AK: ...managed by the Navy or it is an Army...
MF: Run by the 59th Coast artillery.
AK: Coast Artillery? 59th.
MF: Yeah.
AK: So it was a soldier's job to block it.
MF: Yeah.
AK: So you're going to stay there about a month?
MF: Lets see, we got there about April 9... we got there about the 12th
or 13th of April. We stayed there until May 6th Phillipine department
surrendered and then we stayed on there about 3 more days before the
Japanese come and got us off of there. About May 9 the Japanese come
in there with small...
AK: Before the Japanese come in there I want to ask you one question
and I'll let you go on with that. What kind of talking and reflection
going on in your mind now, communication with the boys from
Harrodsburg now that you're in this, you're eating better and you're
in a pretty safe thing and you know some of your friends have
surrendered. What's going on and what kind of talk, you're shooting
down airplanes and ...
MF: Well I'll tell you wadn't the morning that they actually
surrendered. In fact I was asleep.
AK: You talking about Bataan or you talking about Fort Drum now?
MF: I'm talking about Fort Drum.
AK: I was trying to tell about before you surrendered. You all got a
mission now and you got clean clothes,...
MF: Oh, you mean on Fort Drum...
AK: Yeah. Yeah. What are you all doing that period? You know, you're
there about a month almost. I know you're fighting but I mean...
MF: We was eating three meals a day...
AK: ...and you're talking. Are you'all talking about what a good
decision you made?
MF: Well yeah! We was getting fat, we was getting our weight back.
AK: Its going to come in handy on your survival isn't it?
MF: It had a whole lot to do with it because when we got on Fort Drum
they had every kind of chow you could think of and I mean they fed us.
And we eat. Don't think we didn't. We had less than 30 days, no
about 30 days I guess, all said and done. I don't know how much
weight we gained there...
AK: How much talking and worrying are you'all doing? How much talking
you talking about the other guys or are you too busy fighting to worry
too much about the others? You wondering whats happening...
MF: I'll tell you the honest truth, I don't know. I don't think
anybody ever said too much about, I mean we was worried, sure, we's
anxious, we didn't know exactly what was going on. We knew Corregidor
was still in the running. We didn't know if, whether the rest of the
Phillipines had surrendered. We was very anxious and naturally
worried. We really didn't know what was going to take place. We know
we was still going. We knew Corregidor was still going. We knew Fort
Frank and Fort Hughes was still going. But we didn't know if
Mindinao or Leyte or, we didn't know if those islands was still
surviving. I'm sure we thought of it but now thinking about it, I
don't think we really thought of too much. We didn't talk too much
about surrendering. I think most of our conversations wondered when
our reinforcements coming tomorrow or next day.
AK: Still had hope.
MF: Yeah we had hope right up until...
AK: Second surrender. You going to surrender again.
MF: Yeah. Right up till the day that they give orders for the whole
Phillipine department to surrender.
AK: I interrupted you when you were going to talk about when they said
that we're going to surrender and you were talking about Fort Drum.
Go ahead from there then.
MF: Yeah. I was talking about the saddest, I think the saddest day of
my life was that morning when I got up, then I sat down, I sat down
there for something, and while I was at it I could look up, I could
look outside and see there flag and they'd run up a white sheet.
AK: Where?
MF: On Fort Drum. I believe that..., I think I sat down and cried.
AK: On the deck? On the top?
MF: That morning. They got orders to surrender. The whole Phillipine
department surrendered, see. Then they run up the white flag. That
colonel, he got everyone in Fort Drum together and told exactly what
took place. That the Phillipine department had surrendered, orders
from Washington, DC. We would destroy all the weapons and that
exactly... Well like I say, that morning I seen that white flag up
there that was just, that was almost the last straw I tell you.
<060>
AK: Why was that? I know there were currents coming in together from
all directions. What were some of those currents, you know, you're
crying out of fear as part of it, out of aggravation, put all those
things together that you can think of, the reason that you are
feelings, you know, different feelings.
MF: It was hard, it was just hard to believe that the United States
armed forces had surrendered, if you know what I mean.
AK: So pride of your nation, strength...
MF: We never got any reports, no supplies, no nothing.
AK: And your angry now because you didn't reinforcements, thats two
feelings, go on with the rest of them.
MF: Thats right. We didn't think the Japanese took any prisoners.
AK: So you thought maybe this was going to be your last day or
thereabouts.
MF: We was in pretty good physical shape but take the guys off Bataan
and various places, they was walking skeletons.
AK: All right, let me interrupt you just momentarily here. In this
period here are any of you gonna get any kind of word about that death
march, any of you heard anything about that at all?
MF: Uh uh.
AK: You don't know a thing about that.
MF: Naw, we didn't. We didn't know a thing about the death march.
AK: But you just thought, you'd heard that those guys might not take
any prisoners and this might be the very end.
MF: They told us out on Bataan that Japanese, they didn't take any
prisoners. We'd been hearing that all along see. We had no reason to
believe that didn't take prisoners. We didn't know, really.
AK: That morning, now you're sitting there and you see the white flag
and tears in your eyes, your pride has been hurt because Uncle Sam has
been severely wounded by capturing Latinous Sound (sp?) <083>. You've
been let down and you've got fears, anything else going on in your
mind that you can think of?
MF: Well...
AK: Are you there by yourself or are you with your other men?
MF: Oh no, all the other men.
AK: That maintenance section was a kind of close knit group there
wadn't they?
MF: Oh yeah.
AK: It must have had good leadership. I guess?
MF: Lieutenant Vernozil (sp?) he was a motor officer.
AK: Was he with you, he wadn't with you.
MF: Naw, he got...
AK: You're providing the leadership now, right?
MF: Yeah. Yeah.
AK: You're the leader. Who else you got from Harrodsburg with you?
MF: Lets see...
AK: Well, we mentioned those a few minutes ago, thats all right, we'll
not go back over that. But there are some from Harrodsburg there with
you?
MF: Oh yeah.
AK: All together there out of Company D there's about 8 of you, you
say?
MF: Yeah, somewhere in that area. The rest of them was guys that were
draftees.
AK: Yeah, OK. Now, the white flag goes up, go on from there. And
you're sitting there with the tears in your eyes... bring the events
forward.
MF: We was sitting in that place. Everybody was just stunned beyond
anything you could think of. It was awfull.
AK: Is there silence? Or is there chatter?
MF: No, for a while then everybody seemed like just went berserk. We
got orders to destroy everything in there.
AK: So you'll were just beating it against the wall and...
MF: We just disassembled the weapons and throwed them overboard.
AK: You kind of taking your frustrations out on the destruction of the
weapons?
MF: Thats right. Then after we done all that we destroyed and on
there they had the big vaults where they had the money stored on Fort
Drum. They had pesos, dollars, and centavos, and gold, and
everything. In this big vault on Fort Drum. They opened that up and
we worked for about two days destroying money. Taking that money and
throwing it over, pesos, silver coins, you know, nickels, and burnt, I
don't know how money we burnt, thousands of dollars, god knows, it's
hard telling how much.
AK: Thats where they kept the payroll for the whole forces?
MF: Yeah, that was the, I guess, was the vault for storing it, for
taking care of it. It guess it was because I never seen so much money
in all my life stacked in that place. And you could take whatever you
wanted if you wanted to take a chance on it. But we had orders
anybody got caught with American money would be automatically shot,
see. So, me, I wadn't going to take no chances. But the some men,
concealed money on them, and I know one guy from Arkansas name was
Mocksbury (sp?), and he got through with 50 one thousand dollar bills.
He made it all the way through and he got back with it. As far as I
know it was still good. It was stuff, a lot of my friends, on
Corregidor, they buried money and jewelry and all kinds of stuff on
Corregidor. Years later, I don't know whether they ever went back to
get it or not. In 78 me and my wife we went back to the Phillipines.
A friend of mine lives in Grants Pass, Oregon. He said him and some
of his buddies buried ammo box, or cannister, it was a cannister you
know where the ammunition went in? They buried it and he was going to
give me instructions how to find it. But he never did.
AK: Who was this guy from Arkansas got back with 51,000?
MF: He was Botal (sp?), not Botal, Mocksbury (sp?).
AK: Do you know how he got through with it?
MF: He sewed it in his clothes!
Maxine (Morgan's wife) speaks: Honey, you might get in trouble! If
that guy's still living!
MF: Oh, it wouldn't make any difference honey!
AK: Well, he was given permission to take it wadn't he?
MF: Yeah. The Colonel said "There it is! Destroy it, take it..."
AK: Destroy it or take or do whatever you want to and you take the
dollars you're libel to be in trouble. And you elected not to. How
much gold was there?
MF: I don't know. There was a whole lot.
AK: I mean, about the size of a brick?
MF: Yeah, it was them brick, brick-ett like...
AK: Are you talking about a hundred of them, a thousand of them, or...
MF: mmm, oh I don't know. It was quite a bit.
AK: How big of a stack? Head tall, or...
MF: No, I'd say it was as high as that little stand there.
AK: Which is, that's about three feet or more.
MF: Well, if you square that up that'd be about...
AK: About three foot by three foot, cubed. About a three foot by
three foot by three foot.
MF: Yeah.
AK: Did you throw that overboard?
MF: Yeah. We throwed that, coins. We got up there and sling them as
far as we could. Whether the Japanese ever tried to recover any of
that, I don't know.
AK: You don't know what happened to it or anything.
MF: No. When we left off of there on about the 12th of May, they took
us in these little old boats around to Nasebu (sp?) and kept about 12
or 15 guys on there to run the equipment on Fort Drum. The engineers
that run the deisel engines and the sewage plant. You know, key
personnel that operated that place. They stayed there, as I
understand it, all the way through the war. When American forces came
back from Manila they run fuel oil and stuff in there and blowed that
place up and they went with it too. The Japanese was still on there.
AK: Really? Is that right?
MF: Thats what I understand, now. Whether thats the truth or not, I
don't know. That's the story that filtered back down through the
years.
AK: How long you going to be on there? You're going to be on there
about three days before the Japs come and get you?
MF: Yeah, after Corregidor, after the Phillipines surrendered we
stayed on there about three days before they come in there and took us
off.
AK: And you see the boats coming. Are you all on deck?
MF: Yeah.
AK: So tell me what happened.
MF: Well, after we destroyed everything on that thing then they had to
turn around and put everything back in operation again.
AK: The Japs had you do that?
MF: No, we done it ourselves because they hadn't come in there. They
destroyed the air conditioner system, the ventilating system, they
never got to destroying the big old engines...
AK: Thank goodness.
MF: So we had to put everything back into... air ducts and all that.
The water system. They repaired all that. Because we didn't know how
long we was going to have to stay on there. So they repaired all
that. We stayed on there three days. We had to eat, sleep use the
bathroom, and all that. So the day that they come after us, our
communication system on there was in communication with the Japanese.
They told us when they's coming
AK: Radios.
MF: Yeah. They come in there with these little old, small fishing
boats and put, it was about 400, no 200, well between 200 and 225, 50,
something like that. They come in there, we was all dressed up in our
kahkis, sharp as a bird. They come in there, searched us all, took
our watches and our rings and our wallets, anything of value they
stripped right then. Took it.
AK: How many people are on this boat, roughly?
MF: Oh I guess, each boat...
AK: No, I'm talking about you all, on Drum, Fort Drum.
MF: They loaded about 15-20 on each little old boat.
AK: How many, what was the total population of Fort Drum at that time?
MF: About 225.
AK: 225? Ok. Then they take you on to where?
MF: We went around Bataan to a place over Kabethie (sp?) they called
Nasebu (sp?). If I had a big map, I don't think its on that map. Its
a great big concrete pier extended out in the bay there and they took
us in there and unloaded us.
AK: This is Manila Bay?
MF: No, this is around away from Manila Bay, around Kabethie (sp?) to
Nasebu (sp?) they called it, a small bay there where back in the
country there they raised a lot of sugar cane. They had a sugar
refinery and sugar warehouses. They used that pier out there for
ships to come in and load sugar and unload stuff and things like that.
AK: That's sort of on the, thats southeast, its on Luzon island, and
its to the south and east of Corregidor. Is that right?
MF: Yeah.
AK: Ok. Thats close enough.
AK: You were going to Nasebu (sp?).
MF: We come off of Fort Drum, they searched us and took everything and
got on these little old boats and went around to Nasebu (sp?). When
we got off at Nasebu (sp?) there was a concrete pier that extended out
in the water quite a ways. They put on there and lined us up in two
lines facing each other. This was about 3 or 4 o'clock in the
afternoon. We thought, we wondered to ourselves "wonder whats going
on?" Done there where the pier hit the land there was a great big
pile of rock. So they started picking up them rock and passed them
from one man to the other. We was lined up side by side facing each
other. We passed them all the way up, put them in a pile, when we run
out down there we turned around and passed them back. That was late
in the evening. All night long we passed them rock. All day long we
passed them rock.
AK: They just harassing you. With no purpose.
MF: And all night long we passed them rock again. In other words, we
passed them, lets see, two days and three nights. We had two or three
guys that already, was really delirious, they was in bad shape, they
was thirsty in the hot sun, and they took all our hats away from us.
We had passed the word down the line, that night we was leaving, we
didn't care what happened. Out near that rock pile they had a machine
gun setup pointed right down that pier. If we'd attempt to escape,
jump in the water or anything else, we'd have just, I mean, we was
ducks for them. They could have shot us, machined gunned us real
easy. But anyway late that evening about, I'd say about 2 or 3 hours
before sundown, they took us off that pier and put us in a big
warehouse and give us all the water we could drink and they issued us
rice and canned salmon and other things and eat all we wanted.
AK: How long were you out there on that rock passing?
MF: We was out there 3 nights and 2 days.
AK: Were you without water that whole time?
MF: Yeah.
AK: No water at all?
MF: None whatsoever. We had 3 or 4 of the guys drink salt water. But
then in a very short time, say an hour, their tongue swell up and
they'd choke to death. We lost 3 guys...
AK: Drank salt water?
MF: Just like commiting suicide, yeah drinking that salt water. I had
on kahki shirt. I took every button off it dissolving it in my mouth.
These bone-like or shell-like buttons, old kahkis years ago. Take one
off and put it in your mouth and it kept saliva like in your mouth.
Keep from getting so dry. I took every button off of that, then
started getting little pebbles, anything like that to...
AK: Does that help?
MF: Yeah. Yeah. I think it did! I was thirsty out of this world but
I wadn't to the point... I tell you what really made it so bad. Most
guys off Bataan we was already seasoned troops. We'd endured a lot of
hardships, water and food and sleep. Whereas the guys on that
concrete battleship they didn't even know the wars going on. They
hadn't any suntan, they hadn't done without anything this whole time.
Just took there and put on that pier and I tell you its just like
taking out of the refrigerator and sticking you in a fire. As far as
they're concerned. None of us guys that come off Bataan....
AK: You were hardened is what you're saying, conditioned...
MF: We was hardened to it, conditioned to it. Even though we was
conditioned to it, it was still rough to go that long in the hot sun
without any water.
AK: Are you saying no water at all, zero water for 2 days and 3...
MF: 3 nights and 2 days.
AK: 3 nights and 2 days.
MF: Yeah.
AK: Can you kind of describe what that was like as you went on. I
mean that pain and thirst and yearning and hankering and whatever.
MF: We'd had so many, at that particular time, we'd had so many ups
and downs, back and forth, disappointments and close calls. We was to
such a point that, really, we really didn't care whether we made it
through that or didn't make it through that.
AK: You mean it was so painful?
MF: Thats right.
AK: Do you get weaker as the days, the hours?
MF: Well, yeah...
AK: You haven't slept, you haven't drank, and you haven't eaten.
MF: You get less, you just get the point where you don't care any
more. You in there fighting to live, in other words, but you're not
scared. We'd come to the point of dying so many times that it gets to
the point where it don't really bother you no more.
AK: The threat of death is not...
MF: Its not there.
AK: It doesn't bother you.
MF: You made all the rest of it, why can't you make this?
AK: You accept it.
MF: Thats right.
AK: You're ready to take it.
MF: We was conditioned to that. We didn't know how this was going to
last but we knew that last night that we wadn't going no more.
AK: You'd already decided.
MF: Thats right. We had decided that was about two hundred and, I
guess... it was over 200 men, I'll it that way, I don't know how many
more, but it was over 200. That last night, that last day we said
we's going we didn't care what happened. Get killed or not get
killed. I don't know whether they sensed the fact that we going to do
something or somebody told them to let up on us and give us water and
give us food and take care of us, see. And thats exactly what they
done.
AK: Going back now, trying to capture our... to get some kind of
understanding for the... when you get thirsty it's not like the
nicotine. The hankering for nicotine just lasts for a few seconds.
That thirst how does that... is it a constant thing and is it getting
worse with time?
MF: Yeah, well yeah, it gets worse and your mouth gets dry and your
throat gets dry and your nose gets dry and as the time goes by it gets
worse and worse and worse and worse. And I believe as far as your
feelings and being lost, survival, I believe thirst was the hardest
part of the whole thing. Because to me, food you can do without a
long time. I know you can do without it about 30 days or longer than
that probably. But water you not going to do without it too long
before your whole body dries up and you insides collapse. Not
knowing exactly what takes place, I know you'll get weak and weaker
and weaker and weaker and you just don't... you just...
Thirst is something hard to fight. You can fight it long... some
people can fight it longer than others. Because the moisture in your
body, I guess... You'd think a fat person would last longer than
anybody, they seem like they went before anybody did.
AK: Is that right?
MF: Yeah. A big tall person, a fat person.
AK: I guess when you first start out there its hot. You're sweating.
As time goes on are you goning to continue perspiring?
MF: No. You get the point where you don't have nothing to...
AK: Perspire?
MF: You just get dry.
AK: You described a few minutes ago that your mouth gets dry and your
nose gets dry...
MF: And your whole body gets dry. In a heated, like a tropical zone
like that...
AK: Then you quit sweating...
MF: About 105, 110 in the shade. I don't know, maybe it's hotter than
that out on that cement. As long as you're sweating you don't feel to
bad. But once you quit sweating and you mouth starts getting dry and
all that.
AK: You start getting hot?
MF: All the moisture is going out of your body. I mean, thats what
happened to us, see.
AK: Did anybody get any water at all that time? Did you get a drop of
water or not even one drop.
MF: None. None.
AK: Zero water for 3 nights and 3 days.
MF: 3 nights and 2 days. No. I think they was trying to kill us and
after we didn't die they decided to give us some water!
AK: For whatever reason they gave you some water. When they gave you
some water, all you could drink, how much did you drink?
MF: We all was pretty... well some people they bloated themselves.
And thats the worse thing in the world they could've done see.
AK: You already knew about the net.
MF: All these guys, all us, we drank a little bit and stopped.
Rinsed our mouth out and spit it out. We knew because we had
experienced thirsty before on the Bataan. We'd get a canteen of water
we'd put it in our mouth rinse our mouth out, spit it out, let it
absorb in our mouth and thats the way we did there. Some of them guys
that had never been that, some off of Fort Drum, they'd never been
thirsty all during that war. And they'd get and drink and drink and
drink and drink and about 5 minutes later it'd all be coming back up
again. They put too much in their body to absorb and it made them
sick. Well anybody can do that! Real hot. You drink a whole lot of
water. First thing you do is get sick at your stomach. A whole lot
of us, like you say, we just took our time. People that had been,
like I say, if you'd been in that condition before you learn a whole
lot by it and you just drink a little at a time until you get your
body built back up.
<381>
AK: After they feed you and let you have some water you going to get
water the rest of your stay there? And food?
MF: Yeah. Well, lets see, they brought us in that warehouse and fed us
and we got all the water we want. So we slept all that day more or
less. Nobody harassed us, nobody bothered us, no nothing. Like
daylight and dark, you know. Next day they come in they and rousted
us all up and lined us up in a column of fours and marched us through
a little old town. Nasebu (sp?) that little place. I don't know what
they's doing. I guess they's making examples out of us. To the
Phillipinos. From where we was at in them warehouses about a mile we
marched up there, marched through that little old town, turned around
and come back. And we were back in the warehouses. We stayed there
about 2 weeks. In that two weeks me and a few other guys we went back
to Fort Drum and Fort Frank, little fortifications off of Corregidor
and off of Cabebe (sp?) and helped unload food supplies out of them
places. Or anything else of value. We worked two weeks. They fed us
real good while we was, and so we had plenty strength. In fact we
gained weight in this deal. Then we come back and about two more days
after they got ...
...in the bay, and we thought then, "Uh oh, we must be going to Japan
or someplace." But that wadn't true. They come in there with these
little, small landing crafts and picked us all up and took us out to
that ship and we climbed up these rope nettings and got on that ship.
They took us back around Corregidor, up in Manila Bay, and took us way
in Manila Bay and unloaded us again off on these little old landing
barges and took us into shore and dumped us all out. Just dumped us
out in the water. So we had to walk through the water up to, they
called it Dewey Boulevard then. It was a four lane Boulevard that
goes across Manila. We got on the beach. They wouldn't let us stop
to get the sand or water out of our shoes or nothing else. We got up
on Dewey Boulevard, they lined us up in a column of fours, and we
marched there to Bilivid (sp?) prison. I don't know, I think somebody
said it was about 14 miles. I'm not sure thats correct but anyway
somebody said thats what it was. We went to Bilivid (sp?) prison and
they fed us and we got plenty of water. We stayed all night. The next
day they took us out to the railroad station and put about 100 of us
in little old boxcars. Well they put so many in there if you passed
out you couldn't fall down anyway. And talk about hot, it was hot in
those. We rode them things all day and got to Cabanatuan and
we got out there and stayed all night in the schoolyard there. They
fed us again. They gave us rice and water and all we wanted to drink.
They next morning we got up, they fed us rice and soup, and we got in
formation and marched to Cabanatuan number 3 prison camp.
Then we got three meals a day. Rice and soup. But there wadn't very
much rice and there wadn't very much soup. In our camp, we didn't
have nobody to die. We got four guys tried to escape and they caught
them. One guy was off of Fort Drum, I don't know where the other
three. Anyway, they tied them up and put them in a squat position and
they stayed out in that hot sun for three or four days. They went
over there and they dug the guys grave and made them stand up there
and then they shot them. They shot these four guys and dropped them
back in the grave. But they had everybody in that camp to line up to
come over there to look to see what happened to people who escape.
AK: Attempted and didn't make it.
MF: Naw. From what I understand they went out there and went right up
the road...
<474>
...in Cabanatuan. They lined us up in marching formation and
we took off and we did not know, we didn't have no idea where we was
going. Cabanatuan camp number 1, it wadn't open at that time.
In fact we didn't Cabanatuan 1, 2, or 3. We didn't have any idea.
What we did is we marched a long ways, I never did really know how far
it was, but it took us just about all day. We got in there and they
moved us in this camp. What it was, was where the Phillipine army, it
was one of there posts. Where they trained there troops. They moved
us in that place. They fed us. They furnished the rations and all and
we had our own cooks. American POWs. They done all the cooking all
that. But we was doing, we was eating rice and soup made out of
anything that we could get to make soup. It might be anything.
Inside that compound there was lot of small trees. I don't know what
they were but somebody that knew said that was good to make tea out
of. They had citric acid. Thats what we needed cause we wadn't
getting any oil or any acid or salt or nothing like that. They
stripped all them trees and we could get plenty of water. The
Japanese they didn't care if you built a little fire out there in the
compound. Guys had these containers and they'd brew these leaves up
and anything like that. But that was a boring place. We didn't have
nothing to do all day long. One time a week they'd get a formations
and go to the river and take a bath. Or we'd go another way and
gather wood to burn in the mess hall. Sometime you'd get on a detail
to out there to help round up these wild brahmas to kill them
for meat for our mess hall. You talk about a dangerous deal, you get
out there with them wild brahmas (sp?) they just libel to run over
you, gore you, or anything! They'd pick out one or two Americans and
give them a springfield rifle. That's what the Phillipinos used. And
give them one bullet. That guy, he better hit what he was shooting
at. We never did get nobody hurt on that detail. There where we was
at it was way out there in the Bon Docks (sp?) close to the mountain
range and valleys back through there and they had all kind of wild
brahma cows in there. We had another little deal to put up with. We
had cobras, you know snakes. As far as I know nobody ever got bit by
one, but just ever now and then someone would find one in the barracks
with us. They never seemed to try to bite anybody. When they'd find
them they'd kill them. We all got dysentery, we got beri-beri, we had
people die with heart problems, we got sores, tropical sores. I had
dysentery there at that camp. I mean I was really in bad shape. You
talk about this slip trench where you go down to lay down to die. I
went down there and I thought I was going to die but
Arnold Lawson (sp?) and some more of them, somewhere they got two
sulfa-thizol (sp?) tablets, two of them. And I took one of them and
it checked my diarrhea, dysentery enough that I started, I never did
quit eating really, but I couldn't stop going to the latrine. Anyway
it checked me enough that I got over it. I had one of them pills left
and another guy name of Moore who lives in Oregon, Grants Pass Oregon,
he had dysentery real bad and he was a driver for the Japanese
hauling, drove one of there trucks to haul our rations. I give him
that other pill and saved his life. But I tell you it was.. we
didn't really have too much sickness. I mean we didn't have very many
people die there in that camp.
AK: Compared to Cabanatuan...
MF: Cabanatuan number 3. We didn't have...
AK: At O'Donnel's (sp?) where they had the big deaths, I guess.
MF: Yeah, and camp number 1. Cabanatuan number 1. They lost
thousands.
AK: What do you attribute it to that you didn't have as many deaths
there at number 3? Was it the Japanese guards that were in charge? or
was it because you didn't go through the death march?
MF: The deal was that all the people in one was from O'Donnel (sp?).
And the ones that went through the death march they's the ones that
ended up in Cabanatuan camp number 1. All the people that was
in our camp, camp number 3, come off of Corregidor and Fort Frank, and
Fort Hughes, and Fort Drum and surrounding areas like that.
To start off with they was in much better physical condition than they
guys that come off of Bataan see. I don't know if they planned it
that way or what, but I wouldn't have been in camp 3 if we hadn't got
off of Bataan and got on Corregidor and Fort Drum. They kind of kept
them separated. They didn't... We was in better shape than all the
guys in camp number 1, Cavana Tawan number 1.
AK: It reinforced your good decision is what is does. You made a good
decision when you said "Boys we're going to go to wherever we can go."
And you happened to have the skills to maintain, to repair that boat
so you could get there. And then you made another good decision when
you left Corregidor.
MF: Oh Yeah.
AK: You made two good decisions.
MF: You walk in them tunnels and see them peoples faces you know you
didn't want to stay around that place to long. Them guys was...
AK: You said that you were getting Beri-Beri now.
MF: Well, I didn't get Beri-Beri until I got to Japan. To get back to
Cabanatuan number 3. In November of 43, 42, November of 42
they wanted a detail of 500 people to go to Japan. They come through
that camp and selected 500 people. They didn't really give us a
physical examination but we lined up and went through a, look at you
and see what you looked like, you know, is he fit?
AK: Like buying a bunch of horses.
MF: Yeah! thats right. Out of about 3000 or something they selected
500 of us and I was one of them. We left Cabanatuan number 3.
AK: Thats November 42?
MF: Yeah.
AK: Thats going to be about the first bunch thats left do you think?
MF: Well we was close to it, yeah.
AK: Ok.
MF: We went back to Cabanatuan, that little town and got on
this same train and went back to Manila into Bilivid (sp?) prison.
And they stuffed us in them boxcars like they did, going about a
hundred to a boxcar. Stayed in Bilivid (sp?) overnight and the next
morning...
AK: Take those boxcars, they weren't solid metal were they? What was
that boxcar made out of? Was it a metal car?
MF: Yeah. They ones we rode in, yeah.
AK: Was it solid metal?
MF: Yeah. It was like an oven in those things.
AK: Did you lose anybody on that trip?
MF: No. We didn't lose nobody going from Manila to Kiterbatawan (sp?),
we didn't lose nobody going from Cabanatuan back to Manila. I
don't know why we didn't because...
AK: With that heat, standing that close and all, you must be right at
the point of suffocation. Can you kind of describe that feeling some?
What you felt?
MF: I tell you, getting, with all the other treatment and things we
went through, getting in them boxcars with all those people, you feel
like you just be squeezed to death. It's hard to describe, it's
really hard to describe just exactly how you felt. That's all there
are to it.
AK: Were you afraid that you might suffocate?
MF: No. I don't think... By that time really, our mind had been
seasoned to the point that...
AK: You could take almost anything, eh?
MF: Yeah. We just figured it was another day.
AK: Were there any commotions or anybody going out of there head in
this deal.
MF: No.
AK: Any screaming or any get off shoving and pushing, cursing?
MF: We just marched on there till they filled it up and shut the door
and that's just the way it was. I tell you the old human body can
take more than you really believe. It can season itself to almost
anything. Any kind of a punishment, as long as they don't bleed you
to death or starve you to death, from thirst or food, as long as you
can get a little bit either one of them that old body will last a long
time.
<703>
End of Audio Tape 2 Side 2