End.

So that's it. I hope you all found it interesting!

CHAPTER NINE

Chapter IX

In the next few months, I began to gradually improve so far as my body chemistry and mental alertness is concerned. My disease had progressed to the point that I was unable to move from the neck down and required constant nursing care. My wife used a chairbed and slept in my room so that she could attend me during the night. Not being able to read, I began to search for some means to occupy some of my time. With the help of my nurses, I began to collect knives. Gradually my knife collecting became widely known, and I even had one man who came from Florence, Alabama, in his private helicopter to see me about knives. On my son’s twenty- third birthday I gave him about three hundred knives.

For fear that I would not live until my birthday or until Christmas, I celebrated my November the 27^th birthday in September by giving gifts to every employee in the hospital and receiving gifts from my family and friends. Needless to say, when the true dates rolled around, I was accused of celebrating twice so that I might receive two sets of gifts.

By this time my son had entered medical school; and during visits home, I enjoyed many conversations with him.

His definition of success was particularly impressive to me. He believed to be successful you must have contributed something to your fellow man that would not have been contributed had you not lived. During the fall vacation of 1974, he met one of the nurses’ aides who was staying with me. She was a first year nursing student at our state university. It didn’t take them long to decide that they wanted to spend their lives together. They were married in March of 1975. When it was decided that one of the receptions was to be held at the hoe of my family doctor, I knew that being my friend, he would not be offended if I had my own reception also. I borrowed a large punch bowl, had a huge wedding cake baked and made arrangements for one of my nurses to act as hostess. Even the wedding party came by and had punch and cake at my reception.

As my general health improved, so did my attitude; and I began to send out to local restaurants for food and invite guests for dinner. The doctors never failed to examine me twice each day and when they would stand up and take their stethoscope out of their ears, “Disgusting, isn’t it?” It seemed unreal that a man that looked as healthy as I and could put away as uch food would be unable to move a muscle. The entire time the nursing staff, routinely, turns me every two hours so that I don’t have a sore spot on my body.

As I began to tire of collecting knives, I tried various other things from porcelain to Indian jewelry. Since I am a compulsive giver, these hobbies didn’t last long because I gave away so much that I couldn’t keep enough money to replace what I gave away. I have managed to keep so busy that I haven’t had time to reflect upon my condition.

When you become a long term patient, you realize how lax you were in going to see your friends when the situations were reversed. I found some of the explanations so ridiculous that they were amusing. One man, whom I had considered a friend, who had not been to visit me in two years, explained that the reason that he had not been here was that he had been to a convention in Atlanta. Another said, after one year and a half, that he had had a cold and was afraid that I might catch it. I wondered if I sounded the same to my friends when I tried to justify not having visited them.

I began to feel that there was a slight possibility that I might live until my son graduated from medical school which at the beginning I thought was an impossible wish. I stopped updating my holidays and began to feel so secure in my status- quo that I began even to make plans involving some future date. Sudeenly my heart began to develop premature ventricular contractions, and they began to feed me intravenously. My fever rose, and I developed pneumonia. Bedside nursing care was provided around the clock. This was as if some unseen power was saying, “Hold it, fellow, you’re getting a little too big, and I must do this to make you understand that by only the grace of God; you are still alive, and you should not become too proud of the results of your own determination and the miracle of medicine.” In a few days my fever subsided, my heart and lungs went back to their regular abnormalities, and once again I became part of the hospital routine but with renewed gratitude for the privilege of living.

I have heard so many dying statements. Most of them seemed to be statements justifying death. “Father, Mother, Sister, Brother Son or Daughter are waiting for me in heaven,” but this is not true. They are happy, they don’t need us. “I’m ready to go today.” This may be true, but this doesn’t matter. When we’re ready doesn’t count. When God’s ready we’ll go. I believe that as long as we have responsibilities to fulfill we are not ready.

And as I lay here day after day knowing that tomorrow can really be no different, I realize that the beginning and the end is always the same. It is like the front and back covers of a book; they are always similar but what is different are the pages between.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Chapter VIII

We returned home and back to our job responsibilities. For the next few days, I would sit alone in my office and take inventory of my life and try to make some plan out of what future I had. I started off with the idea of taking one day at a time without regard to the future, and I found that this makes tomorrow nothing to lok forward. I learned from a Buddist friend of mine that religion was not only a faith but a away of life and that one complemented the other. I tried to practice this; and in so doing, I found my life so full of love and warmth of friends that I had little time for resentment and self- pity. I began to feel sorry for people living on limited time who spoil what time they have left by being miserable.

I reported to my superiors exactly what my prognosis was, and by this time my hands had begun to gradually lose their strength. The president of y company told me that as far as he was concerned, I could keep my hospital until they brought me in on a stretcher.

For some time I had noticed that when I would go under an overpass, it would take the form of strange arches and sharp steeples. Cars began to pass me that I wouldn’t notice until they were by. The condition became gradually worse until I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. While examining my eyes, he asked me to read what letters I could see on the chart with my right eye. I asked him what chart; he asked me how many fingers he was showing me on one hand, and I couldn’t even see his hand. With my left eye, I was much better; I still couldn’t read any letters, but I did count his fingers. He diagnoses my problem as some rare eye disease that there was no known cause or cure for and declared me legally blind and informed me that there was no lens that would help me to see better.

By August of 1972, the disease had progressed until I couldn’t hold a pen to sign my name, and the muscle facicullations had spread all over my body. One day after using the restroom, I had to call one of my lab men in to assist me in arranging my clothes. At last the time had come. I had always felt that the head of any organization should be its strength and never its weakness. I gave notice and retired September the 1^st, 1972.

We again went to Mayo Clinic where dye was inserted in my bloodstream and colored pictures taken of my retina, showing the right one completely destroyed by scar tissue and the left one partially destroyed. They again concurred with the diagnosis and said that it had nothing to do with my muscle disease. Since I had always enjoyed reading and had expected to watch television to pass some of the many hours that I knew was to be my fte, this new adversity was a little hard to take.

My body chemistry had become out of balance and had made food that I had always liked become tasteless; this became increasingly worse until there were only a very few things that I could force myself to eat. Before I became too weak to walk at all, I persuaded my wife that we should make a trip. Not having been to Europe, we decided to go to Madrid, Spain. We stayed a week and the weather was miserable. We didn’t particularly enjoy it, but we enjoyed being together; and it gave us something to talk about later, so it was worth it.

As the days and weeks passed, I began to get weaker and weaker until it became necessary that we get someone to stay with me while my wife was on duty at the hospital. My son had graduated from Vanderbilt and because of the difficulty of getting into medical school, worked at the hospital for a year before being accepted. His being at home did a lot toward making my condition more acceptable. Friends came by daily, and it seemed that providence was so designed that my ways would be easier.

During this time I began to find a strange peace with solitude. About once a week my friends would come by and take me to the lake. I would take my foloding chair, my drink and some kind of food and have them take me to some inaccessible gravel bar and leave me. I would stay there from early afternoon until ten or eleven o’clock at night. Everytime I would hear a motor boat, I would hope it wasn’t them. I could never understand how I could love to be with friends so much and yet enjoy complete solitude.

My legs became so weak that it became necessary to use a wheelchair or a walker. One morning as I started to shave, I can remember standing in the bathroom preparing to do so; and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital emergency room having my head sewn up. For the next few weeks, things are rather fuzzy in my memory. I can remember that I was kept in the hospital for a few days because of concussion and returned home. My wife tells me that on the morning of May the 5^th, 1974, she was unable to awaken me. We lived next door to our hospital chief of staff, and she immediately got in touch with him. When he failed to revive me, I was sent to the V.A. Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. I vaguely remember being taken out of the ambulance at the hospital; then I lost consciousness again.

The next nine or ten days were filled with a terror such in all of my war years, I never experienced before. All experiences were so real to me that I recognized my wife, my family and my friends but had created a situation that had instilled into me a mortal fear. I thought that I was lying underneath the Veterans Administration Hospital where all of their trucks and vehicles were parked. I had overheard a male medical technician telling a group of nurses aides that I was to be killed. I was to be taken on the interstate highway and thrown out of an automobile traveling at the speed of one hundred miles an hour. None of the nurses would talk to me when I cried to tell them. I would beg my wife and my brother-in-law to please take me out of there because they were going to kill me. They would, of course, try to placate me and convince me it was my imagination, but nothing was ever so clear in my life. When the technician would come for any purpose I would try to offer him whatever I could possibly get not to do this thing. He, as the nurses, would act as if he hadn’t heard me at all. My wife would cry because she was helpless. I hope I never experience this sort of thing again. After what seemed days, I again lapsed into unconsciousness.

A strange thing happened later, a man died in the hospital that I was in, and his wife told me that never again to let them put him in intensive care in the V.A. Hospital because when he was there, they threatened to kill him.

When things finally became clear to me, I found that I had a tracheostomy tube and was permanently attached to a respirator. The neurologist that I was assigned to said that my unconsciousness was caused by narcotic poisoning. I was breathing in oxygen, but my pulmonary muscles had gotten so weak they were not forcing out the carbon dioxide. It was so tiring upon my wife to stay in Nashville and to commute back to Smithville to take care of personal responsibilities that I kept asking that I be allowed to go back to DeKalb General Hospital. When my family doctor and my former employer heard of my request, even though the hospital was not equipped to take care of me, they provided this equipment and asked that I be transferred. My wife was disturbed over the fact that my insurance only covered fifty-nine days of hospitalization. My neurologist told her that it saddened him to say so; but she need not worry about that, I would not be alive in fifty- nine days. That was two years and nine months ago. You see this doctor had forgotten to take into account what love and tender care under the direction of God can do to statistics. On June the 6^th I was returned to DeKalb General Hospital.

I often think about the little simple things that would ake our lives more libable, if we would only take time to reflect. For instance, one f the first things we learn in school is that the word “like” is to be used in connection with inanimate objects and the word “love” is applicable to living things. As we grow older, we forget this and not only do we stop using the word love, but it begins to take on erroneous interpretations; and we are even embarrassed to use it. I have no reservations, and I find no other way to describe my feeling for the dedication that my nurses, my doctors and friends have shown toward me in these years of complete incapacitation.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Chapter VII

Good fortune smiled at me and mybusiness steadily grew and in less than two years it was necessary for me to hire someone. The Internal Revenue Department had concentrated investigations in my old hometown of Woodbury and a section known as Center Hill Lake region. I began working this section at the request of some old friends and due to the courtesy shown me by most of the Internal Revenue Agents, my successes resulted in it begin necessary in spending about half my time in this area.

I built a log cabin at the foot of a mountain in DeKalb County and when working this area, we would stay there. I became more and more attached to farm folk. I particularly liked to set around the molasses mill when they would work all night and the men would gather to tell strange stories that they always knew really happened because they knew whom it happened to. There was one old fellow that I enjoyed more than most. He had read a great deal and even through he had no education, he knew a little bit about everything. His heart was so big that he would stop in the road to allow a rog to jump to safety. When it would come time to carry his hogs to market, he would go out and talk to them and tell them how sorry he was that it was necessary to have fed them so well and take them to be slaughtered.

I became so attached to country life that I enlarged the log cabin into a comfortable country home, and gave my Nashville accounts to my employee and moved permanently. My wife was very definite in her objections, but, as always, accepted the move. Our son began school in Smithville, Tennessee, in August of 1957 and from then until 1968 were years that were comfortable and happy. I had managed to get myself elected to the county court and became quite active in various civic affairs. My son had begun to be active in athletics and we became avid high school sports fans.

I had been requested by local doctors to spend part of my time managing a small hospital in town. One morning, I went to their office explaining to them that I felt very badly and that the evening before I had a sudden spell of weakness. They ran an E.K.G. and immediately called an ambulance and sent me to Nashville where I was placed in intensive care. They wouldn’t let me wait for my wife to go with me, and I was sent down without an attendant. O the way down there I kept thinking that no one should die alone, so I got up and made my way to the front of the ambulance and asked the driver if I could set with him. When we got to the hospital, I thanked the driver and jumped out of the front seat, went into the hospital and stood in line at the admitting desk. I thought we were going to have another heart patient when the lady asked me if she could help me, and I told her my doctor had sent me there with a heart attack. They lost no time in getting me into a wheelchair and up to intensive care. My health improved steadily, and in about two weeks I was back recuperating in my old hospital among my friends.

After I had begun to assume some of my old duties, the doctors’ office called and asked that I meet with them in their office. A corporation was being formed with headquarters in Nashville to be privately financed and dedicated entirely to health care. The corporation had offered to build a new hospital in our town if the doctors would close up the old hospital and support it. They had recommended that I be employed as administrator and the corporate officers had asked that I be sent to Nashville for an interview. This was in December of 1968 and at the time the total corporate structure consisted of four or five dedicated men, three or four hospitals and an old residential building with one secretary. And may I without going further say that in the years to follow, I was never asked for any reason to ever sacrifice patient care.

I had always felt loyalty to anyplace that I was employed, but here was something new added to be a part from the time the first spade of ground was turned until the facility was completed. My staff, my hospital and my corporation became such a part of my life that I resented any and all criticism. The corporate growth became fantastic. It operated hospitals all over the world and maintained the reputation of providing quality health care.

In the beginning I was embarrassed when salesmen called because I knew very little medical terminology, and I very quickly learned that you could get into trouble trying to fake it. But in a surprisingly short time; I began to look forward to their visits and began to feel that I had finally found what I had been looking for all my life.

My son graduated from high school and had entered Vanderbilt University with the expectations of preparing for medical school. My wife said that I was a hospital administrator, and our son was going to be a doctor, and to make sure that she knew what was being said; she decided she would go to a practical nursing school. I would have never had the determination that she exhibited in finishing school. Most of the students were younger and did not have to adjust back to study habits that she had not found occasion to use in thirty years. But finish she did. Again, like my wife she insisted she be given the eleven to seven shift because she was needed there, and she did not want the employees to think she was given special privileges by being offered other shifts. During the months to follow, I spent most of my nights at the hospital. About three o’clock in the morning, I would go to all my night employees, find out how they liked their eggs, don my apron and invite them all, a few at a time, for an early breakfast. Of course, you don’t ever know what is being said when you’re not around, but this close association never seemed to destroy and employer-employee relationship.

One evening while at a medical meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was visiting with a doctor friend of mine in his room. The room was was hot and I had removed my coat and since it was late in April, I was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt. While I was talking to the doctor, I noticed that he kept watching my arm. After a few moments he said, “Tommy, how long has your muscle been twitching?” Not really having noticed before the muscle in my left arm was twitching ever so slightly as your eyelid will sometimes do, I replied that I hadn’t noticed, and that I didn’t know how long it had been doing that. He suggested that I go see a neurologist as soon as possible. When I returned to Smithville, I called a Nashville neurologist and made an appointment to check into the hospital for tests. These tests were EMG’s and spinal taps. The spinal taps left me with such a headache that I really wasn’t too concerned with the diagnosis. I left the Nashville hospital with the doctor trying to tell me that a headache after a spinal puncture was imagination. After I got back to the hospital in Smithville, the report came in and since I was the administrator, I took the liberty of reading it. I forgave him in regard to our little argument when I saw the referred to me as courtly instead of obese. His diagnosis was amytrophic lateral sclerosis. Until this day, I don’t know whether I consciously rejected the idea or whether I really didn’t actually understand the seriousness of it. My brother and nephew, who both are doctors, suggested that I get a second opinion. There was a friend in our corporate office who knew a neurologist at Mayo Clinic and suggested that I go there. My wife and I flew to Rochester that weekend. Being in Rochester is a fascinating experience. Sitting in the coffee shop at the hotel, it is unusual to hear English spoken among the customers. This place truly is the assembly place of the world’s ills. We checked into the admitting desk of Mayo Clinic and were given an identification slip to the Neurology Section. Upon presenting this to the girl at the esk, we were requested to report back Monday morning.

Monday morning we were given to understand that I would be examined for nothing except my reasons for being there. I began a series of tests that were so intensive that by Friday I was completely exhausted. My wife and I returned to the lobby for the Neurological Department and awaited a call to the office of the Director of my neurological team. I must admit that upon being called, I waited in the doctor’s office with apprehension. His first words were, “The diagnosis was correct.” I asked what my prognosis was and he said, “Zero.” “How much time do I have left?” “From one to three years.” During this exchange, apprehension left me; and I thought to myself that this was the second time around. I had faced death before and when I was told that my time was limited, I was left with a strange feeling of inevitability. I could only feel sorry for my wife who must face the increasing responsibility of a dying man.

CHAPTER SIX

Chapter VI

As we taxied to a stop before a large crowd, I looked forward to stepping out of the plane with apprehension. It seemed almost as if I was entering a world I was no longer a part of. We were immediately placed in ambulances or military automobiles whichever the need dictated and driven directly to Letterman General Hospital. For the next two or three days we underwent exhaustive physical examinations. Those of us who were found to be free of contagious diseases were allowed almost complete freedom. Never has a city been so receptive and so grateful as San Francisco. We were issued medallions upon which were written “San Francisco Welcomes Bataan Heroes”. We could pay for nothing even the taxi fares were paid by the city. The first time I went to town I was completely lost. I wandered into a barber shop, had my shoes shined, went to a show, left before it was over and just wandered up and down the streets. I finally caught a cab and told him to take me to Chinatown. At the first Chinese restaurant I dismissed my cab, went in and ordered the biggest bowl of rice in the house. Having gotten my feet wet in the transition from prisoner to a complete freedom, I caught a cab back to the hospital. We began to go to town in groups and became increasingly brave in accepting our newfound freedom. In fact, we began to abuse it so that I am sure the hospital staff was glad to see us go.

My orders came through; I was being transferred to Thayer Hospital near my home in Nashville, Tennessee. This was in early 1945 and the Japanese had not surrendered; our group of twenty- four were the only prisoners that had actually been returned to the United States. In 1945, the most popular mode of travel was by train. As we started our journey across country, the conductor looked me up and said that he had gotten a wire from the President of the railroad that I was on the train and that he was to make my trip as pleasant and comfortable as possible. I was immediately assigned a stateroom and for the rest of the trip given anything I asked for. I thought I was particularly popular with the passengers and later on I found out why. Before I started my trip, I had been given a case of cigarettes which contained fifty cartons and not knowing that cigarettes were at a premium when anybody asked me for one, I gave them a package.

As the train rolled into Nashville it was about two o’clock in the morning. Standing on the platform waiting for me were two people that meant more to me than anybody else in the world, the girl I had loved since I was eighteen and my mother. My sister was there and, of course, she I also loved. I was so happy that after we had exhausted our public greeting and convinced each other of how good it was to be home that I had let y girl catch a taxi and go home by herself at three o’clock in the morning. I was the first Japanese prisoner to return to Tennessee and since the war was still going on, an object of curiosity and patriotism. On my first Sunday morning; my picture came out with a three column spread on the Sunday paper. After that things went from sad to the ridiculous. There was a carload of girls who came from Ward Belmont that wanted to show me Nashville. Even though I had worked at Western Union and knew every pig path in the city, I spent the day on tour. I received letters that I couldn’t believe. I think the most difficult thing that I had to do was to write mothers who wrote m, desperately seeking some word of a son that was missing in action. I learned that my mother was informed that I was missing in action the day that Bataan fell and listed as such until over a year later when I was on a list of prisoners furnished by the Japanese to the American government. We were allowed to send three cards the entire time we were prisoners; but they were pre-typed and they said, “My health is: bad, fair, good.” And they surely knew that we would not worry our families by saying our health was bad.

After being home about a week, I received a notice from the draft board that I mist register for the draft. Now I wasn’t trying to be contrary, but I felt like that a man with a stiff leg who had just been out of a three year Japanese prison camp should not have to be in a hurry to register for the draft. But I was wrong. I found out at last that I was back in the good old U.S.A., for in a few days here came a United States Marshal after me for failing to register. I suggested to him that it might be best that I get discharged before I registered because if I was drafted they might get me for being A.W.O.L., from the hospital. After much confused conversation, they decided that someone had made a big mistake and that I could wait until after I was discharged and then to make sure I registered for the draft. I put them on notice immediately that I was going to be a conscientious objector.

On April the Fourteenth I was discharged from Thayer Hospital. When we look back on our lives, there are so many little chance things that happen that change the entire direction of our lives you feel that had it not been for any one of these, your lie would have been entirely different. I was sitting at a restaurant in Nashville when I noticed two men in a booth across from me. I had not purchased any civilian clothes since I had just gotten my discharge, and I still had my uniform on with all my ribbons. One of the men, very distinguished looking grey-headed man, spoke to his waitress and she came over and asked me if I would join their table. The men introduced themselves, and the grey-headed man was a Mr. Atkinson whom I learned later was a former United States Congressman and State Attorney General. Here began a friendship that made me forever grateful for the privilege of having known this wonderful man.

One day while I was visiting his law office, he asked me if I would be interested in either the Secret Service or the Internal Revenue Service. After learning that the Internal Revenue Service started you out at fifty dollars more than the Secret Service, I decided I would try this. I was sworn in the next day. This was during a time that most all jobs with the government were by political appointment. These jobs now require civil service examinations and have definite educational prerequisites. While with the Internal Revenue, I learned that most of the antagonism shown the bureau was the natural rebellion against any kind of authority plus the inability of the agent to show the taxpayer consideration. In the seven years that I was with the Internal Revenue Department and in contrast to all of the stories that were circulated, our instructions were always to compute taxes to the benefit of taxpayers.

In the close association with Mr. Atkinson I met Dr. King Vivian who was pastor of McKendress Church in Nashville. Mr. Atkinson often told me that when Dr. Vivian was in his office, he felt that there were three present, he, Dr. Vivian and God.

My wife and I were married September the First 1945 by Dr. King Vivian with Mr. Atkinson as best man and immediately left for Gatlinburg for our honeymoon. My wife was very unhappy over the fact that a reporter from Knoxville followed around taking pictures. I was so happy I wouldn’t have cared if they’d sold tickets.

Within the next two years we had settled down into the routine of the day to day living. I began to have a growing dissatisfaction with my job. It seemed that I was never in a position to help someone and that my contacts always resulted in leaving a financial hardship or an unhappy person. I had been wanting to go back to law school, so, on the spur of the moment, I resigned. I entered law school at Vanderbilt in 1947, ut here again I found myself dissatisfied. My wife had stopped work and even through we had some income, I decided to back to the Internal Revenue Service. Rather than go back to the Tennessee District, Florida sounded like an interesting place to live. I had a brother who had been practicing medicine there for several years. Here again was one of those chance happenings that changed our future lives. We were on our way to check a possible job at West Palm Beach and had to stop for the night at Orlando. The next morning I called the Chief to let him know that we were in Florida, and he asked me where we were. When we said Orlando, he suggested that we stay there. We stayed there for seven years and Orlando still, to us, is the garden spot of Florida.

On October the Fourteenth 1951 our existence was justified. Our son was born, as we carried him home from the hospital and I looked at him in his mother’s arms, I thought to myself, “Without a doubt that is the prettiest baby that was ever born.” I was grateful for every little thing in the course of my life that had given me direction to this place and time. As he began to grow, I would push him to town in his buggy. People would say, “He sure is a pretty baby,” and I’d say, “He sure is, isn’t he?” My wife would tell me that I shouldn’t say that. This I couldn’t understand because I thought so too.

Again I began to feel so badly about our tax structure that I began to develop ulcers from carrying other peoples’ problems home with me at night. Finally in 1954 I could take it no longer and we moved back to Nashville, Tennessee, where I went into the private tax business.

CHAPTER FIVE

Chapter V

As we rolled back into Bilibid, it seemed as if we were returning home. Even through war experiences there were mostly unpleasant, thirty- five years later I can close my eyes and see every detail of every building in the compound.

This time there was quite a bit of change in the Japanese guards. No longer were we slapped around for not bowing to them, but we even began to see an occasional gold toothed grin. This change of attitude plus underground rumors, convinced us that Americans were on their way. We still saw an occasional American plane, but otherwise things began to settle back into the old routine.

I think one of the most amazing things that I can remember is the old naval Chief Petty Officer and the old Master Sergeant who sat and watched the kitchen all day. The cooking was done in the open with only a covered top and open on all sides. The Japanese allowed the cooks to use two dippers to serve with. One was known as the “big dipper,” and the other one the “little dipper.” The old Master Sergeant would say, “Well, it looks like the big dipper tonight.” And the Chief would say, “Naw, it’s the little dipper,”. They would argue until mealtime about what size dipper they were going to sue. At that time there seemed to be nothing unusual about two old service men, covered with tattoos, sitting around exchanging menus.

Rumors persisted that Americans had landed in Southern Luzan. We heard that a company of rangers had gone in behind the Japanese lines and brought out the prisoners still left in Cabanatuan. Two or three days later we were assembled with the Japanese. The Japanese Major in charge of the camp informed us tha they were ebing assigned duties elsewhere and that they appreciated our cooperation since we had been their prisoners. They left us the key to the rice storage house and advised us not to leave the prison until we were contacted by American military.

That night the streets surrounding our prison seemed to be alive with tanks and the sound of war. The next day everything was so quiet that we began to wonder what had happened. Some of us were sitting on the grass not far from a boarded window in the prison wall when we heard a voice, “Hey, who’s in there?” Man, was that a good sound! We all shouted back in unison. They beat the boards off from outside. The uniforms had changed; the rifles had changed; they looked like men from Mars, but, they sure looked good.

They came in and immediately took off their packs and began to pull out rations. One of them gave me a small can of bacon grease, and I carried it back to my building thinking I would put it on my rice that evening. It still hadn’t occurred to me that I no longer had to eat rice. Field kitchens were immediately set up in the prison compound and cooks assigned twenty- four hours a day with orders to cook not only what we wanted but as much as we wanted. It was unbelievable what some of us managed to put away.

I was sitting at the field kitchen when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Before the war I had a Philippino who shined my shoes and pressed my uniform and did anything that I might ask him to do; and when the war started, somewhere along the line Jose’ and I became separated. Here he was as if the last three years had never been. He told me that during the war the Japanese had killed his wife and children. We heard that the Americans were bringing Japanese prisoners into the compound next door to the one we were in, and I asked Jose’ to go with me to see them. While going over Jose’ explained to me that helped me to realize why the Japanese soldiers seemed to fight with a suicidal verocity. When the Americans liberated us, they also liberated about a hundred Japanese who were being held prisoner as punishment for being captured. As we entered the other compound, a truckload of Japanese prisoners were being brought in. I don’t think I have ever seen a more ragged, bloodier group broken arms, head wounds, broken noses and numerous other wounds. As I was looking them over, I was thinking, “Oh yea, you dirty slobs, now you know how it feels.” I heard someone beside me say, “Poor devils.” I turned and looked at Jose’. He suddenly had taken on stature. Instead of the “houseboy” he was a forty-five year old adult who was showing me what true compassion really was I looked back at the Japanese prisoners, and all I could see was the pathetic site of beaten men. My mind went back to the beginning of our capture when a Japanese Major strutted up and down in front of a group of wounded American prisoners, and I hated him for it. Here I was doing the same thing that he had done.

We were confined to Bilibid proper for three days because the fighting within the city was so intense that it was not safe. The Japanese were fighting from building to building. One night we were awakened quite late and loaded into trucks and carried just outside the city. In the early morning we were loaded back up and moved into Bilibid. While interrogating a Japanese prisoner, they learned that the sewer system in the prison had been heavily mined, and that evidently the Japanese were waiting until theyfound a concentration of American troops in there before setting them off. They got us out, and with the help of the prisoners had picked up all the mines. This story was never authenticated but having no other explanation, we accepted it as true.

I suppose that according to most everyone one of the most outstanding experience that we should have had been when we stood at the foot of our sleeping pads and shok McArthur’s hand. It would have been, had it no been for the fact that he was surrounded with about ten guys with automatic rifles; and his famous “return” was filmed with him wading ashore smoking his corncob pipe three days after the beach head and not a Jap within a hundred miles. Part of us were flown to the Island Leyte where a camps was being maintained. It was at this camp that we were finally issued new clothing, new shoes and supplies that made us feel like we were again part of itall. During the few days that we remained in this camp, we began to adjust to having what we wanted to eat and to complete freedom. We were near the village of Tacloban where we spent many hours for no other reason except that we knew we could. After about a week there were twenty-four of us selected, all being amputees or severely handicapped as I was with a stiff leg. We were loaded on an old converted C-47 and started on a long trip back home. As I watched the islands fade away through the glass, I could not help but think, “Mabuhay and Republica Filipinas”, long live the Republic of the Philippines. About a thousand miles away from land, at a point of no return, one of our engines began to cough. Since all of us were afraid we would step off the plane and break our necks before we got home even without this engine trouble, the nurse went around and gave us all a shot. The pilot proved worthy of his responsibilities and after an overnight stop on some island, we glided smoothly down to a landing in San Francisco, California.

CHAPTER FOUR

Chapter IV

Christmas morning of 1943 was a foggy, rainy dirty morning that gave no indication that it represented any special day. I wandered aimlessly up and down the compound trying to see or hear something that would indicate to me that it was Christmas. Suddenly I thought of the front gate and its view into the street, and I said to myself, “I’ll see something that will help to give me the Christmas spirit.” All I saw was a gloomy deserted street with no indication that they saw this day any differently. A Japanese guard was walking his station backward and forward in front of the prison wit his coat pulled up around his neck looking perfectly miserable. I said to myself, “I wonder if this day means anything to him and if he has a family that he would like to be back with as much as I.” On the spur of the moment, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the last package of American cigarettes that I had. I whistled at the guard and turned and walked away. As soon as I did, I thought, “You fool.” Cigarettes were two hundred dollars a package, but do you know to the first person I passed, I felt like saying, “Merry Christmas.” I then realized that I had been looking in the wrong place. The spirit comes from within, and all we have to do is to give it a chance to show itself. I was further awed by the fact that this Japanese guard was later pointed out to me as the only Christian Japanese assigned to Bilibid. God indeed works in mysterious ways.

We all began to get a little stir crazy and to look for something that would break the monotony. We heard that the Japanese ran their trucks on sugar, alcohol and gasoline mixed. The truck depot was just outside the prison wall. Someone came up with a piece of rubber hose and a three gallon can. We dug underneath this electrified wire, not thinking or really caring that the slightest miss-Q would have electrocuted us, and made it to the trucks. Everytime a Jap guard would go on the other side of the trucks, we’d jump out and siphon some of the fuel out of the thank until we thought we had enough. We scampered back under the fence, covered up our hole and proudly displayed our prize. We took cotton and tried to strain the gasoline out of the sugar alcohol. It didn’t seem to work so we said to heck with it and drank it anyway. One- armed men fought one- legged men; sick men got up and walked. One prisoner of war building was completely chaotic. The American in charge told the Japanese we were out of our minds so they locked us up and left us alone. For a week everytime I burped, I’d taste gasoline. We were afraid to smoke; we were afraid if we lit a cigarette, we’d blow up. But miracle of all miracles, we all came out of it without any lasting effects.

Now it might occur to some that if it was that easy to get out of prison that we might have escaped. The Japanese had us divided into squads of ten, and we were informed that if one of us escaped, they would shoot the other nine. We were already aware that they believed in mass punishment and our rations had been cut drastically at times for some violation that we had no control over.

One of the most unusual things that came to light was what a man will do for a cigarette. I don’t think there has ever been a hard drug that has created the desire within people that cigarettes have to certain individuals. When cigarettes became almost impossible to get and we were limited to one- half a canteen cup of rice twice a day, I have seen men trade three days complete rations for one- half a cigarette and literally starve themselves to death. We had a chaplain who called everybody together to inform us that we were Americans and should not stoop so low as to pick up cigarette butts. About that time, someone threw one away and there was a free- for- all that lasted about fifteen minutes. We would smoke a cigarette until it got so low that it burned our lips. We would then put it out and save the few strands of tobacoo. When we had enough, we would re- roll it into another cigarette. Now the best cigarette paper that we could find was a new testament that floated around from person to person. We made an agreement with the good chaplain that it was all right to tear out a page if we would all read it before we tore it out. This promise became a sacred trust, and no one ever dared use a sheet of this testament unless at first he read it.

Truckloads of prisoners began to drift in to Bilibid with storied of other camps. In Camp O’Donnell where the prisoners were taken in the Death March, American prisoners died at the rate of sixty a day, and Philippines at the rate of three hundred a day. The dead and dying exceeded the living so much that they were dragged into piles outside the buildings where they were left until doziers could excavate holes to push them off into. Dysentery seems to be the primary cause of death. We heard that some of the corpmen instead of giving the sulfa- thizol to sick Americans, traded it to the Japanese soldiers who almost all were infected with gonorrhea. The Japanese thought that all American prisoners evidently had access to sulfa-thizol so they bugged us all the time to trade them some. We decided if they wanted sulfa- thizol, we’d give them sulfa- thizol! We managed to get a little plaster of paris and a handle on a safety razor and ran off a hundred sulfa-thizol pills. For these we received one- half gallon of mongo beans. For some strange reason, we never had any repeat customers.

During the entire time at Bilibid the Japanese allowed one Red Cross package to come through. They contained a few cans of food and one carton of cigarettes. Even though this helped, it only made a small dent in our needs. From some strange source some kind of black market commissary sprang up. Either some Japanese were being paid to look the other way, or they were operating it themselves. One canteen cup of peanuts, nineteen hundred dollars; one can of corned beef, seven hundred dollars; one carton of cigarettes, two thousand dollars; one banana, seven hundred dollars. As can be seen by these prices, this food was not for the likes of us.

One day one of the prisoners came to me and wanted to read a book that was being passed around. His face was so familiar that I knew that I had known him sometime in the past. Suddenly it came to both of us about the same time. We were from the same hometown, a town of about five hundred people. We had not seen each other in many years. Needless to say, we were a comfort to each other and spent many otherwise monotonous hours reliving some of our early days.

We had begun to sense upcoming activity by some undercurrent that was unexplainable. We began to realize that some more was going to take place. Truckload after truckload of prisoners began to come into Bilibid from Palawain, Cabanatuan and other Japanese prison camps. It was apparent that Bilibid was being used as some sort of prisoner concentration to facilitate Japanese plans. All of the physically handicapped patients were loaded into trucks and transferred to a barracks at Ft. McKinley on the outskirts of Manila, evidently to make room for more newcomers.

We had no sleeping facilities except blankets which were placed side by side on the floor, and we were restricted to the building and to a very small area about twenty feet wide surrounding the building. In the next aisle to my blankets, there was an old fellow who had evidently saved his cigarettes and used them to barter with. Every meal he was completely surrounded with canteen cups while several starving men sat and looked wistfully at every bite he took. About two o’clock one morning, I was awakened by someone thrusting a canvas bag into my hands and whispering desperately for me to meet him downstairs. In my half awakened condition, I could only recognize “Blackie,” an Oklahoma Indian, who slept next to me but had no idea what I was holding or why. I was half way down the steps before the commotion upstairs made me realize that I had become involved in something that I most definitely wanted nothing to do with. I stepped into the latrine at the bottom of the steps, threw the bag into a corner and started bac upstairs. At the bottom of the steps, I met the American captain in charge of our prison group. It seemed that our old man had been relieved of his cigarettes. Each time I would look at Blackie, he would turn away; and I knew that I was going to receive no help from him. Most of the guys were glad that it had happened, and my punishment was to crack coconuts for the Japanese. This did not amount to punishment because most prisoners wanted this detail so that they might eat coconut. This episode made me realize how easily a person could become involved in some illegal activity without being fully aware of his complicity. I think I more clearly understood our judicial rule of innocence until proven guilty without a reasonable doubt.

We received a message through the prison grapevine that shocked and saddened us all. The prisoners that had been assembled at Bilibid were loaded onto a ship and added to a convoy going to Japan. When the convoy left Manila, the ship carrying the prisoners was the last ship in the convoy and was so reporter by the Philippino underground to American intelligence. Later, they changed positions and moved the ship up to the center of the convoy. American planes attacked and sank the prisoner ship killing several hundred American prisoners. How these men must have felt to see American planes for the first time in over two years and have to remain helpless while they were strafed and bombed by instrument of their own government.

After staying at Ft. McKinley for about thirty days, we were loaded up and moved north to the Japanese farm and prison camp of Cabantuan. This was a huge camp spread over about a hundred acres, fenced and guarded by watch towers uniformly spaced around the area. Here all the men still able to work, left in the Philippines, were imprisoned. Malaria, dysentery, and food deficiency diseases were taking their daily toll. We learned while prisoners that there is no such thing as bad food. Anything is good that is filling or that sustains life. We who had no special pets at home thought dog meat particularly appetizing, and we began to set traps for any dog who was unfortunate enough to be looking in our area for scraps. Whent eh 4^th Marines were stationed in Shanghai, China, they found a little pup in SooChow Creek. They adopted him, and he became quite a favorite. When they were captured, they smuggled SooChow from camp to camp; and when rations became very scarce, they would each donate a spoonful to keep SooChow alive. Now SooChow, to us, was just a little more meat on the hoof. The Marine prisoners were kept at such an alert if at two o’clock in the morning some dog howled, they would all hit the deck. Due to the protection of the Marines and the intelligence of SooChow, he managed to escape the pot.

We found the Japanese guards to be less regimented than at other camps. They were also easy to trade with and extremely cruel. I know of one case when three prisoners bribed a guard to allow them to slip out under the fence and go to a nearby village. They were late in coming back, and the guards had been changed. The three men were tied to stakes in the middle of the camp and for three days suffered beyond comprehension. Their noses were all split where the Japanese had inserted their bayonettes and lifted them through the flesh. Even after death, their bodies were continued to be abused as an example to the rest of us who might want to visit a village. Another incident I personally witnessed, even though it was strictly against Japanese orders; if you were caught, you were beat unmercifully. Some prisoners smuggled a few seeds from the farm and had hidden behind some building would plant themselves a few okra plants or whatever. I saw this prisoner picking okra with his back to the fence. A Japanese sentry in a guard tower not far away, saw him and yelled at him. He made no motion. The Japanese yelled again and he still made no motion. The sentry kneeled, aimed and shot the prisoner in the back. He climbed over the fence, walked over to the prisoner, took his foot and rolled him over and shot him through the head. In a little while a group of Japanese guards came with a litter, loaded the dead soldier on and attached a sign which stated that this was what happened when you tried to escape. It was explained to me that the reason this prisoner didn’t reply to the Jap was because he had both eardrums burst on Corregador and was completely deaf.

One of the interesting characters that I met at Cabanatuan was a Captain Hornbossle who was the oldest captain in the United States Army. He contracted leprosy while a prisoner in the Philippines and years later, I understand, was cured at the leprosarium in Louisiana. While working at the farm one day, a strange plane flew over; and it was gone so quickly that all of us only noticed that it was strange that is flew over so low. It circled and came back across and wiggled its wings, and we knew that we had just witnessed something that we thought we would never see again, an American fighter plane. Excitement and speculation was rampant. Even the Japanese started grinning instead of growling. The Japanese began to herd most of us into groups in preparation for returning us to Bilibid in Manila.

CHAPTER THREE

Chapter III

The next three days and nights were a nightmare to all of us. Never have so few fought so valiantly against so many. The Japanese had brought in eighty thousand seasoned troops from Northern China in order to crush us by sheer numbers. We began with eighteen hundred American troops and within the three day period; there was only two or three hundred tired, sleepless, hungry, battle- weary men. During that three day period, there were so many acts of heroism; it would take a book to describe them all. The Japanese soldiers were fanatics in their attacks. For instance, one of our boys was guarding a road with a machine gun, and about forty or fifty Japs came out of the jungle into the road screaming as they ran headlong into the face of the machine gun. When the last man fell, he was eight feet from the point of the gun.

No one will ever know how many Japanese were accounted for in those three days. I know in one instance we placed machine guns and mortars on the mountains on each side of a valley and drew the Japanese into the valley and closed off retreat by firing rapid salvos of field artillery in back of them. We then opened up with machine guns and mortars in front and on both sides. After that it took them four hours to remove their dead and wounded.

But after three days of hill to hill fighting, hunger, fatigue, and overwhelming odds took their toll. What few remained of us were informed that surrender was imminent, and we were given the choice of becoming prisoners of war or going into the mountains to try to avoid capture. There were sixteen of us who decided that we would try to take the freedom route. We were gathered in a mango grove where it was generally decided we would have a better chance if we divided up into small groups. A Col. Dunham, a Lt. Flynn and I decided to go together. We divided what few possessions we had in case we became separated. In the distance we could hear the roar of many bombers, and we wondered what Photo Joe had spotted this time. All at once we began to hear the terrifying sound of falling bombs. To the persons who have never heard a falling bomb or incoming artillery shells, no matter how far away they hit; they sound like they’re aimed directly at you. So until a bomb actually hits its target, you’r enot sure just where it will land. I had often heard that you don’t hear the bomb that gets you, but this is not true. Col. Dunham had enough time to say, “Hit the dirt boys.” I was sitting between him and Lt. Flynn. As we rolled over on our stomachs, I was completely protected on both sides by both of them with the exception of my left leg which was still up in the air. Col. Dunham and Lt. Flynn were both killed, and I received shrapnel in my left knee and thigh. Strangely enough, I felt no pain but just a tug at my khaki trousers as if I had hung them on a briar. There wasn’t a man in our group that was not either killed or wounded. I was told to go out to a trail not far away and wait for a medical corpman to come by and carry me to a field hospital at Little Baguio. I hopped over there and found several men there waiting for the same purpose. We waited what seemed to me for hours. Philippino’s began to pass with their few possessions in bundles saying they were running from the Japanese, and sometime late that afternoon, we began to hear far away on the mountain, but entirely too close for us, occasionally, Japanese yelling at each other. We had heard that the Japanese were taking no prisoners, particularly wounded prisoners. I was deathly afraid that I would be caught without any means to protect myself. I told the other that they could stay there if they wished, but I was going to try to make it on my own. One of the men who from outward appearances didn’t seem to be wounded offered to go along. I started off hopping, and I would estimate we had gone about a quarter of a mile, and he had fallen behind. I stopped to wait on him and instead of catching up, he sat down on a log. I went back to see what his problem was, and I noticed that blood was running from the corners of his mouth. Before I could ask him what his trouble was, he fell over on his face; and there was a hold in the small of his back that I could have put my fist through. Only God and determination could have kept this man alive as long as he was.

I would like to be able to say that this night and its fantastic journey was the result of grit and determination; but if I did, it would be wrong. I was driven on by sheer terror. The field hospital was about six kilometers from where I was wounded, and it took me all night to get there. I would have sworn I walked but the doctors say that I couldn’t have because of the shrapnel in my knee joint. Maybe I did! Maybe my fear made me oblivious to any pain. All I can remember is that I felt many times that I could go no further, and that I would have to sit down and rest. I would sit there awhile, and I would hear the Japanese tanks and the soldiers, and this would make me get up and start again. I can remember my pantsleg getting so bloody that I stopped and cut if off with a messkit knife I had.

About daylight I made it to the front of the field hospital in Little Baquio. I was carried in and laid on a wooden table where doctors began to dig schrapnel from my leg. While this was taking place, the air raid warning was set off and the doctors all ran for their foxholes. When the all clear was sounded, the corpmen came and taking it for granted that they were finished with me, carried me to a bunk. I had no more than gotten settled than the Japanese took over the hospital. This was how far I stayed ahead of them all night.

Thank God that we had a hospital commander who had enough nerve and feeling of responsibility to make an effort to protect his patients and his hospital. Col. Duckworth, of course, knew the Japanese were closing in and he dressed himself in his full military uniform and waited at the entrance of his hospital. When the first tank pulled up, he marched up to meet it; and when the officer got out, the Colonel saluted and said, “I have come to surrender my hospital.” He carried the Japanese ranking commanders on a tour of the hospital; and for the rest of the time we were at Little Baquio, I never saw another Japanese in the hospital.

The next day after our surrender, my knee began to pain me; and as time went on it became increasingly worse. After some time, the corpman carried me back to the doctor, and they found another piece of schrapnel in my knee joint about the size of a small marble. By this time infection had begun to develop and my knee was red and swollen. Without regard to the infection, I was placed in a body cast with my left leg completely covered.

During this period of time, Corregador had resisted all efforts of the Japanese to impregnate them. The Japanese artillery had set up their guns behind our hospital to bombard Corregador. This resulted in Corregador not being able to retaliate because of the fear of hitting us. The story of the battle of Corregador and the escape of McArther [sic] is a metter of history of which I was not a part of.

Corregador finally fell and stories began to infiltrate as to what was to happen to us. By this time it didn’t matter a great deal to me, my leg had swollen over the cast and fever had endowed me with the lethargy of someone who has no interest in life at all. Finally, all patients who could walk or crawl were herded into a group, and so began the most horrorfying experience ever brought to the attention of the American people, the Philippine Death March. The Japanese started them off to Camp O’Donnel that was many miles away. No one will ever know how many died or were killed on the way, but their trail could be followed by the dead left beside the road. Absolutely no one was allowed to fall behind; if he did, he was shot and rolled aside. The likelihood of this happening was increased by the fact that practically all prisoners were weakened by dysentery and malaria fever.

I was fortunate enough to be able to walk at all, and a very few of us were carried by truck to Bilibid, and old condemned prison inside the city of Manila. The only thing you could say good about this place was that as a prison, the security was excellent. It was surrounded by a twenty-foot wall approximately two feet thick with electric wiring around the top and bottom which carried twenty- three thousand volts of electricity. The buildings were all low and long, all with no petitions, made of stone with iron rings still on the wall where prisoners used to be chained. We had no beds except the concrete floor. We had a few American doctors who were also prisoners, but no medicines at all. For one year I laid on my back. I had three large bedsores that were to the bone. I had gangrene, dysentery, dingy fever, malaria fever, pellagra, dry beri- beri, wet beri- beri, sinusitis and weighed seventy- two pounds. Needless to say, I was beyond worrying about my condition. My condition deteriorated, if possible. The Japanese did not believe in wasting effort and time on anyone that would not be productive in the future. There was a small room in the end of one of the buildings where they put patients that they thought trying to save was wasted effort and left them to die without further attention. I was dragged into this room’ and for two days, I laid wanting to sream out that I was alive, but unable to make a sound, or to get out form under some dying person whose feces was ll over me, and not being able to move, or to tell the many that died with their little grunts and groans and dying noises to shut up, but not being able to do so. During these two days, it never occurred to me that I was part of this scene. The third morning an American doctor came to the door and saw that my eyes were still open and that I was alive. He had me moved back into the ward and started feeding me burned charcoal and water. My dysentery began to get better. I was picked up later and transferred back to a building where no daily medical attention was available. One day a Navy Corpman came through our building and saw me lying there with my leg grown over that cast. He was furious; he cut off the cast with a mess kit knife and lanced my leg. He must have drained a half gallon of green pus. He cut a place in back of my leg and took a piece of small rubber hose an after niching it, ran it through my leg so that the wounds would drain. Gradually I began to heal. During the year that I lay, I had forgotten how to walk. This corpman would come by each morning and get me up and make me try to walk. I would beg him to please leave me alone an djust let me lay and he would curse me and say that I wasn’t worth anything to anybody anyways. This would just make me mad enough to get up and start again. I have been so thankful to this man that I owe so much.

I made me a pair of crutches and became quite adept until I could use my leg. After I began to get around, it was an education to watch the veneer wash off people little by little. A boy who was tried for murder before he was sixteen years old and was an enforcer for a gangster in New York shared his last bit of food with me. The Japanese were giving eight cans of milk for twelve hundred prisoners in order to say they were feeding milk to their prisoners. The milk was being divided among the worst patients. We discovered that a Catholic chaplain was trading the patients out of the milk. The day came when I threw my crutches away and what had been unusual daily experiences became the ordinary.

CHAPTER TWO

Chapter II

I found myself standing before a very attractive little lady who looked as if she were deathly afraid of anything and everything. I explained to her why I was there and that I really did not know what my own plans were. It was lmost impossible to believe that this frail little woman had started just ahead of the Japanese landings in louthern Luzan, with her children, trying to reach her husband who was a civilian engineer with the American forces on Bataan. As she passed through village after village, mass hysteria became more apparent until the roads and trails were filled with fleeing, terrified people. Somewhere she and her children had become separated, and it was as if the great throngs had swallowed them up. She had spent days searching for them and many times had almost been captured by the Japanese by being too close to their advance. She now asked if she might take her chances of getting out of Manila with me.

While we were waiting for some opportunity to escape Manila, I called the constabulary to come and make an orderly issue of all the food in the cold storage plant. While this was being done, another American came to the plant also looking for a means of escape. There were several vehicles parked at the plant used for deliveries and various activities. He found a truck with the keys in it and asked the girl if she would like to go with him. She looked at me with some hesitation, and I told her that there was a possibility that he might get through; but feeling that the chances were remote, I did not join them. The cold storage plant was built beside the Pasig River, and there were two large barges tied up there that I was told contained several hundred small arms. I got the constabulary to help me to set charges in each barge that would guarantee their sinking. I took my army .45 and went throughout the cold storage plant and fired at gauges, valves or controls of any kind that would assure the inability of the Japanese to utilize the plant. I also went to each vehicle and punctured all their tires; the distributors, the carburetors and anything I found to prevent the vehicle from being useful.

As I finished, a truck swung into the parking area and since it was already after sundown, I didn’t recognize my two friends until the truck stopped and they got out. It seemed they had gotten to the edge of town and had run into the Japanese and had only gotten away by running into wounded civilians a block or two before they actually ran into the Japanese. We were having a discussion as to what to do next, and a Philippino who had been helping me suggested that thee might be a boat at the yacht club at Manila Bay. He flagged down someone, and he carried us to this yacht club. What we saw there would have broken the hearts of boat lovers. Someone had taken eaxes and completely destroyed all of the boats. We were searching without hope of finding anything we would use when all at once, we came upon a 22ft. sailboat with a six hundred pount lead keep that had been drydocked for cleaning and repairs. It mattered little to any of us that we had never sailed a boat in our lives and didn’t know the first thing about what to do. We asked for and received help from some passing Philippinos and put the boat into the water. At least we had sense enough to put in a couple of oars, and two of us rowed while the girl experimented with the sail. But for some reason, that saild never puffed out there like we thought sails should. We rowed for what felt lik hours, and we looked back; and it seemed as if we were almost as close to the shore as we were when we started. Renewed activity and rifle fire from the yacht club made us realize that we had gotten away just in time, and we were thankful that night had fallen and we were not, evidently, easy to see.

It was thirty miles across Manila Bay to Bataan, and that’s a voyage I’ll never forget. After experimenting several times, we finally go the sailed to where it would occasionally catch a gust of wind. Several times during the night Japanese planes came to see what we were, and each time we were afraid they would machine-gun our boat, and it would sink. We would slip out of the boat into the water and hold onto the edge of the boat. What good this would do, we never stopped to think because none of us could swim, and added to our danger; the water was full of shark. But I had found out a long time before that, that if you’re frightened, it helps to do something even if it’s wrong. We came to a point in our voyage where it was as close to go to Corregidor as it was to Bataan. We knew that Corregidor would be a safe refuge. We were not sure that Bataan was still in the hands of the Americans, but the girl’s husband and my company were there somewhere; and after discussing all the possibilities, we decided to continue to Bataan. Just before dawn we made an effort to land but were fired at, and the fact that we were yelling identification in English didn’t seem to matter. We decided that the safest thing was to pull away from shore and lay there until after daylight. When it became light enough to see, one of the first things we recognized was an American in Air Corp coveralls. Believe me, this was a welcome sight! We abandoned our boat and made our way ashore.

There is only one expression that I have ever heard that explains my feeling toward this wonderfully brave little woman that I was saying good-bye to and that was, “Someone you could ride the river with.” While the fellow that came with us carried her to locate her usband, I reported to the Commanding General of Bataan Operations and told him of my experiences and the destruction at the cold storage plant. He gave me two pounds of coffee and sent me back to my company. That may sound awfully small to most of you, but on Bataan it was better than a silver star. I reported to my commanding officer and all at once realized that I had not slept in forty-eight hours. The Captain suggested that I get some rest and save my explanations until afterward. I found Mac resting cozily in the midst of a truckload of new supplies that seemed to belong to a situation that had happened a lifetime before.

It wasn’t many days until I began to get caught up in the routine of camp life and to feel that the war again was passing me by. As time went on, I began to fear this feeling because in each instance, it was culminated by brutal evidence of war at its worst.

We were sitting around one afternoon and began to hear that high dreadful hum of many bombers.As they went over, the earth shook with the rumble of high explosives. The sky was lit with the brightness of a million lamps by the incendiary bombs. When we had given the fires time enough to subside, we went down the mountain to see what had happened to Marvelis; and there I saw a picture that was burned into my memory forever. There was not a buildingor a structure of any kind that was not completely demolished by either fire or explosion, with the exception of the statue of a small child in the middle of the plaza with his arms outstretched and his head thrown back in a futile intrigue for mercy.

Several days later we were called together and told that the Commanding General had ordered all units that were not in combat such as air corp, field artillery, chemical warfare and others be infiltrated into the fighting units on Bataan. Our group was assigned to B Company 31^st Infantry. Much has been said about the lack of food while we were prisoners of war but very little about the fact that our men were fighting on such rations as one can of milk and one can of tomatoes for eight men for twenty-four hours. To try to relieve this situation, foragers were appointed for each company. I was appointed for mine, and I did whatever was necessary to get any additional food for the men in my company. It was of particular interest to us to hear of a water buffalo being slain because ein most instances we could boil the head and add the brains to our menu. Other things we ate included iguana tails, cashew fruit, and anything else we could find running around loose. One of the most unusual experiences I had was the result of this need for food. One of our boys killed a monkey, and one of the others stole a gallon can of peaches from the general’s tent. We only had some very primitive tools to prepare our monkey and after we skinned him, we boiled him in a five gallon oil can. Now even though it’s filling, I wouldn’t recommend peaches and monkey! I know my good Christian mother would not have me believe in evolution, but, thank God she did not see that monkey that we ate after we had skinned him.

During this particular period our troops were getting weaker and the constant rumors that were being fed from the powers that be, that help was on its way, were so obviously untrue that all of them had gotten to the place where they accepted them as moral propaganda. All of our troops tried to bivouac under a mango grove so as not to be spotted by “photo Joe.” Photo Joe was a small Japanese bi-plane that circle Bataan continuously flying low so that he could spot targets for the fighters to strafe and the bombers to bomb. The combat was limited to patrol activity and an occasional infiltration of the Japanese through American lines. We began to hear of buildup of Japanese troops in an imminent bonsai attack.

One morning before dawn a messenger came to each company and all military personnel were requested to meet at a specified area immediately. A team of field officers stood in the back of a truck, and the leader addressed the division. He informed us that he had been in direct contact with General McArthur in Australia and that twenty-five fighters were on their way, that four ship loads of fresh troops were nearing the island, that the Japanese army had moved in eighty thousand new Japanese troops and that before they had a chance to become organized; we were going to attack. At a half an hour before time, our field artillery was to open up with a continuous salvo with the fighter planes in action and the new troops behind us and that we were not going to stop until we pushed them into Manila Bay. For the first time since the war began, our morale was sky high; and each one of us felt that we could whip our weight in wild cats. We assembled in our waiting pattern and kept waiting for the field artillery. Well we finally heard it, but it was theirs, not ours. We started on our attack, and we ran into the so called “disorganized” Japanese Army a half an hour before we were supposed to have been one. Eighteen hundred men and three days later, we had never seen an airplane or a single new troop. We had been lied to again.

CHAPTER ONE

Chapter I

I woke to a typical Monday morning of shouting, showers, and profanity. McCaine came by my bunk and said, “Sergeant, I’ll meet you in the supply room.” Now this would not have been important to most people, but ability against ability and dependability against dependability, Private McCaine was the most outstanding private in the United States Army. If there was anyone who could help me trace down four missing Elgin watches, it was he. Now, let’s get this sergeant straightened out. The old man said, “You are in charge of supplies and this carries a staff rating, but at present we don’t have one available; so, you’ll just have to be ‘acting’”.

When I arrived at the supply room, Mac was already deeply engrossed in a huge pile of gas masks. I had no sooner entered than someone in the orderly room hollered, “Come here fellows and listen to this.” Several men were standing around the radio while the announcer was giving a blow by blow description of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The 1^st Sergeant asked Mac and me to return to the supply room and issue everyone a small shovel and instructed the entire company to proceed to the parade ground and dig an individual fox hole in preparation for a visit from the Japanese bombers. This entired procedure was beyond comprehension and left us all feeling as if it was a field exercise. In fact, the thought ran through my mind that in time of war accountabilities cease, and I wouldn’t have to account for those four dang Elgin watches.

Not long after we completed our fox hole, a distant hum could be heard. If anyone has ever heard hundreds of large bombers flying extremely high, they know that there is no way to explain this sound. When they were immediately over us, we began to hear low rumbles in the distance which we found out were bombs exploding on Nichol’s Filed in another suburb of Manila. As I lay on my back watching these bombers, I pulled my .45 and began to fire. They must have been at least five miles high.

After the bombing some of us went to Nichol’s Field to see the results. It was here that I first began to realize the horror and tragedy that I was becoming involved in. Incendiary bombs had been dropped amidst nepa huts surrounding Nichol’s Field; burning houses made it impossible to enter some streets. Bloody children could be seen running aimlessly and screaming for parents that they would never see again. This was not what I was always taught was war- where soldiers fought soldiers and to the victor belong the spoils. Never again would I apply romance to battle.

The news came to us that the high command in Japan had agreed to declare Manila an “open city” if the Americans would remove all combat troops from this area. Being chemical warfare and no longer using chemicals, we were shuttled to a vicouac area near Antipolo. There we camped in such a apeaceful atmosphere that again the war seemed further and further removed from us.

One day while on a hunting trip one of my comrades shot a monkey. The monkey turned out to have two babies. We carried them back to camp, and the company adopted one, and I accepted the responsibility of the other. A few days later I asked for and received a twenty-four hour pass to go into Manila. While I was there, I gave the little monkey to the first person who petted him. The day before, contrary to their agreement, the Japanese had bombed Manila; one bomb had landed on a laundry where some five or six hundred Philippinoes were working. I decided to go over and see what had happened. As I stood in the door of the large laundry rooms, I experienced an example of war that should be shown to everyone who ever had any part in a decision in declaring such. In the center of the room was a large pile of parts of bodies- torso’s, arms legs, and even a half of a head which had been hollowed out like a doll’s head by concussion. I never again allowed myself to forget what I was involved in.

When I returned to my company, we moved through Manila, through Little Baguio, through Mariveles into the mountains beyond where we again set up camp. Had it no been for the reason that we were there, our camping area would have been a beautiful place for a holiday. The overhanging trees not only provided sanctuary from Japanese planes, but lended itself to the mountain stream and the jungle green as a peaceful mockery of what cold have been. One morning we saw a procession that we thought were small children coming down the mountainside but as they came closer, we realized there were very few greyheaded children and in reality they were pygmies. After giving us an amazing demonstration fo their ability with a bow and arrow, we gave them cigarettes; and they continued on their journey.

Mack and I were awakened several nights by a lot of activity in the jungle growth not far from our tent. We decided that it must be a water buffalo. When it continued night after night, we decided to investigate. In the area where the noise was coming from, we discovered a large hold in the ground with the ground around the hole very slick indicating constant usage. Needless to say, I would have slept better from then on if Mac had not reminded me that the largest python that was ever caught was in northern Luzan.

All of our food supplies were beginning to get low, and it was decided that I would make one more trip into Manila for one more truckload of food and cigarettes. I left Mack behind to take care of things, and two other fellows went with me. Since we had not been in Manila for some time, it was decided that we would all go our separate ways and meet later on. One of the fellows agreed to take the gruck over to the warehouse and have the Philippinoes fill it up. Whether or not they were there at the appointed time, I will never know because I had let the time go by; and when I got there, no one was there. I found one of the boys, and he refused to go back until the following morning. I went to the warehouse and discovered that the other boy had come and oggten the truck and gone back without either of us. By this time you could feel an undercurrent of excitement that seemed to have gripped the city. I stopped a constabulary and asked him what was causing the excitement, and he said there were reports that the Japanese were entering the outskirts of the city. He offered to lend me civilian clothes, but I knew enough to know that under no circumstances did I want to be caught in civilian clothes. He suggested that I might contact other Americans at the cold storage plant in Manila where American food supplies were kept. I acted upon his suggestion; but when I arrived, no one was there. I was sitting on the steps of the plant wondering what to do next, and a small voice said, “Mister would you help me please?”

Dedication, Prologue

Dedication

First, I would like to dedicate this book to my wife whose love and loyalty has always been my rock to lean on and Sue, one of my nurses, whose love and care has helped to keep me alive and without whose help I probably would not have written this book. I also dedicate this book to all the Staff and Employees of DeKalb General Hospital in Smithville, Tennessee, for the dedicated care that resulted in prolonging my life without regard to the prognosis of my disease.

Prologue

For several years when I would repeat some interesting experience that I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to be involved in people have said, “Why don’t you write a book?”. This seemed ridiculous to me as my idea of an author was someone who hid himself away from society and only wrote when he was inspired.

I was too busy living and also was fully convinced that writing a book was beyond my capabilities.

In April of 1971 I discovered I had Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis or “Lou Gherig” disease. On May 9, 1974, I was permanently attached to a respirator and during the many long days that followed, I became fascinated with the idea of writing a book.

When anyone writes about his life, there is a period from the time of his brith until he starts accepting responsibilities and contributing to tohers that is of little, if any, value to a reader. The purpose of this prologue is to cover this period of my own life. I reflect upon this period merely because some of my childhood experiences contributed to my reactions later on.

On Thanksgiving morning, November 27, 1919, I was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee. During the first few years of my life, there was a succession of movers because at theat time my father was a farmer. Just previous to school age we moved to Woodbury, a small town in Middle Tennessee, and stayed there until I finished grade sschool. In 1932 we moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where my fater was employed as a postal clerk.

The above information was given merely as a basis for a general discussion of childhood experiences that affected my later life. While I was a very small child, I either had more than all the other kids in the neighborhood, or I had nothing at all. I can remember once of hanging my sock up for Christmas and a mischievous brother had put a sweet potato in it and that was all I had until I cired, and my father went tot eh store and bought me one orange. I remember another Christmas that I received a tricycle, a wagon, and a car that I could ride in. All of my life has been this pattern to extreme happiness. This pattern as a child helped me to adjust to these extremes later on in life.

When I was about fourteen, my father ran a grocery in Nashville and one night when we checked up, he handed me the money and said he was not going home. Needless to say I was frightened to death. I became a part of what I had always heard was a “broken home”. But do you know that rather than to wind up becoming involved in illegal and immoral activity and using the “broken home syndrome” s an excuse, I think my resistance to wrong doing was strengthened, not because I was adverse to the illegality or the immorality of and act, but because I was afraid that my little mother would be hurt. My mother was born of poor, but honest parents on an inexcessible ridge in the mountains of Cannon County. She had no education and no money, but an undying idea that her familoy was a little better than anybody else in the world and “Thank God” we inherited just enough of this that we never got to where we didn’t care who we were.

My mother and I returned to Woodbury where I completed my junior and senior years of high school. I was a marginal starter on an excellent basketball team and quarterback on the first football team the school ever had. These last two years in high school were destined to be the most important days of my entire life. This is where I met the girl who later became my wife. After graduation I sold Bibles, did some farm work, started to law school and was rather aimless in everything I attempted as anyone would be who had no definite plan in their life.

I joined the service March, 1940. I went overseas in September, 1941. On the troop ship going over, we traveled at night with a complete blackout indicating that our relationship with the Japanese was more imminently dangerous than we were later led to believe. I was assigned to the 4^th Chemical Company at Fort McKindly, Manila, P.I.

No chemical warfare had been used since World War I, but small companies had been retained on the outside chance that we again might find the need for a defense against this sort of activity. The 4^th Chemical Company was a group of about forty-five men who had been assigned to give instructions in chemical warfare to the Philippine Army. Duty was light, and we only held classes four days a week.

When I turned in the night of December 8, 1941[1], worried about an inventory that I had to do in the supply room and particularly worried about accounting for four Elgin G.I. watches that had been missing for God knows how long, and impossible to trace, little did I know that morning we would embark upon a most fantastic experience that would change all of our lives.

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[1] Due to International Dateline Philippine Islands one day different than United States.