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We surrendered May the 6th, 1942, and I got wounded the night before when they invaded the island. Of course, the invasion portion of it was on the opposite side where I was because it was flat. I was located at Cheney Ravine, which had 200 to 300-foot cliffs and, of course, it was impossible for them to come in there because the ravine was heavily fortified with barbed wire so they'd have a tough time there.

So they went around to what they call Infantry Point, which was flat. There was an air field there. So they came in there and then started from there towards Malinta Tunnel which was a tunnel cut through solid rock that housed the hospital, and, of course, MacArthur's headquarters was in that rock. But I was on the opposite end. So the beach that I was on, they started an artillery barrage on that and I got caught in artillery barrage and got wounded that night.

I had a machine gun section and a squad of infantry and so we set up rocks and sand bags and it was probably maybe 8-foot high. We'd set it up 6-foot high with rock and sand bags and left the 2-foot opening so you could fire out of it, if you had to. We had probably six in there. So many for the machine gun section and the rifle section that was in there. And as soon as the barrage would lift, then everybody would go out of the cave and then man their positions on the beach and repel the invasion, which was impossible anyway. When they dropped this artillery shell, it went and fell right in front and exploded and of course the shrapnel went inside the cave and just ricocheted all over and I was the only one in there that got hit.

Well, it hit me in the leg and I guess it concussioned too because it blew my gas mask off and one of my shoes. The concussion just blew that shoe off. But then I got hit just above the knee and it cut the ligaments and muscle in two. And then I had another piece of shrapnel, which I didn't find out until after the war, that went through into my stomach. Went through two, five-round clips, a piece of shrapnel that went all the way through and lodged in my stomach which I carried during the whole three and a half years of prison camp and didn't know it.

They pulled me up off of the beach and we had built caves in the side of a hill that the engineers wanted us to build. They would go 50 back, 50 feet across, and 50 feet back in case a shell would hit in front. The concussion would go through and go all the way around and not stop because if they didn't have the opening out, well, then the concussion could play havoc with you. It could even kill you if it hit you in the right spot.

And so they put me in there and then took the sulfur, we always carried our little first aid kit and they poured sulfur on the wound. Put a tourniquet and a bandage on there and stopped the bleeding and I stayed there the rest of the night. And then we got word 6 o'clock the next morning that we had surrendered the Philippine Islands, and that we were to assemble at Topside at 12 o'clock. So then they passed the word, destroy all of your weapons, grenades, get rid of everything. So we took our rifles and bent the barrels and just took the grenades and we buried the grenades and then they put me on a stretcher.

They started carrying me up to Topside and then as I was being carried up the road, well, the Japanese planes were flying over with this machine gunner in the back, the observer. Every time he'd see somebody, he'd take a machine gun and start shooting. Well, they dropped me in the middle of the road and they'd all scamper to the side and here I was laying there, looking at that Japanese plane with that guy with his machine gun. He was just spraying everything. I don't know how he missed me. I don't know. But he did it twice.

So I finally got up to Topside and they set me down there and then, of course, we had a cigar box with our personal belongings or a shoe box. Whatever we had to put our cigarettes in and whatever personal belongings we had. So this one Japanese soldier came over and started going through and picking out what he wanted and then all of a sudden I heard, 'Pa-wow' ! This Jap officer had taken his sword and popped him real good with his sword and he yelled a bunch of words to him. Boy, and he stood up real fast. He got my canteen. He took it down. He got water in the canteen, and I'm sure what he told him that you stay with him because they honor wounded. They think that is a great honor to be wounded in battle. He was to stay with me until I got to the hospital and he did. He stayed. But as they were progressing to the hospital, they put me on a cart. And another kid named Strickland that got, wounded. A bomb exploded and broke his legs. So they put him and me on this cart with steel wheels and rolled us from Topside to the hospital which was probably quarter of a mile or so or a half a mile. And, of course, there we are in the rough, rocky roads and the pain that you had, it was really something.

I made it in the operating room. They put me on that table and this doctor said, well, the Japs have taken all of our medicine. We don't have anything. I have a little bit of solution here. He'd take a bandage and just dip it into that and he packed that. He said, that's all I can do for you right now. So they took me up and put me in the hospital room and gave me a shot of morphine and that's all I remember until the next day. The doctors would come around every morning and give sick call and this and that. So after the 10th day, I got to the point that I couldn't move my toes at all and I told that doctor, I said, now I can't move my toes. He had a little gadget that was kind of like an x-ray deal, he could look through like a 3 dimensional deal. And he said, oh, there's a piece of shrapnel in there. We'll take it out in the morning. So they took me and rolled me in the operating room, put me on the table, and he says, now, we don't have anything to put you out with, so you're just going to have to hold tight. So they strapped me real good and then they held my legs and arms down and shoulders and he took these forceps. And this hole in my leg was eight inches deep, from the hip went eight inches into my leg and hit the bone. He took the forceps and stuck it up that eight-inch hole and got a hold of that shrapnel and just pulled it out. And when he did that, everything from my head just went right out with it.

That was pain. I mean, that was pain. And he just pulled it, you know. When he did that, boy, just like I say, everything from your brain right on down to that hole, it's just like everything's going right out with it. I never did pass out. He said, well, look here, this thing's shiny as a silver dollar. He said, you want a souvenir? And I said, yeah. I'll take it. Sure. I'll keep it. And I kept it all through the prison camp and still have it today.

I was in there in the hospital, I think, 30 days and then they evacuated everybody out of the hospital and put us on a ship and took us down to Manila. I got off the dock, and my leg was still pretty sore. I couldn't hardly walk at all, I was on crutches. And we had to walk from the pier to Bilibid prison which was five miles or so. It just tore my leg all completely up, started bleeding again. So the doctor there said, again, we have no medicine. He said, when you go wherever you're going to go, he said, here's a bandage. Just unravel it, cut it in half, just wash it out in clean water and let the sun dry it out and then just pack it every morning and every night. So I did that for over a year before it healed up. And twice it healed in the middle, I had to get a stick and punch the hole in there so that it would drain all the time. You know, the tropics, you just barely cut your finger and it festers up like, I don't know why, like it's going to rot and fall off the next day. It's a wonder I didn't lose my leg.

But see, I still had to put weight on it. They took us the next morning. Bilibid Prison is the place where the most serious wounded or sick stayed, that couldn't do any work at all, they stayed in Bilibid Prison. And the rest of us, they loaded 300 of us and sent us to Cabanatuan Prison Camp Number 1 (CAMP INFORMATION LINK 1) (CAMP INFORMATION LINK 2). Put us in a box car and you just sit there with your knees drawn under your chin and roll for over a hundred miles. In that old choo-choo train, it was five, six hours or so. Hot and Dusty. And you couldn't -- all of us didn't at that time really started developing diarrhea like we did at a later time, but you couldn't go to the bathroom. You know, a lot of them had diarrhea at the time and you couldn't do nothing. They just mess themselves right there so we had the stench and everything else.

So we got into Cabanatuan and I think they had roughly 10,000 prisoners: Navy, Army, and Marines. All at Cabanatuan . And I think in the first 45 days they had probably 5,000 die in 45 days. So they dwindled down to where we had maybe 5 or 6,000 in there and then you just did farm work. We built a farm, and, of course, I got out of a lot of that because of my leg. I couldn't stand up. But I got the tail end of it and you go out and work.

We had barracks there and then you'd go to sick hall every morning, we had the navy medics. Of course, they didn't have anything to work with. They would just be sure that what you had was not really infectious. You know, just wash it off or something. But I did most of that myself. And then, of course, we had our old guard duty again. We did barracks duty. And we had somebody who would stay awake all night long. You know, four hours on, four hours off. Just like you would at a regular post.

We didn't have a hospital in Cabanatuan. But if you got to the point that you were near death, they'd take you out of and put you in the Zero Ward. Just put you in there and leave you until you died. When we would be on a work detail, you tried to find anything that would help them. Food of any kind, eggs if you could find eggs or fruit of any kind. Smuggle it back in and give them something like that to kind of revive their system. And some of them, they got okay and brought them out of it. Of course, a lot of them died. They just couldn't live on that kind of stuff. So they died alone.

We watched executions. One kid was asleep during roll call and they thought he went over the wall, over the fence, so they executed him. You know, they said, well, he came back. We watched that. We watched a brother watch his brother get executed. But then one of their pet things was to tie them up as you come into the camp, tie them to a post for about three or four days. No food, no water, and every time one Japanese would come by, they'd just beat him. Then after the three or four day period was over with, then they'd execute him and that would be it. Pretty much in the camp you were all right. You could get by. You just had to take care of yourself, that's all, and not get in trouble.

And the treatment, it was rough. It was rough when you get on a work detail because they have roving patrol which they had, it wasn't quite as big as a baseball bat but like the bottom section of a bat where you'd hold the bat. If they catch you bending over -- you'd bend over and you would cut furrows and make furrows and you'd plant stuff that they wanted you to plant. They'd try to catch you in the kidney, hit you in the kidney and would rupture your kidney. I'd watch. I'd see it coming. When I finally had to work on the farm but I would see it coming and kind of turn just enough where I'd catch it on the hip. My hip was black and blue for a long, long time.

We were building a farm, really, what it was. And we were planting potatoes they called agobby (phonetic) which is like a sweet potato only it was a white potato. Whatever was in season that you could grow: beans, tomatoes, whatever you could grow out of it. Then, of course, what was halfway rotten then they'd give it to us and they'd take the good stuff. And they'd even sell it. They'd turn around and sell it to the little town that we were close by and they'd make money off of it. And, of course, you went to work like 6 in the morning and you worked until 6 at night.

Then of course we all had diarrhea, malaria. I had malaria four or five times. Of course, diarrhea, we had nothing to combat that at all. In the mornings we had what called lugow. It was watery, like a cup of rice and you just put a cup of water in it. And of course, it was full of bugs and weevils and the whole bit. I guess that was for nutritional, you know. But that's what you had, lugow for breakfast and you had a cup of rice at noontime and a cup of rice at nighttime. It was the poorest rice that they had. They exported all of their good rice that they had. But every now and then, they'd have what they call greens. This was like our Johnson grass here. It would just stick in your throat because it had that hairy looking stuff on it. Every day, day in and day out. Just plain rice, that's all it was. (continue)