400 miles) per hour.
True, or propaganda?"

"Propaganda," I said. "Only about 580 kilometers (350
an hour."

146

"Hah! P-g8. We hear it go 750 kilometers per hour. True
or propaganda?"

"Not true and not propaganda," I said. "P-gS goes 830 kilo-
meters (500 miles) an hour/'

"Oh! Oh! Oh! ... No!"

"Yes. True."

"Oooooooh!" Another silence, accompanied by vigorous toe
wiggling. Then he asked suddenly:

"You see No. i Japanese plane?"

I said I hadn't. Then he described it and I realized I had.
One come over the Mariveles mountain one day in March as
I was returning from a mission. The Jap saw me and banked
away, heading westward. He left me as though I were nailed
down.

"Japanese No. i plane fastest in world," continued the
pilot. "We have races at Tokio and No. i plane beat Messer-
schmitt no and beat best Italian plane." I didn't doubt it.
"Japanese all over world send money to build No. i plane.
Soon we have many." I said nothing.

The little Jap ended the conversation abruptly by put-
ting on his shoes. He seemed very thoughtful as he prepared
to take his leave. My replies, I realized, had not made the
Jap air force appear any too good. At the door he turned
back.

"Before war; you know Japanese planes fly over Philip-
pines every night without interfered with?"

I said I had known it. He slapped his short legs and howled
with laughter. He had saved face both for the Jap air force
and himself. He controlled himself long enough to add: "You
see me soon again; very soon." He still was laughing like a
hyena when he entered the car In front of headquarters. 1
didn't like that last crack, but I walked down the hill greatly
heartened. Not only had we hoodwinked the Japs again, but
I actually had caused one of them a little grief. Even the
filthy rice tasted good that night.

About half an hour later two planes roared across the camp
so low our shacks trembled and vibrated. It was my little
friend and his partner homeward bound with a load of mis-

147

information, I was greatly relieved. I knew then what he had
meant by his closing remark. I seemed to have implanted in
him a little respect for the Americans. I think he wanted to
show me that he, too, could fly an airplane.

QCTQBER, 1042, things w^r^as*M^f Cabanatuan
prison. Not long before then, the Japs haof *arched out foipr
hundred men with technical ko6wfcds(e, 'had given them
physical examinations and new clotfimg, and had put them
abbard a ship bound for Japan, wheiib jflbtey were to be factory
slaves.

Now the same thing was starting agairu They were looking
for a thousand men^this-time. 1^ Were tdld, however, that no
one need go if fee could finct someone to take his place.
There were rupaors, too, that/the one thousand were bound,
not for Japaii but for Daw> prison colony on Mindanao
island.

I didn't T#ant to go to^Japan, where there would be no
chance of escape, but I ^ras so sick of Gabanatuan I would
have been willing to go Almost anywhere. So I got out a deck
of greasy cards and de^ft two poker hands. The north hand
represented Cabanatuaft and the south Mindanao. North lost
to a pair of aces, so I pmouiiced I was ready to pack up.

On October 24, wi& were lined up and divided into com-
panies of two hundred men each. There were sick men in the
lines and thhty-one/of these were pulled out and left behind
for such treatmentfas Cabanatuan offered.

The rest of us vfcre marched the four miles into the town
of Gabanatuan anct loaded into narrow gauge boxcars. For a

change, the Japs left the doors open, and we had ventilation.

We reached Manila that afternoon, were held in die cars
until night, then were marched through the deserted streets
to Old Bilibid prison. There we slept on concrete floors, but
it wasn't so bad, because the Japs fed us mutton soup and rice
on our arrival.

The next day, October 25, we were assembled in com-
panies and started off down the street. We realized at once
that this was another victory march such as the Corregidor
prisoners made, one of those marches so dear to the Japanese
heart.

We marched through the maze of Manila streets for a long
time. Several of the Jap leaders became separated from the
main company and took their men up and down and around
and about for hours. The search for these groups prolonged
the march of the others.

The Filipinos who lined the streets looked at us silently
and with compassion. The women wept openly. Wherever we
looked, people covertly were making the V for victory sign.
From the Jap point of view, the march was a flop. The atti-
tude of the populace discouraged even the Jap soldiers who
stood here and there along the streets; soldiers such as those
who cursed and abused the Corregidor prisoners.

We arrived at the docks in late evening. Before us lay our
ship, a 7,ooo-ton British-built vessel which had been refitted
first as a Japanese troopship and later as a combination caigo
and convict ship.

I think it must have been the filthiest vessel ever to put to
sea. The deck was heaped with goods and junk of all kinds.

The hold in which we were to sleep smelled almost as bad
as the hospitals at O'Donnell and Cabanatuan prison camps.

Areas had been boxed off throughout the hold, and twelve
men were assigned to each. There was room for only six to
sleep at one time. The Jap troops had left millions of lice and
bedbugs. In a few hours we were crawling with them.

Beneath the below-decks section where we were assigned
the Japs had stored a large quantity of gasoline. This added
to the medley of smells. I took all this in, then went back on

149

deck, to get away from the stifling heat and to find out where
we were going.

The blacked-out ship eased away from the dock and slid
out into the shadows of Manila bay. A rising breeze carried
off some of the reek that rose from the vile regions below.
The gasoline fumes had seemed to lend carrying power to
the smells, permeating the entire area, before the start. The
fresh, tangy air of the bay was a blessed relief.

It was impossible, of course, to see the opposite shore,
twenty-five miles or so away in the darkness to the west. I was
not unmindful of it, however. Along there just six months be-
fore we had staggered on in the Death March from Bataan.
How many of my old comrades lay in shallow graves beside
that route, murdered by the buzzard squad? There will never
be any way of telling. We had been informed the Japs often
removed and destroyed identification tags of the men they
murdered, so that their bodies might never be claimed and
honored. I saw it happen once when the delirious and coma-
tose men were buried alive during the Death March.

I tried without success to rid myself of these dismal
thoughts as our ship sloshed and rolled down the bay. I was
dog tired but I felt I couldn't sleep until I knew whether our
destination was to be Mindanao or Japan. I must have dozed
a while. The next I remember is straining my eyes through
the starlit night at the dark and silent bulk of Gorregidor, off
to the right.

As I stared, the rocky mass seemed to be moving; slipping
around to get behind us. Suddenly I knew we were changing
our course, heading due south. This meant Mindanao. A turn
to the west would have meant Japan.

A drizzling rain began falling as I groped my way toward
the hatchway, but I didn't go below. The blast of hot, filth-
laden air that rushed up from the hold was too much. I lay
down in the rain, atop a mound of canvas-covered supplies. I
slept in the open every night of the voyageand was rained
on every night.

But there was a compensation and a big one for the dis-
comfort we suffered. The food was the best we had had since

150

the fall of Bataan. Our first breakfast was clean, well-cooked
rice with nourishing spinach soup that actually had some
spinach in it. At noon dinner there was another mound of
rice and a generous-sized dried fish. We stared unbelievingly
at the supper fare. In addition to the rice there was a big slab
of corned beef.

In the days that followed, the noon meal was augmented by
boiled squash or pumpkin soup, to which had been added
vitamin B-i or vitamin B complex. All the water on board
had been boiled and made into tea. We had as much of this
as we wanted at mealtime and were allowed to fill our can-
teens twice a day. It was stimulating as well as refreshing.

My body always reacted quickly to the old food treatment
and before long I was feeling much better. There was no
labor to dissipate the strength we were storing up. We had no
illusions, however. The good food was intended to build us
up for the labors awaiting us at Davao prison camp.

Not all of us benefited, however. There is always a catch in
every decent thing a Jap does. In this case it was the require-
ment that the Americans form in companies below decks*
march up with their mess kits to receive the food, then march
down again to eat it in the hold which now was more vile
than before because most of the men had been seasick. Some
of them, in fact, never were able to retain a meal and were
worse off when we eventually docked than when we started.
I refused to eat below and always managed to find a perch on
top of the junk with which the deck was littered.

After the first day, American officers were ordered to KP
duty, to the unconcealed delight of the enlisted men. These
"commissioned KPs." soon discovered that the Jap officers
had a large store of captured American pork. And though
each morsel was a potential case of dysentery, we ate heartily
of the generous portions our fellow officers slipped to us. The
pork was, of course, a forbidden dish. But if the Japs had
been half so observant as they seem to think they are, they
could readily have spotted all Americans who had been in-
dulging.

The Japs maintained a sharp lookout day and night for

what I don't know. The ship was well armed, guns having
been mounted fore and aft. Twice during the voyage there
was target practice. It came to our attention now that our ves-
sel was in no way marked as a prison ship. It looked like a
freighter. If we had been torpedoed by an American or Brit-
ish submarine the death toll would have been appalling, even
if we had been given a chance to swim for it.

In addition to the Jap soldiers aboard there were two com-
panies of the old Philippines constabulary which the Japs
had renamed the Bureau of Constabulary. They were unwill-
ing passengers, being taken along to fight guerrillas. They
were stationed on the port side, forward of the bridge, and
opposite the Jap troops.

We learned too late we could have counted on the help of
these men had we gone through with a mutiny plot we laid
in the early days of the voyage. At that time the talk of taking
over the ship was desultory and half-hearted and was confined
to the air force officers' group. It was not until we had sailed
down through the Sibuyan sea to the port of Iloilo on the
island of Panay that our discussions began to take a more
serious turn.

There we watched the burial of one of our number who
had suffered from seasickness, malaria, and dysentery from
the time we left Manila. They put him into a shallow grave
beside the wharf and not far from the water's edge. Beyond
the dock area we could see a flying field. Two planes were
standing on the line, their motors idling. No pilots or ground
crew men were near-by. There is nothing we wouldn't have
given for a chance at grabbing those planes and taking off.
The burial scene reminded us that we too probably were
destined to fill nameless graves, far from home.

While we still were in sight of Panay, the fellows got to-
gether to size up our chances. We took into our groups a
number of marines with whom we had fraternized. Our plan
was to strike simultaneously at the engine room, the opening
to which was near our quarters; the radio room; and the
bridge. The first two would be easily captured, we decided.

152

The bridge would present greater difficulties. We voted to
consult the ranking naval officers on board.

They promptly threw cold water on the scheme. It would
be impracticable, they said, because the vessel an eight-
knotter was too slow and because we would have no place to
go. If I had known then the things I now know, we probably
would have gone ahead,

I was told later the Filipino constabulary would have at-
tacked the Jap guards at the first hint of encouragement and
support. Further, there must have been fifteen or twenty
mutiny plots hatching at the same time. Practically every
group had one. And there were plenty of places near-by
where we would have found haven, had we only known it.

We abandoned the mutiny plan with many regrets. On
November 7 our ship tied up at the docks of the Lansang
Lumber Company near Davao and we disembarked. Some of
the huskier Americans were kept there two days and two
nights, working as stevedores on the docks and in the hold of
our transport. Most of the prisoners, however, were started
marching for Davao prison camp almost immediately. Needless
to say, our legs soon began to cramp, because of our long
confinement on the ship.

The sun was setting as we started. The brief tropical dusk
faded swiftly into darkness. The narrow jungle trail, between
high green walls of undergrowth, was illuminated weirdly by
the dimmed out headlights on trucks. Mile after mile the
corridor wound on, its walls unbroken by crossroads or clear-
ings. They really were putting us away this time. Without
complete bush equipment and ample provisions and medi-
cine, no one could hope to live in the jungle that surrounded
us.

Men who had been sick aboard ship began falling out soon
after the march began. Since they were intended as laborers,
however, they were placed in the trucks that moved along
with jus. But not until Captain Hosume, in charge of the
guards, had seen to it they were thoroughly boxed and mauled.
Hosume did not approve of the rest periods which were
granted nor did he think it right that a water truck had been

153

PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS

Japs Load Dyass

and Other Prisoners

into Box Cars

CABANATUAN
O'DONNELL* j

South
China Sea

Pacific Ocean

brought along so that we might quench our thirst as often as
necessary. These comforts probably were what aroused him
to order savage beatings for those who fell out.

We reached the prison about 2 A.M. To our amazement
we were fed before being assigned to quarters. They gave us

154

good rice and banana leaf soup. After a few hours' sleep we
had a good look at our new home.

Davao had some features in common with O'Donnell and
Cabanatuan, but was a permanent establishment. It had been
built years before as a penitentiary for offenders against the
Philippines commonwealth. More than eighty per cent of its
inmates at the time of our arrival were murderers.

Our quarters were within an oblong compound enclosing
about ten square acres and barricaded by double walls of
barbed wire. In it were eight wooden buildings sixteen feet
wide and a hundred feet long. There were watch towers,
mounting machine guns; guard stations, machine gun em-
placements, and a walking patrol that constantly was on the
move outside the barbed wire. Our kitchen was in the com-
pound with the barracks. Just across the road to the east was
Japanese headquarters.

In this direction also a railroad paralleled the prison.
Eleven kilometers to the south it made junction with the
Lansang river. Such outside supplies as were required came
up the river from Davao bay on barges and were transshipped
by rail to the prison. Produce of the prison shops and planta-
tions went by rail to the junction, then by barge to the port
of Davao.

In addition to foodstuffs, the penal colony shipped out
sawed lumber and gravel. The railroad ended slightly north-
east of the compounds in a sweeping Y, one fork of which led
to the stands of timber and the other to the gravel pits. In
this general area also were bodegas [warehouses] and other
storage centers. The sawmill was directly east of the com-
pounds.

Here also was an old enclosure with guard towers, where
Japanese had been interned after the start of the war and
before General Sharp's surrender. It now was a hospital area.
There was good reason for having a hospital there. The men
who worked in the adjacent rice paddies were coming down
continually with angry tropical ulcers.

As has been said, a host of diseases are endemic in the
Philippines. Any cut or skinbreak develops as a vicious sore

155

within a few hours unless it is cleaned and treated. The Japs'
reluctance to make available the proper antiseptics and medi-
cations needs no further comment here.

Major Mida, commander of the camp, was displeased when
he inspected the American prisoners and saw our emaciated
condition. He had asked for laborers, not scarecrows. To our
surprise, he did not put the blame on us. Instead, he ordered
that we be given rehabilitating food.

In addition to rice, we got pork and beef, cabbage, spinach,
squash, onions, potatoes, and peanuts. All these were pro-
duced on the camp's vast truck farms and livestock pastures.
From the orchards, we had assorted fruit, including bananas
to eat raw and plantains, which were baked. There was
plenty of water for drinking, bathing, and laundry.

Sick men were sent to the hospital to recuperate. Men
more than forty-five years old were not required to work.
Guards were tolerant.

It seemed to us at first that in Davao we had found a prison
camp very closely approaching heaven. But like most Japar
nese good things, the swell treatment didn't last. Apparently
the recuperation didn't proceed fast enough to please Major
Mida; so he took his laborers, anyway, cutting our diet to rice
and greens soup. That was enough to sustain life and permit
the prisoners to do some work, but no more.

Every man not actually in the hospital was put to work,
regardless of age or rank. Chaplains, officers, and enlisted
men labored side by side, planting rice, harvesting it in
murky paddies, building and cleaning Jap latrines, cultivat-
ing crops, and building roads, bridges, and revetments.

The only bright spot was the presence of our friends, the
Filipino convicts. They were the grandest bunch of mur-
derers and cutthroats I have ever known. They referred to us
as "the gentlemen prisoners/' They hated the Japs.almost as
much as we because the Japs were constantly promising them
pardons, asserting that their crimes against the common-
wealth were of no concern to Japan.

All they had to do, the Jap authorities told them, was teach
the Americans to work hard and very soon they (the Fill-

1*6

pinos) would walk out free. But the pardons never came.
Consequently, the convicts made it as easy for us as possible.
They showed us how to appear very, very busy without actu-
ally doing anything. It is amazing how little a Filipino can
accomplish if he doesn't want to work. Yet you'd think he
was going like sixty. We mastered the trick.

Major Mida may have perceived this, because he trans-
ferred most of the Filipino convicts to distant Paulau to work
on fortifications. The brunt of the work at Davao then fell
upon us.

For two and a half months, I cultivated fields, harvested,
cleared jungles, and worked barefoot in the rice paddies. Few
of us had shoes. The nails of all my toes still are black from
wading in the ooze around Davao.

When Filipinos plant rice they cover their feet and legs
with heavy wrappings, but the Japs sent us in barefoot. As
we sank knee deep into the bog, our feet and legs were cut
by the stones and debris imbedded there. The ulcers fol-
lowed.

In Jap prison camps virtually all ailments are allowed to
run their course, and more often than not the course leads to
a shallow grave.

It was not long until my legs were a mass of ulcers. I will
carry the scars the rest of my life. Simultaneously, a finger be-
came infected and swelled to triple normal size. For a time it
looked as if I might lose it.

To add to my troubles, I fell victim to scurvy, which, with
wet and dry beriberi, began sweeping the camp a few weeks
after the diet was reduced to rice. It was the old story of
vitamin deficiency.

The inside of my mouth was a mass of scurvy blisters so
painful that in order to eat I had to throw my head back and
drop the rice down in balls, praying none of it would touch
the sides or roof of the mouth, My lower lip was swollen and
covered with blisters. This came at the same time as my
ulcers. The Japs would do nothing for me, though I was very
much under the weather.

The scurvy eventually was cured when my friends man-

157

aged to steal quantities of papaya melons and fruit. The sores
healed by themselves.

I have said before that the Japs never seemed to do any-
thing that made sense. Major Mida was crying for laborers,
yet he would let men lie sick and inactive when he could
have had them on their feet with a little of the fruit that
grew in profusion around Davao or by applying a few cents'
worth of unguents and antiseptics to their ulcers.

If this was not deliberate cruelty, if it was just the Jap way
of doing things, the war probably will be much shorter than
we now think. Providing us with fruit, which was rotting on
the ground, wouldn't have increased the cost of feeding us.
This, I am reliably informed, was less than one cent a man
per day.

And, despite our early hopes, it developed that murder and
barbarism were to be part of the routine at Davao.

The hospital compound where the sick were kept was the
scene of one of several cold-blooded killings that marked our
stay at Davao.

An American soldier was one victim. He had been assigned
to a task outside the barricade and had been given a pass. He
went through the gate and began his duties near the north-
west guard tower. After working forty-five minutes he grew
thirsty and called to someone within to toss him a canteen of
water. A Jap guard in the tower saw the canteen go over the
wire. He began shouting and shaking his rifle.

The soldier, believing the guard thought the canteen con-
tained something contraband, unscrewed the top and poured
out some of the water to show him it did not. Without a
word, the Jap raised his rifle and shot the American three
times; once in the chest and twice in the back after he had
fallen.

Then in a tantrum, he turned the gun on the hospital
building and emptied the magazine. The bullets passed
through the pine board structure, but didn't hit any of the
patients.

Japanese officers who had witnessed the murder summoned
an American surgeon, a lieutenant colonel, who examined

1*8

the victim and pronounced him dead. The Japs explained to
him that the shooting was necessary. The man had tried to
escape.

There was nothing we could do in retaliation. Striking a
guard or even talking back to him meant almost certain
death. I was told by several witnesses of a case on Corregidor
in which an American soldier who had been struck by a Jap
guard walloped him one in return and knocked him flat.

Another Jap bayoneted him several times from behind.
The American died in agony.

Our friends, the Filipino murderers at Davao, took quite a
different view of retaliation. They were willing to bide their
time, then strike.

One day we were on detail at the edge of the dense Davao
jungle with a Filipino his fellows said he really was a Moro
who a few days before had been tied up and flogged for
selling leaf tobacco to an American. He had been brooding
and silent for days, and, I came to realize, waiting for his
chance-
It came now. The Jap guard called a rest period, then took
off his shoes and sat down in the shade of a tree. With a
spring so swift it made him look like a little brown blur, the
Filipino seized an ax and buried il in the Jap's neck, almost
decapitating him. Then he snatched a bolo knife and exe-
cuted some intricate and pretty shocking carving on the re-
mains.

After this he put on the Jap's shoes, picked up his rifle and,
without a glance at us, took to the jungle. We expected ter-
rible repercussions, but as a Filipino convict and not one of
us had been responsible, nothing happened.

The aftermath, however, was satisfying in a creature way
to us. The Japs of Davao turned out en masse for an im-
pressive funeral. After considerable ceremony, the dead man
was placed upon a funeral pyre and burned. When the flames
had died, ashes were placed in an urn, and the Japs gathered
up the beer, rice, meats, sweet cakes, and other foods that
had stood near-by during the burning. These they removed
to a small building so they would be ready at hand for the

159

departed's spirit when he started his journey to the great
beyond.

Well, I guess they had to figure that this was one Jap ghost
that 'took his chow with him, because when they went back
after it they found only empty beer bottles. There was noth-
ing they could say because, according to Jap tradition, no one
but the ghost could have taken the food.

It was the first beer I had had in many a day. And with
beef, too!

CHAPTER TWELVE

NEXT TO OUR ESCAPE, the event that will live longest in my
memory of Davao prison camp was the arrival around Christ-
mas, 1942, of the Red Cross supplies. No Christmas present
I can ever get will thrill me as much.

The Japs pilfered the supplies, robbing us as usual, but
what they passed on undoubtedly saved lives. Distribution of
the boxes caused the greatest upsurge of spirit and morale in
the history of the camp. I saw mature men with teats stream-
ing down their cheeks as they opened their packages.

There were American, British, and South African boxes,
all delivered by the International Red Cross. Each man was
given a South African box. Then the men, in teams of two,
were given an American and a British box to pool between
them. There was enough difference to warrant this arrange-
ment. We tossed a coin to decide who would have first choice,

For example, there was tobacco in the American box, but
none in the British. On the other hand, the British box con-
tained an extra can of meat.

Other contents included jam, coffee substitute, canned to-
matoes, fish, hard biscuit, cheese, prepared puddings, evap-

ifin

orated or condensed milk, instant cocoa, vitaminized essence
of orangeade, corned beef, beef and dumplings, tea, sugar,
and rice. Among the toilet articles were razors, blades, combs,
mirrors, and blessed soap. There also were some knitted
sweaters and a few cloth hats.

Despite the first choice scheme we had worked out, we
shared the meat, fish, and tobacco. After handing out the
boxes, the Japs characteristically shut off the spinach broth
they had been giving us with our rice and did not restore it
after the supplies were exhausted. This caused more scurvy.

They confiscated a large quantity of bulk cane sugar and
chocolate included in the shipment. They told us this would
be doled out as we required it. None of it ever was, though
they did have a couple of issues of coarse brown sugar which
we had produced ourselves.

The thing we resented most was confiscation of the Amer-
ican cigarettes. After my escape, I was able to buy them at
four dollars a pack from guerrillas who had penetrated Jap
settlements near the prison. Most of them, I suppose, went
to Jap soldiers, as did most of the medicines the Red Cross
sent.

We had to shrug these things off, of course. Protests would
only have brought trouble on the whole camp. To keep our
equilibrium we cooked up jokes we would play on the Japs.
They seldom tumbled to any of them, but all of us got a kick
out of them and felt better about our wrongs.

One of these developed soon after the Filipino killed the
Jap guard, whose funeral chow we ate. The word spread that
he had been a Moro, not a Filipino, and had joined his
people lurking near-by. This alarmed the Japs, who have
a mortal fear of Moros. (This fear will be understood by
any American soldier who fought through the Philippines
campaign of forty-four years ago.)

The Moros are wild, misshapen little men with fiendish
faces. And they are deadlier than a cobra. They know the
jungle better than anyone.

The Japs never liked the jungle, anyway/and after the
guard was killed they appeared to have a horror of it. We

161

utilized the Moro bogey to the full. We did it this way: when
a detail was working at the edge of the growth, someone
would slip some distance into it and find a hollow log. Upon
this he would beat out a booming rhythm with a couple of
clubs.

Then someone else would toss a handful of gravel into the
brush and the rest of us would yell: "Moros! Moros! Moros!"
The Jap guards would turn pale and stare wildly into the
dim fastness. Finally, screwing up their courage, they would
tiptoe in a few yards, their hands trembling so they couldn't
have hit the side of a barn if they had fired.

Having stayed in just long enough to preserve face, they
would hurry out again and take the detail to some spot far
removed from the jungle. We got easier work this way, too,
and they never caught on.

We were even able to turn their "rising sun" ceremony
into a joke. About twice a week we had to line up and salute
toward the east, the direction of the palace of their Son of
Heaven. They always managed to have the Jap flag in the
immediate foreground so that to all intents and purposes we
were saluting it. We always saluted, but we raised our hands
with fingers slightly outspread, allowing the thumb to touch
the nose and linger there.

One of our whimsies took a more practical turn. We were
continually having to build revetments around the camp.
These were supposed to have a solid core of hardwood logs,
then be covered with a thickness of clay or other firm earth.

We learned the Japs didn't know a whole lot about vari-
ous woods, that is, our immediate guards didn't. So we took
to building revetments from large stacks of banana and pa-
paya tree trunks, covered with thin layers of earth. A bullet
would pass through these as easily as through cardboard. We
also learned to string barbed wire entanglements in such a
way that a strong pull on a single strand would bring the
whole works down like a collapsing tent.

The most fun was when the Japs tried to make plowboys
out of a bunch of air force men and marines. I like to remem-

162

ber it because it was the first in a series of events that led to
our escape.

The pilots and sea soldiers, who had hung together as a
clique, were assigned permanently to the plowing detail and
were taken one morning to the coconut grove to get plows
and animals. The plows were one-handled, with wooden
blades, and belonged in a medieval museum. The animals
were humped cattle, resembling the sacred cows of India.

Each had a ring in its nose. Through this a long rope was
passed, supposedly for steering the beast. But it couldn't be
done. Not by us, anyway. The cows responded in two ways
to our steering: they would (i) balk or (2) apparently con-
clude the plowman was dafly and go bellowing and charging
around the patch ripping up the soil and even wrecking ad-
joining patches of growing stuff.

I am a country boy and have chopped and picked cotton,
hoed corn, and tended truck patches, but I never learned to
plow. The only man there who ever had was a graduate of
Texas A. & M. college. He commented:

"Man and boy, I plowed with stubborn Texas mules,
but all my experience with them is no help with these mis-
born dromedaries!"

There was no use cussing them in English, because they
didn't understand it. Well, we would go tearing around, the
Americans swearing at the cattle, the Japs swearing at the
Americans, and the cattle bellowing at both the Americans
and the Japs. After a day's plowing, the field looked as if it
had been dive-bombed, strafed, and had been fought over by
tanks in a major engagement.

Finally the rains came, settling the terrain and showing
that the field was full of great, barren islands of untouched
hard ground. As punishment, the Japs made us sit around
during the rainy season doing minor jobs in the swamp. I
came down with malaria and a skin infection at the same
time. Ailments always went in pairs for me.

It was in the midst of my disabilities that the Japs decided
to let us have a Christmas celebration. We never were able
to figure out why. Major Mida announced there would be no

163

work of any kind. On Christmas morning we were assembled
in the open ground beside our barracks and were greeted by
a large group of Filipino civilians who lived in the region.
They filed among us, handing out little holiday cakes made
of cassava root and molasses. Each was wrapped in a banana
leaf. They were delicious.

After we had eaten, we sang Christmas carols and other
songs, the Filipinos joining in as best they could. In the
afternoon there was a more formal entertainment, but the
Japs ruined it by horning in. The Filipino youngsters did
native dances and we sang; solos, quartets, and all together,
Then the Japs got into the spirit of the thing and insisted on
singing some war songs. It was the awfulest caterwauling I
ever have listened to. The howling was followed by sword
dances which were accompanied by ear-splitting whoops and
yells. My aches and pains kept me from enjoying the good
parts of the show and the Japs' contributions almost drove
me out of my head.

I kept up my strength during the malaria siege, thanks to
extra grub which was spirited out of the kitchen for me by
Sam Grashio, who was assigned there. This bridged me over
until receipt of some quinine from the International Red
Cross. The Japs issued enough of this to knock the fever.

When I recovered, late in January, 1943, there was another
development in the escape pattern. A Jap noncom was sent
around to tell me that because of my skill with the cattle, I
had been chosen to drive the camp bull cart as a permanent
assignment. I looked at him sharply, but he wasn't kidding.
So I entered into my role as bull driver.

The cart was used to haul coffee and other produce from
the plantation to the bodega; It carried implements and sup-
plies to the work details and performed a sort of general
errand service throughout the camp.

At first, the cart was inspected thoroughly at all guard out-
posts, going and coming. As the guards got to know me one
or two even showed faint signs of friendliness and grew lax
in their inspections.

I did all I could to help this spirit along. Hopes of escape,

164

which never had been entirely absent during my imprison-
ment, were beginning to rise. The vague outlines of a plan
were forming in my mind as I plodded along beside the
bulls. To the guards I now was "very good." This is one of
three expressions every Jap knows. The others are "okay"
and "no good/' It was about this time that I got another
chance to widen my circle of friends. The Jap authorities in-
stituted English classes and I became one of the teachers. The
guards were issued Japanese-English dictionaries. We made
some progress, though these lessons were harder on the in-
structors than on the pupils. Japanese is a terrible language
to learn or teach especially teach. The first thing the guards
wanted to know, of course, were "cursing" words. There was
one fellow whom we called "Betty Boop" because of his
plump cheeks, who grew quite proud of the word I taught
him. He caused me much embarrassment afterward.

Whenever he saw me, no matter at what distance, he would
yell out this word at the top of his lungs. It caused much
merriment among the Americans, and I think it brought me
some good will among the Japs. It was the nearest we ever
came to good-natured kidding with our captors.

We had names for all the Jap guards, usually based on
their physical characteristics. Because of his big ears, we
named one "Clark Gable." The biggest, blackest, and stupid-
est Jap I have ever seen was, of course, dubbed "Big Stoop,"
from Milt Caniff s comic strip, "Terry and the Pirates."

"Robert Taylor" was, I must say, genuinely handsome, and
we found he was a sucker for flattery. He would stride up and
down with his chest out and let us feel his muscles. He be-
came so vain that he started changing his uniform every three
or four weeks, a practice almost unheard of among the Japs*

The English classes, however, deprived us of one of out
favorite diversions. It had been our happy custom to smile
upon our Jap guards and call them everything under the sun,
beginning with their ancestry and coming on down. This
now had to stop. They were getting to know too many words.

Meanwhile, I had other things to think about. I had pretty

165

well established myself as the camp's No. i good will am-
bassador. I figured it was time to begin cashing in.

It was now along in February and the outline of a plan for
escape no longer was vague in my mind. I remember the
time, because it was then we were allowed to send postal
cards home. My spirits had so risen that I added four words to
my message: "I will be home."

Having done that, I determined to lay some groundwork
for the actual attempt. I did so that night.

Thoughts of escape from the Japs were by no means new
to me or to any other prisoners. We had entertained them at
O'Donnell and Cabanatuan camps, on the prison ship, and
here at Davao. The odds always had been hopeless. But now,
I was ready to try to make up a party.

It was a night in February, 1943, that I sat down on a bunk
in the rear of the barracks beside Captain (now Major) Aus-
tin C. Shofner, of the U. S. Marines, whom we called "Shifty."
We were well removed from the others in the long, bleak
room. We talked more than an hour and decided to sleep on
it.

It still looked good the next night, and we decided to give
it a try even if we lost our lives. We discussed the men about
us as possible companions. Shifty suggested two marine cap-
tains, now majors. They are Majs. Jack Hawkins and Michael
Dobervitch, both fearless, resourceful, dependable, and in
fair physical condition. Jack, a naval academy graduate, re-
membered something of his navigation and spoke Spanish as
well. Mike was powerfully built and a bull for work.

I mentioned Sam Grashio and Leo. Sam had given up his
job in the kitchen because he hated the Japs so much he
could no longer trust himself in a spot where butcher knives
were at hand. Leo was one of the finest airplane engineers
and motor experts I have ever known. He was employed in
the machine shop.

[Editor's note: Colonel Dyess employs only a given name
where there is uncertainty that the man has as yet reached the
continental United States.]

The next day, while Shifty was feeling out the marines, I

166

walked up to Sam and asked him if he'd like to go over the
hill with me. He replied at once:

"When do we go? Right now? Sure!"

Leo and I had talked about escape many times, but the
difficulties of equipment and assembling the right sort of
party always were too great. Leo was one of the men who had
escaped Cabcaben field, but had failed to reach Australia.

I told him I thought the time now was right. He said heart-
ily that he still was all for it. We talked it over at length, and
Leo said he could make fishhooks, knives, and other jungle
equipment. I saw Shifty soon afterward. He reported Mike
and Jack were rarin' to go. That night the six of us met in
the darkness behind the barracks.

We agreed to begin active preparations the next day, hold-
ing out bits of food at meal time and secreting any weapons
or tools we could find. There was quite a list of things we
would need before launching our effort.

These included food, leggings as a protection against in-
sects and scratches from thorns and undergrowth, quinine for
malaria, antiseptics and other medicines for treating scratches
to head off tropical ulcers, shoes, blankets, or shelter tent
halves, mosquito bars, matches, small knives or daggers and
bolo knives for hacking our day through the growth, a watch,
compass, sextant, andby no means least money.

All were vital. And we had only clothes, shoes, and blan-
kets. After several more of our nightly talks, we concluded
we would need an expert navigator, as we envisioned a long
voyage in a boat of some sort and Jack didn't think he re-
membered enough navigation for such an undertaking.

We talked over the available naval personnel and eventu-
ally agreed upon Lieutenant Commander (now Commander)
Melvyn H. McCoy. He had been captured on Corregidor,
and I had first met him at Cabanatuan prison camp. When
Shifty propositioned him, McCoy was enthusiastic, but said
he would have to bring along three men associated with him
on the coffee picking detail, which McCoy directed.

These were Major Stephen M. Mellnik of the coast artil-
lery, and two army enlisted men, Paul and Bob. McCoy and

167

his men were able to make a real contribution. Their coffee
plantation was near the poultry farm and they began swiping
chickens, which we traded for such nonperishable food as
tinned or dried fish, hard biscuits, and other items.

Leo meanwhile was busy. He held out some of the bolos
that came his way, cutting them down to dagger size, or pre-
serving them intact. His crowning achievement was fashion-
ing a crude sextant that actually worked.

We stole a watch and compass from the Japs, but we didn't
feel bad about the watch, for it once had belonged to an
American soldier. We picked up the maps here and there.

And during the weeks these details were being arranged we
got two Filipino recruits, Ben and Victor. Sam enlisted Ben,
who recommended Victor because of his knowledge of jungle
craft.

It should be made clear that each time an intimation of
our plan was imparted to an outsider we ran a terrible risk.
One did not have to escape or even attempt to escape to bring
down upon himself and comrades the most appalling of pun-
ishments. We all knew the story of the American soldier and
his Filipino friend who planned a break from the Negros
Island camp. They told their plans to one person too many
and the Japs found their little store of supplies. This evi-
dence of intended escape resulted in the summary beheadal
of both men.

After Ben and Victor had been admitted to the plot, we
decided they would be the last. We told no other prisoners
our plans.

This was partially for their own protection. If, after the
escape, the Japs should suspect any remaining prisoner of
having advance knowledge of it, that individual's head would
he as good as rolling in the sand.

We also determined to kill no Japs in our escape, for this
would bring reprisals upon the entire camp. We therefore
had to lay our plans much more carefully.

There were two courses: (i) to escape from the compound
at night, and this would be virtually impossible, or (2) to
break away from a detail, but this might entail knocking out

168

a guard and also would cause reprisals. We decided we would
have to figure some other way; something involving a slip-
away. We did, later.

The Ides of March came and passed. With the exception of
a few trifles and extras, we had all our equipment. There was
only the problem of caching it at the spot in the jungle from
which we intended to take off, but what a problem!

Some of the things were in the possession of individual
men. Others were at the appointed place. But the bulk of the
stuff was on the opposite side of the camp.

As the time drew near, we knew we must act, That is where
the bull cart and friendly guards came in. I had been hauling
poles for fences. A few days later, during the noon hour ebb,
I drove to the coffee detail where Mellnik, McCoy, Paul, and
Bob had prepared a load of poles similar to those I had been
transporting. This was near the jungle edge where our sup-
plies lay.

We put the supplies into the bed of the cart and laid the.
poles over them. Mellnik sat atop the load, supposedly to
make certain no poles fell off. I walked, driving the bulk.

I followed a feeder road leading into a secondary road
which cut directly across the middle of the camp to the place
where the fence detail had been working at the fringe of the
jungle. All along the way we met Jap guards, but they either
paid no attention or grunted a greeting. We passed, beneath
tower watchers and in front of machine gun emplacements.

I was on pins and needles, not because we were doing any-
thing unusual, but because the individual Jap is unpredicta-
ble. We were sure all was well, but you can never tell when
you're dealing with Japs*

We were dismayed to find a Jap guard posted just a few
yards up the road from our destination. I didn't know him.
He turned and looked at us. Well, there was nothing to do
but start unloading. Any funny business then would have
been fatal. We began hauling the poles off the cart. The Jap
watched a minute, then turned his head.

The poles came off on his side and the supplies went off on
the opposite side and into the tall jungle grass. They would

169

get soaking wet, for the rains were coming down every day,
but that couldn't be helped.

That night, as we Americans shook hands in the darkness
behind the barracks, we felt the worst was over. We decided
it now was time to set a date and complete our plans.

Most of us thought that a Sunday would be the time, be-
cause there would be only a few details sent out and vigilance
would be relaxed. Sunday details usually performed minor
tasks near the barricades and no Jap guards went along.
There was a shortage of them, and this was their day of rest.

On Saturday night, March 27, 1943, we were ready and de-
termined to make our break the next day. Somehow, how-
ever, I felt something was wrong, I couldn't say what. I just
didn't believe we were going. I was sure something would
happen. That's how psychic you get in a prison camp. We
didn't go. The Japs ordered all hands out with guards to
plant rice.

We were delayed a week, but we used that week well. We
observed the tower guards and the patrol. We timed our
movements. We measured distances. And at midweek we
learned the attempt would have to be made the following
Sunday or not at all.

Reinforcements were coming. There would be guards with
the details on Sundays as well as other days. Sunday, April 4,
would be the last day prisoners would go outside alone. It
was time for final plans.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ON SATURDAY NIGHT, April 3, we gave our plans a final going
over. We satisfied ourselves that if the venture should end in

170

disaster, it would not be because of any bungle on our part.
We had committed to memory the route, the timing, and
how we would conduct ourselves. There were plenty of long
chances ahead, but we had to take them, trusting in God.

The ten Americans were to get out of the compound by
means of a slight hocus-pocus in connection with the day's
work details. The two Filipinos, being prisoners of the com-
monwealth, could get away easily enough from the convicts*
compound after the routine Sunday morning count. The two
details and the Filipinos would rendezvous according to the
plan already worked out.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. We were up
early. Our men finished breakfast, then drew the regulation
rations issued to details that are to work outside the barri-
cade. Each man got a mess kit filled with rice. There were
two large tin cans of soup to be heated at chow time. There
was some additional equipment that had been accumulated
at the last minute, and this we distributed about our persons.

Shifty led the first detail, which was made up of Jack, Mike,
and Sam. McCoy led the second detail, made up of Mellnik,
Paul, Bob, Leo, and myself.

The first group fell in and marched to the southeast gate,
through which it was passed without question, and proceeded
straight east, crossing the main road and the tracks. Within a
few minutes, the first four men were at the rendezvous.

Now it was our turn. I have spoken before of the prayers,
silent prayers, we used to say at O'Donnell and Cabanatuan
camps and of how I came to think of God as a man thinks of
his commanding officer as "The Old Man." I knew that the
next minute or two would bring the supreme test for us.

I didn't exactly pray, but I thought to myself: "If the Old
Man is with us, we'll make it. If He isn't, we won't."

We halted at the gate. McCoy, whom the guards had seen
as a detail leader in the past, stepped up and saluted.

One of the Japs stepped out into the road to look us over
dosely. Whether he actually was more suspicious than usual I
don't know, but he did hesitate. Usually the guard made a

171

swift count, then called it off to one of his partners, who
would chalk it on a board.

This fellow, however, continued to stand and look at us.
There was plenty of chance for a slip. Even a cursory exam-
ination of our persons would have disclosed enough contra*
band to have lost all of us our heads. It seemed to me that I
clanked when I walked.

It was a long moment. Then suddenly the guard snapped:
"O.K.!" and stepped back. His partner chalked us down.
We passed through the gate.

We were in plain view of guards with binoculars on the
northwest and southwest towers of the camp.

We walked as nonchalantly as possible, but it seemed to me
that my heart was beating my brains out. I thought I could
actually feel the guards' eyes on the back of my neck.

As we crossed a road one at a time, we were so close a
guard could easily have knocked us off with his gun. Obvi-
ously he didn't notice us. There was no outcry.

When we were all across, I thought to myself: "The Old
Man is with us today. What we're having is more than luck;
a lot more than luck."

Skirting the southern boundary of the hospital and chapel
compounds, we crossed a wide open space and neared the
main road, which was to be our greatest hazard. A guard was
stationed there, about twenty yards from where we were to
cross.

It had been our intention to slip across, one by one, but
as we were about to do so we saw a Filipino, whom we did
not know, coming down the road between us and tfre guard.
He saw us. There was only one thing to do.

Snapping into detail formation, we walked boldly across,
looking neither right nor left. The Filipino said nothing. We
stepped into the tall grass on the opposite side and kept
going.

If the guard had shouted or fired, he would have attracted
the attention of a second Jap on a smaller road to the east
and a large Jap outpost farther south. An outcry would have
Brought the entire camp down upon us.

17*

The last bad place was just ahead the small road to the
east. We crept up and waited at its edge, Watching our
chance, we infiltrated across, one by one, using the tactics
some of us had learned when we fought as infantry on Bataan.
We now were in the banana plantation, through which we
moved northward, passing Jap headquarters almost hidden in
the trees.

We continued through the thick foliage until we reached
our cached supplies. As expected, they were soaked. We
wrung them out, slung them across our backs, and in a few
steps reached the rendezvous. Shofner and the others were
waiting. We made an equitable distribution of the equip-
ment. We now had only to wait for Ben and Victor and we
would be on our way.

We stood silently in the jungle fastness. We could hear
nothing. It seemed like an hour that we waited, keenly con-
scious that every minute we lost was a minute gained for the
Japs and they would be able to travel much faster than we
because of our weakened condition. I wondered if the two
Filipinos could have given us away in the hope of speeding
the pardons promised them by the Japs.

Then, like a wraith, Victor materialized out of the jungle.
He whispered that Ben was waiting a short distance off, that
he would fetch him. Waiting, I stood silent in the dim twi-
light of matted vines and trees. Then I heard someone com-
ing noisily. I drew my fighting bolo. Presently, I could see a
Filipino, a stranger, making his way along. He passed within
three and a half feet of me and disappeared. Then we heard
the blows of his bolo as he chopped at trees.

It was about now that the daily rain started coming down.
From his place of concealment, Leo whispered: "Good old
rain. It'll cover our tracks."

"Cover our tracks, hell!" said Shifty. "I wish those guys
would come on so we could start making some tracks."

Ben and Victor appeared shortly afterward. They ex-
plained that on leaving the compound they had met some
Filipinos they didn't trust and had to linger to allay suspi-
cion. They were just about thirty minutes late.

173

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

^ Si^" tsAMAR

t^ Pacific
Ocean

MINDANAO

At 10:15 A.M. we plunged into the dense Davao jungle,
strung out in single file, Victor in the lead. One man hung to
the rear to give the alarm in the event we were pursued. The
rain continud to come down. The ooze was knee deep and
the dim path often dipped through water-filled gullies. There
were mosquitoes by the millions.

The going almost immediately grew more difficult. It was
necessary to slash a path through the undergrowth. Once the
Japs found this trail, they would be up with us in no time.

Our course led across many jungle streams, swollen by the
rains. Some were too deep to wade and we had to chop down
trees to use as bridges. Someone had brought some rope,
which proved invaluable in crossing the water hazards. Be-
cause our strength was not up to par, we quickly grew weary.
The rain-soaked packs got heavier and heavier.

About thirty minutes before dark, we halted. We had
drunk all our water, and as we could not drink jungle water
we had to find another supply. Victor knew the answer to
this. He pulled down some buhuka, the serpentine, straggling
vines that grow among the trees, and snipped off the ends.
(The water contained in these hollow stems has been purified
by vegetable action. The end is held in the mouth and the
water trickles down.)

We pushed on a little farther that night, then came to the
bank of a stream so swollen we didn't want to tackle It in the
darkness. We cut down trees and from the trunks and smaller
branches built four raised beds to keep us above the water.
We ate the rice issued to us that morning. It had soured dur-
ing the day. Then we tried to sleep. We felt fairly secure,
knowing the Japs would be unable to find us that night.

The rain had stopped. The jungle grew weirdly silent. We
could hear only the bubbling of water in the stream and the
whine of dive bomber mosquitoes. We were dozing when
there was a resounding crash followed by heavy splashes and
some of the most spectacular profanity I ever have listened to.
The marines' bed had collapsed, dropping them into the
water and ooze.

Shifty was the only one of us who didn't sleep that night*

175

He insisted he could hear jungle drums, booming intermit-
tently during the dark hours. I won't say he didn't. I came to
know in the days ahead that you can hear anything in the
jungle.

Daylight of the second day showed us that the stream bar-
ring our progress had risen during the night. We cut nearly
a dozen trees to bridge it. Going was much more difficult
after we reached the other side.

Our Filipino comrades, Victor and Ben, went ahead, swing-
ing their razor-sharp bolos at the matted growth. Jack walked
immediately behind them with the compass. At first we
checked the course every fifteen or twenty minutes, but we
soon found we were zigzagging and losing time, so we started
checking it every four to five minutes.

The buhuka vine, which had quenched our thirst the day
before, now seemed to regret its helpfulness and became a
painful hindrance. Its fibrous covering is studded with thorns,
which tore our clothing and us.

We came to places in the jungle impossible to cut through.
Sometimes we climbed over, and again we crawled under,
holding our noses just above the slime and expecting to meet
snakes face to face.

At 9 A.M. we checked our progress and found we had been
making even poorer time than we had thought. This was
dangerous. Once the Japs picked ^ up our broad trail, they
would have the benefit of our clearance work and would
travel much faster than we.

At 10 A.M. the jungle ended and we were in the great
swamp. The water was knee deep with soft mud at the bot*
torn. There were occasional grassy hummocks of firm ground,
but not enough of them to help us much. Sword grass grew
ten and twelve feet high. Every time a blade of it struck us it
laid the skin open like a knife. Victor and Ben wrapped their
hands and faces, but they were bleeding profusely in a short
time.

The heat was steamy and weakening. We were soaked with
sweat. We had passed up breakfast to conserve our meager
supply of food.

176

We made even less progress as the sword grass grew thicker
and more robust. There was nothing to do but go on. Only
the prison lay behind and we knew we'd have to cross the
swamp somewhere. Often, after cutting twenty-five yards or
so, we encountered clumps that were too much even for the
keen bolos. We would have to retreat and try again. It was
not uncommon to make less than a hundred yards in an hour.
At 2 P.M. we were about finished.

Heat, hunger, fatigue, and the difficult going were almost
too much. We remembered having passed an enormous log
about thirty feet long which rested near a large fallen tree. It
took almost an hour to get back to it. Every time I threw my-
self down on a grassy hummock to rest I would look at the
dark water and think, "Oh, what the hell! Why not just stay
here?"

When we reached the log, we opened a can of meat filched
from the Japs. This gave us strength to gather dry twigs
which Victor used to build a ^re on the broader end of the
log. While he cooked rice in one bucket and made tea in the
other, we cut trees to form the framework of our beds for the
night.

We were iii the midst of this when Leo shouted: "Duck!
Duck!" An angry humming filled the air. Then we saw what
seemed to be thousands of bees. They were the biggest brutes
I ever saw. Their hive must have been in the log near the
spot where Victor built the fire. When two of them hit me
in the back simultaneously, I thought I had been stabbed.

I fell forward across the log and covered my head with my
hands. About a dozen bees had a try at me as I found later
when I picked their stingers out of my shirt. Bob was stung a
dozen times before he plunged into the water. No one esr
caped. The bees raised hell more than half an hour, then
left us*

The pain of the stings took our minds temporarily off our
other troubles, and we proceeded rapidly with the business of
building our platform. When it was ready, the rice and tea
were waiting. As we ate we discussed strategy.

Everyone wanted to go ahead, but we had no way of know-

177

ing how much swamp remained to be conquered. Our shoes
were falling apart* Our lgs and bodies had been slashed se-
verely by the sword grass. Infections would start swiftly. An-
other day like this one would finish us off, we thought.

An eerie glow appeared in the west. Some of us thought it
might be a forest fire, but it was obvious that if this were true
the fire must be many miles off. Then we saw that the east
was glowing also and realized we were seeing one of those
strange tropical sunsets that lights up the sky in all directions.

We hung our wet shoes on poles and rigged our mosquito
bars as best we could. We got out our blankets and shelter
tent halves. All this time we were talking in low voices, just
Iou4 enough to be he^rd above the noises of the swamp.

Settling down to rest I found a depression between two tree
trunks and made myself fairly comfortable. I was exhausted.
But before dropping off to sleep I got to thinking of the odds
against me.

Sam was lying on one side of me and Shifty on the other.
I don't know what made me do it, but on the impulse I
turned to Shifty and said.

"Don't you think Sam ought to lead us in a little prayer?"

There had been a lot of silent prayer among us during the
last three days. I am sure of that, though I can speak only for
myself. Sam was the most religious boy in the bunch. He was
of Italian ancestry and was a Catholic, having been an altar
boy when he was a kid.

Sam was a quiet sort of youngster, slight of build and
slender. Unlike many persons of Italian blood he had blond
hair. He had spent some years as an amateur boxer and in
some bout or other his nose had been flattened slightly.
Shifty answered my question at once.

"I sure do think he ought to, Ed," he said.

"How about it, Sam?" I asked.

"All right/' he said. "Let's all start off with the Lord's
Prayer."

We said the Lord's Prayer with Sam leading us and some
of the boys stumbling over the words. Then Sam continued
on alone with something that sounded like one of the Cath-

olic litanies, but none of us knew any responses. He finishe
with a prayer that was based partially on one of the psalm
but most of it was his own.

In this he asked God to deliver us from our enemies, t<
protect us from disease and the jungle, to deliver us out o
the swamp, and to see us safely into the American lines. H<
concluded:

"We ask it in Your name. Amen," We all echoed "Amen/
I felt easier and more optimistic than I had since the start
of the escape. The next minute I was dead to the world
There was only one interruption during the night. Two ol
the marines fell through their bed and into the water.

At daylight we were up for our third day in the jungle.
Victor made tea and cooked some of the dwindling supply of
rice.

We decided to continue through the swamp. We felt better
after our sleep and the stimulation of rice and tea. At 8 A.M.
we were slashing away again. The first two hours took us
through the toughest part of the great morass.

At 10 A.M. the sword grass grew thinner and the water shal-
lower. It was still tough going, make no mistake about that,
and the heat again had grown steamy, stifling, and enervat-
ing. But we were much encouraged.

Then, at 2 P.M., the swamp ended as abruptly as it had
begun and we stepped into the gloom and slime of the jungle*
It was almost as good as getting back home, though this part
of the jungle presented difficulties all its own. There were
scores of leeches which burrowed into the skin at every un-
protected place.

It was a mistake to pull them off, because the heads re-
mained under the skin and continued to burrow, eventually
causing great sores. The only remedy was to burn them off
or rub tobacco into the sores.

After an hour of splashing along we struck a dim trail that
seemed to lead in the general direction we wanted.

We had gone only a little way when there was an exclama-
tion from one of the fellows. He had stopped and was staring

179

down. In the mold were footprints. Most of them had been
made by split-toed shoes with hobnail heels.

This could mean only one thing Jap soldiers! The split-
toed shoes give the feet more freedom on difficult terrain and
assist the wearer in climbing trees for sniping. But the thing
that jarred us was that the prints were fresh.

We dashed into the cover of the jungle and conferred.
Victor, Ben, and Bob then scouted north, while Shifty and
Leo watched in our immediate vicinity. The rest of us went
on to a clearing where the sun beat down, and there we
spread out our equipment to dry.

At 5:30 P.M. the scouts returned, reporting they had found
signs of heavy foot traffic and a group of newly deserted
houses. There were prints obviously made by Filipinos.

They brought back some native sweet potatoes and plan-
tains that could be tossed into the coals and baked. We began
chopping down trees to build bunks for the night. We re-
mained cautious, however.

Despite the progress we had made during the day we spent
a miserable night. Being back in the jungle, we were vul-
nerable again to those dive-bombing mosquitoes. I slept
almost not at all. The one time I was about to drop off there
was a ripping crash, followed by bitter profanity.

The marines' bed had collapsed as usual.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED were much alike: a succession of
jungle, swamp, mountains, swollen rivers, and rain. The
rough going was beginning to tell on our weakened bodies.
There was little medicine left in our waterproof bag. There

180

were no antiseptics for treating the tropical ulcers which had
developed as infections from scratches and abrasions which
were unavoidable in this wild and brush-covered country.
We seemed to take turns being sick. This was fortunate be-
cause there always was someone well enough to rally the
others.

And it was important that we rally because we still were
within reach of the enemy. I can't tell you anything about
our destination, except that we had one. At times it seemed
very far off and almost unattainable, but all of us were
spurred toward it by our memories of O'Donnell camp, Caba-
natuan, and Davao.

We always were able to thank God we were anywhere ex-
cept back among the Japs, subject to their barbaric cruelties,
their policy of systematic starvation, and their creed of mur-
der for captives. Even when things were at their worst we
could say to ourselves that we were damn well off.

We occasionally encountered tribes of natives.

Many of the amazing adventures, ludicrous and serious
mishaps, and aimless wanderings that marked that journey
of ours are contained in my diary. Someday, when our lost
possessions in the Pacific are regained, all these things may
be published.

There is one story I can tell in full, however, and I don't
think I can tell it too often. It has to do with the faith we
placed in God and His response to our prayers. There was
much silent prayer among us all through our ordeal, but
there were times also when we prayed aloud, led by Sam
Grashio.

Sam's prayers were so straightforward we had to believe
with him that God was listening. Just as I always thought of
God as "The Old Man" in the sense of a commanding offi-
cerSam ran in many homely expressions in the brief prayers
that usually began and ended with the Lord's Prayer. These
made us feel that we were talking directly to God man to
man. One of these passages I remember particularly well.

"Lord," Sam would say, "pickin's are bum for us, as You

181

know. But we know You are going to see to it that they get
better/'

One day, long, long afterward, and many a mile from the
scene of our trials, we were to remember those prayers with a
guilty start. It was a gala occasion and several of us, full of
wine and food, were joking about some of the things we had
been through. Sam walked in. I thought he looked a little
disapproving. But he grinned and walked up to the table.
What he said was said in a kidding way, though I have always
thought he was about two-thirds serious.

"Look at you!" Sam said. "Just look at you. When pickings
were bum you begged old Sam to pray for you. But now
pickings are good, what do you do? You gorge your bellies and
fill up on wine and forget all about old Sam and God, too."

You can call that speech what you want to. I call it a pow-
erful sermon. If it did nothing else, it reminded me that days
had passed since I had thanked God for my deliverance.

Our journey through Mindanao ended almost as suddenly
as it had begun. We reached our objective and enjoyed
blessed relief. We had to wait many days for orders and as-
signments and when physical recovery was under way we
began to fret at the delay. The food was scanty, and the flies
descended upon us by the millions. A diary entry for one of
those days reads:

"Very little food in this fly-bitten place. There is nothing
worse than waiting. [Three members of the party] went out
to search for food and didn't return. A little worried about
them."

The next day's entry is one brief line: "[The party] re-
turned."

Within a few hours after that was written we got our or-
ders. They brought with them a thrill that blotted out the
misery of the past. We were fighting men once more!

18*