It would seem that it would make no difference, but it turned out that it did. Some people were fifty years old. Some were experienced in health and sanitation matters, so when it came to building slip trenches, toilets, they said, "Let's put it over on the other side of the ravine." That was a long way from the barracks. They reasoned that an open toilet would be a health hazard. They probably thought we had nothing else to do but walk to the toilet, so they put it quite a distance away.

(Later on this proved to be very inconvenient -- about that, I will tell you later). The Army people did not put their trenches so very far away. And, as it turned out, the number of deaths in the Naval contingent and in the Army contingent was very different.

Life at Cabanatuan was not exactly unpleasant. It was not too bad. The one thing that was bad was the food. It was very bad. But otherwise, it was quite nice. The Japanese let us go down to a stream to bathe once in a while. We really had no work to do, except that sometime they would organize a work detail. Actually, that was not too bad because you got something extra to eat. You might get a bun, or an extra rice ball. While the work was not too hard, it was pleasant to receive a reward like a half a cup of rice. Living unprotected in those barracks, open to mosquitoes and no netting, we became susceptible to all the tropical diseases. We were not eating enough food to keep us from getting ill. There was beriberi, elephantiasis and pellagra. Almost everybody had something. We sat around and talked.

I had carried a book along, a book on radio material, which, if you read it from stem to stern, you would be a radio expert. I never did learn it totally, but I learned it quite well. I may not have learned it thoroughly, but I read it a number of times. Besides the tea, I think it was a good thing to carry along. When we first arrived there, Stinky Davis was a terrible liar. He would tell me lies just to make himself look good. Later on I found out that they were lies, after he was dead. Stinky and I were friends, and I don't know if he said it or me, and said that a camp this large there has got to be a container around somewhere. We began looking all over. This place had been cleaned over. In fact, Lansing is a junkyard in comparison. We scoured and got down in the bed of a stream and, lo and behold, there was about one inch of a paint can sticking out. We dug it out and scraped it out, and scoured and scraped and finally we had a bucket, in tact, no holes, and clean. That bucket was one of the most important assets I had. I call it mine because it became mine -- I inherited it. Davis and I owned it together at first, and then Davis got sick and went across the road. Going across the road – to the critical ward – was pretty much a one way trip. If you got sick enough to be carried across the street, you were probably not going to come back. That is what happened to Davis .

But to get back to the paint bucket. I could brew my tea in it. I didn't make a fire because I didn't need to. They were always cooking rice, and all I had to do was put the bucket close to the fire, and I could brew tea. To get by the fire, you might have to give the cook some tea, but I could always have some tea. Some had coffee, and they would ask me to use my bucket. So I would let them use my bucket if I could have a cup of coffee. They were always agreeable. It was very valuable to me. Not many in that whole group had a container. During this stay in Cabanatuan, I again became very ill.

I was not ill enough to be carried; I walked. One particular illness was scabs all over my body. I don't remember that they interfered with anything, except maybe sitting down. They were weeping, and it got to the point that I thought that I had to do something. I took some coarse cloth, probably burlap, my gallon bucket, and perhaps soap, and went to a water spigot and scrubbed all my sores so that all the scabs came off. I was as raw as a piece of hamburger. I just closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and I scrubbed. That was the wisest thing I could have done, because the scabs never returned. The sores healed and I had no more trouble with scabs anymore.

After a few months, there was a reshuffle and all the Marines and Navy were put in one group (about 2100), and the Army (4500) was put in the other two groups. Now the chow began to improve. Once or twice a week they gave us a caribou or two and each man would get a tea cup or --- of caribou soup. Our officers and galley force took more than their share of the chow, if there was something extra, like meat, so that there wasn’t much left for the common herd. Lt. Colonel Freeney is in charge of our group and he is a no-good son of a bitch. If he were any good at all he would stop the racketeering in the galley. The Japanese allow Major Jensen (Army) to make purchases for the camp. The only stuff we are allowed to get is the stuff they can’t use. There are no sick officers at all. They seem to think that is their “divine right” as officers to take what they needed to remain healthy; what we get is incidental.

A very common illness was diarrhea. I don't know the reason for it, but many people had it. It was common to get up many times during the night to go to the benjo. I have already mentioned how far this was. It was a good distance, about a half a block. It was down through the ravine and up the hill. I had the problem as many did. It resulted in little sleep because, if you had diarrhea, you spent half the night walking back and forth. One night, during the rainy season, but quite cold, I had to get up many times. I had made myself some "go-aheads". These were little things to keep your feet off the ground. They were little stilts, platforms and thongs made from rope or cloth. I put on my go-aheads, got up, and walked the long walk to the benjo. All that rain had caused the slip trench, which was quite deep, to collapse. When I stepped inside the door, my foot went down into the slip trench and my foot got dirty. I reached out to get my balance, and my hand reached the side of the shelter which was made from split bamboo, and some bamboo ran up into my fingernails. At the same time, I dirtied my britches and my go-aheads broke. I re-tried my go-ahead -- and emotionally, that was one of the lowest points while I was a prisoner.

I cried. I went back and woke up Davis, and he and I went to the spigot, filled up our bucket and sloshed me and I washed my go ahead and my clothes. We were standing in the rain and we were soaked, but we got it done. We returned to the shelter, and we went back to bed.

The fellows make beverages out of almost anything. Tea is brewed out of several kinds of tree leaves; guava leaves makes the best of any. Coffee is made by scorching dry rice until black and boiling in water. It isn’t good, I suppose, but to us who haven’t tasted real coffee for a year, it isn’t so bad. Some fellows who drive trucks for the Japanese manage to make some purchases outside, but they profiteer so badly that the prices they ask are terrific. Milk, beans, etc., are about $2.50, and almost all hands are broke. Salt and sugar is sold for one peso per cup.

I'll tell a little more about how the camp was set up. It was surrounded with barbed wire. It was a fence with three or four strands of barbed wire. The first one was a foot off the ground. If you wanted to escape, it would be no problem at all. There were pill-box guardhouses watching all the time, but you had twenty minutes each time where you could slip under the fence. But we reasoned that we did not trust the Filipinos anymore that we trusted the Japanese. If we escaped and went to the Filipinos, while most were loyal to the Americans, maybe one in a hundred was not. If you went into a village and one ratted on you, it only took that one. We realized that escaping would not work. I never even contemplated it. Most others did not either.

On the third day after our arrival, 4 men were caught walking down the road headed back to Cabantuan! For a day or so they were tied up in very uncomfortable positions so that some of them passed out from the pain. The next day they were led out behind our barracks, lined up in front of shallow trenches and they were blindfolded. Five Japanese soldiers lined up opposite them. A Japanese officer passed cigarettes among them and lighted them up. Then the orders were given and the soldiers made ready, aimed and shot them down. One of the soldiers administered the Coup de Grace with a rifle. The Japanese officers (about 10 of them) saluted and bowed to the deceased and stood for a moment with bowed head. It was all over. Strangely, the Americans accepted it very stoically. The general opinion seemed to be that they knew what they were risking so they had it coming. That put an end to all thought and talk about escape.

I know of one attempted escape, but it was almost not even like an attempt to escape -- more like an attempt at suicide. It was done by two American Indians from Mexico who were in the Army. I don't know if they slipped under the fence or walked out the front gate and started walking on the road. There was only one country road. Our provision truck was headed for Cabanatuan with a Japanese soldier and an American driver on it. Maybe there was two or three guys helping to load it. It came along and saw two guys walking. They told these two guys to get on and they took them to Cabanatuan and back to camp with them and then the Japanese soldier told his commander what had happened. The commander told them to tie these two up, and this is what happened.

The two "escapees" were tied up in an uncomfortable position with their arms tied up underneath their knees. They were set out in an open area where the sun would beat on them, and they were given no water. They were tortured this way for a couple of days. Then we were all told to come out, and these two men were told to dig a hole, a grave, for themselves. Then they were told to stand at the edge of the grave, and about six Japanese soldiers lined up, were given the proper commands, and they shot the American Indians. They fell into the hole they had just dug. One was not killed very good, and he started to crawl back out again. The officer walked over, pulled out his funny little Japanese pistol, and shot him in the head. Some Americans were ordered to cover up the hole. Well, believe me, that was a pretty sobering message. Nobody else thought about breaking the rules of the camp. This is what we thought would happen if we did. I think that we were not quite content to stay, but also not foolish enough to try to escape.

These days were filled with rumors, wild rumors. Some fellows came in and said definitely that they themselves had seen headlines in a Manila paper that Berlin had fallen. That was in June and July of 1942. And there was a hundred more just as erroneous. Japanese naval defeats, victories, any kind at all. Beri-beri was breaking out in numerous cases, swollen ankles. The death rate was climbing; men were dying from dysentery and malaria. We all at one time or another had touches of dysentery and malaria, but mostly we were bothered by “rice moisture” which was causing everyone to get up from 3 to 15 times per nite. At first it was thought to be caused by sleeping on bamboo slats, but the doctors told us it was another manifestation of malnutrition. The Japanese guards were not bad to us. We went on working parties and spent more time resting than working, which was a good idea at that, considering the diet we were getting.

At one point, before Davis went over the road, there was a rumor that the Americans were coming and all things that we wished would happen. Someone would say it and tell somebody else and it would gain the stature of fact and it would go through the camp in a matter of a couple of hours. Everyone would believe it for a while and then we would realize that it was a rumor like all the other rumors.

They have a sick camp across the road where they send the “very sick.” To go over there usually is a one-way trip. I have a friend (J.J. Duggan) who went over, but he came back. He said they gloom themselves into the grave, each telling the other how much worse he looked today. When he came in, they growled for a while because it made things crowded, but they consoled themselves with “one of us will kick off in a day or so, then there will be room enough again.”

We have local talent shows about twice a week. They really have brought the shows up to quite high standards, due mostly to MC who was a professional showman on the outside. We have one dog in camp, “Soochow”, brought by the 4th Marines from Shanghai. Old Soochow has been with the Marines so long he has learned our bugle calls. When the Japs sound reveille, it sounds nothing like ours and Soochow howls and moans as if in pain.

Once a rumor came out that they were going to send a number of Americans to Japan. Davis and I talked it over, whether it would be a good idea to stay here or go over to Japan, because there were also rumors about sending prisoners to Mindanao and to other places in the Philippines. It was our opinion that the best place would be Japan. It would be better to go to Japan, we figured, because food would be a problem. We felt that the Japanese would treat the homeland better than they would the people out in the Philippines, that the last place to run out of food would be Japan. So we made it known to the American officers that if there was a chance to be sent to Japan, that we wanted to go. Now, it seems unlikely that a prisoner could volunteer for something like that and get it, but it was apparently true, because after a number of weeks, they said that five hundred Americans were needed to go to Japan.

We were taken to Manila, to the railroad, and put on board a ship, the Nagata Maru.

JAPAN

November 6th, 1942.
Left Cabanatuan for Manila, boarded Japanese troop transport NAGATA MARU on the 7th. Five or six hundred men to each hold. Japanese troops on next deck up. Pest ship, no ventilation, room for only part of men to stretch out, some find sitting room, some S.R.O. (8 men die en route). Trip takes 21 days. Six or seven day lay-over in Formosa. One submarine scare. Arrive at Moji, Japan. We entrain at Shimonoseki for Osaka. Arrive at P.O.W. camp Tanagawa. Very cold here now for us. We are in poor physical condition. Men dying at an alarming rate (malnutrition). We are made to work on construction of a navy yard. The work is mostly loading rock cars. Davis catches diarrhea and is sent to Osaka Hospital.

She was a rotten little ship, built in England about fifty years before this. Her gross tonnage was about six thousand. I think there were about fifteen hundred people on it, not five hundred. Maybe they got some from other camps. In our one camp, there were five hundred Americans (in one hole). In the deck above this, which was also below decks, a larger area, there were twenty-two hundred Japanese. They had hammocks. We were at the bottom of the ship, the prowl, or the keel, and five hundred were there -- so filled that in the cargo hold there was no room to lay down full length. If you did, you laid on top of someone else. It was a claustrophobic experience.

On the first day, we were ordered to go down below, so I went down there to see what was happening. I knew about the sick-bay upstairs, on deck. There was a doctor up there with some patients and I knew that the doctor had some authority. When I went down there, I saw they had buckets down there for benjos. The prisoners were sick and standing in a pool of feces. I looked at that, and I said that I couldn't stand that, that I had claustrophobia. If you were capable, you could go upstairs and go benjo over the side of the ship. They had built some hanging benjos, just hanging over the side of the ship and you could use them and go right into the bay, or into the ocean. So I told them I had to use the benjo and went up on the deck and went to the doctor, Captain Nel, an Army captain. He was from Detroit. I told him that if he would certify that I was sick and had to be kept on deck, I would get food for him. He was a wise guy, and he knew that he would not get too much food anyway, so I made the deal. He certified that I was sick, and he showed me where to lay.

My spot was underneath a winch -- no cover and no protection from the weather, but at least it was a spot on the deck. My fare for staying on deck was to get food for the doctor. When the Japanese were eating, I would stand around with a mess kit and when they were finished, but not finishing it all, I would hand out my mess kit to them and say "meshi, meshi". Some would give me some, and others would just look at me and throw it over the side. I kept at it and collected enough for the doctor and enough for me. It was food that the Japanese had partially eaten, but it didn't bother us. Well, Doctor Nel did not know, but it didn't bother me. I was able to stay rather healthy for the most part on the trip from Manila to Japan. It was not too unpleasant on deck at first. The trip took us twenty-seven days. We didn't lose all that many people. A total of six or eight died during that trip . There was one guy laying near me. He kept kicking me in the head. I told him to cut it out. I said, "You S.O.B., I'll fix you!" While he was asleep, I untied his shoelaces and tied his feet together with the shoelaces. He didn't kick me anymore. But he wouldn't have, anyway, because he was dead. He was kicking me as he lay dying. But I didn't know it. In the morning, they wrapped him in a blanket and threw him overboard. He was one that did not make it.

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