Virgil L. Aimes, Albuquerque, New Mexico: Locking horns with the devil (continued) We lay on the ridge, the rest of the day and night. No one had much to say. We knew this was the last stand. April 9, AM Capt. Kemp sent word down the line. Bataan has fallen. It was every man for himself. We could hear a rumble that sounded like tanks back on the main road. I thought we were about to be cut off, so I decided to get across the open flat to the jungle on the other side. Five or six boys said they were going with me. We made it across okay, skirted around an ammunitions dump that had been blown up the night before. Some small ammo still going off. We decided to ease out to the road to see what was going on. The brush was pretty thick but we could see the road ok. We could hear someone talking into a bull horn, then a command car and a jeep came down the road. A GI driving, an American officer and a Jap officer were in the command car, Jap soldiers in the jeep. I motioned the other boys to stay back and I stepped out to the edge of the road. They stopped and this officer, I think he was a Colonel, told me General King has surrendered Bataan. Lay down your arms, go up the road a half mile. You will find some food and water. The Jap army will take over. I went back where the boys were waiting and told them what was up. We wrapped our rifles around a tree, scattered our ammo in the jungle and went down the road and turned ourselves in. We didn't know what would happen. Maybe we will be shot. I had never heard of this POW stuff. I always thought war was do or die. We got to this clearing where several hundred men were laying. They were a pretty tired bunch of men, Jap soldiers were standing around the edge of the clearing. There was a tank of water and some barrels of c and k rations. We got to eat a little and fill our canteens. Sometime later that day, they started moving us out. We hadn't gone a quarter of a mile when I saw an old Filipino man laying in the ditch, the top of his heard had been cut off clean with a sword. Most of the Jap officers carried swords. His brains were half out of his head and flys were all over them. Things got worse. American and Filipino soldiers were beaten, shot and bayoneted for no apparent reason. Filipino civilians who tried to give us water or food were beaten or killed. I don't know how long it took to make the march, it must have been 5 or 6 or 7 days. I was sort of out of it most of the time with fever, chills, etc. I remember one night it rained a little and I dipped water out of puddles, to fill my canteen. I vaguely remember getting to San Fernando and being loaded into box cars so tight we couldn't move. We were on the train about 40 or so miles, to Capas, then about 8 or 10 miles walk to Camp O'Donnell. I still don't remember getting to O'Donnell. Camp O'Donnell had been a Filipino post before the war started. The barracks were about 20' by 40', bamboo frames, split bamboo sides and banana leaves tied together for the roofs. They were fairly weather resistant. Inside a 6 foot walkway down the center a 6 1/2' elevated bench down each side for beds. The bench was covered with bamboo slats. DAY ONE CAMP O'DONNELL Evening I had chills and fever. I crawled under a barracks, trying to get warm. It didn't help. The next morning, I came out still having chills. The first person I saw was Orland Hamlin, a friend and neighbor from Farmington, he said the Japs had him on a detail, driving a truck back to Bataan to pick up salvage, so he was eating pretty good. He gave me a can of hash. That can of hash was just what I needed to get started again. I never saw Orland (nicknamed Cotton) until we were at home after the war. He got married and moved to Mesa, Arizona. Sometime later, I heard he was dead. A day or two after I got to Camp O'Donnell they called assembly to the center of the compound. General King was there, he said the Jap commander had given him permission to say a few words. I don't remember his exact words, but it was about how proud he was of our defense of Bataan. He knew we would have fought to the end. He said never let it be said that you surrendered. He said, I surrendered you in hope that some of us may get home to tell our story. General King survived and died in 1958. General King commanded the troops on Bataan. We started getting rice to eat, soupy in the morning, dry, unseasoned later in the day. The rice was cooked in large iron pots over outdoor grills. GI cooks from different units were assigned to Mess Halls. When the pots were cleaned, there woulc be a layer of burned or scorched rice. It was given to anyone there at that time. It tasted some better than the unseasoned dry rice. Burial details continued every day. 50 to 75 or more died every day. After a time, they started moving us to Camp Cabanatuan. It was a much larger camp, divided into 3 areas, one a hospital area where the men were too weak to work. I was in this area for 3 or 4 months. Another, called the dysentery ward was where they took the very sick men to die. No one ever came out of there alive. The other, about a half mile away, the main camp, where the men were able to work some. A lot of the men there had been on Corregidor. They looked a lot better than the boys from Bataan and they hadn't made the Death March. I gradually got a little stronger and got to where I could choke down the rice. A few weeks later, I was put on the ration run. We would go to the main camp warehouse. Four men would carry a sack of rice on a litter, with several rest stops. Then they started getting some limes once in a while, squeezed onto the rice, which made it taste a little better. But we only got one once in a while. I started going around camp to see who I could find, going from barracks to barracks. I found Jack, Edo Mac's brother, and my friend. He didn't look too bad, but not ready to do much yet. He told me Frank Jones was in the same barracks. I went down the breezeway and Frank looked pretty bad. I tried to get him to eat some of his rice, but he couldn't. I went back the next day. Jack said they had moved Frank to the dysentery ward, so I went down there. He knew me but he could hardly talk. The next day, he wasn't there. A few days later, Jack was moved to the barracks next to the one I was in. I started getting around and getting information on what had happened to the rest of our Battery. Capt. Kemp, Capt. Twaits and some of the other officers had been shot. Many had been killed or just died of sickness. I was sitting outside the barracks one day and SSgt. Tom Hunt came over. He was in the barracks next to the one I was in. We talked a while and he gave me a can of hash. I didn't ask where he got it, but I found out later he had been crawling under the fence at night and contacting Filipinos then slipping back in. The next day, he was gone. He was caught and returned about 3 weeks later with four others. They had been beaten half to death. The Japs tied their hands up with feet barely touching the ground in the hot sun all day. Then in the evening they made everyone that could walk come out in the compound. They brought out the firing squad and executed the five men. The next day, we were all listed in groups of 10, with orders if one man attempts to escape, the rest of that group was to be shot. Sometime later. Jack and I were in a group that was transferred to the main camp. There were a lot of different work details and everyone worked. A wood detail walked 3 or 4 miles, cut wood with a small trimming saw, and carried the wood back to cook the rice. Work was done on different air strips, pick and shovel rice details, some would take ox carts to rail spurs, load rice and return about 8 miles to the farm detail. This was unlimited acreage, undeveloped, covered with heavy grass and worked with picks and shovels. A lot of men can do a lot of work. and in time, there was a beautiful farm, with rice paddies, vegetables, sweet potatoes, all shipped out, except some sweet potato runners that we were allowed to keep to make green soup. We still had the burial detail. It had eased up some, but was still there. The farm was the main project, always clearing new ground and pulling weeds. In season there was a sweet melon about 18 to 20 inches long, 5 to 6 inches in diameter. When the guards weren't watching, 4 or 5 men could make a melon disappear fast and have the rind buried. Burial details gradually got smaller. Some were still dying but not nearly as many. The Japs finally let the Redcross send in a package for each man, that was a life saver. This happened 2 times as I remember. The packages contained food items, corn beef, spam, chocolate, etc. I guess the Americans were getting close. The Japs started moving POWs out of the camps sometime in the Spring of 1944. Jack and I were in a group to ship out some place. They took us to Manila, there were 2 junk ships at the dock. These boats were unmarked, the Nissyo Maru and the Arisan Maru. We slept that night on a concrete floor at Bilibid prison. The next morning they started calling out names. Jack got on the Arisan and I got on the Nissyo. I never saw Jack again. We were cramed in the hold like sardines. I don't know how many men we lost. There were quite a number of ships used to evacuate the Phillipines. All of them lost quite a few men. The Arisan Maru was sunk with 1,800 POWs. 8 survived. All of the ships they used were unmarked. I guess the American subs had pretty much control of the China Sea. One night there were several explosions. They had to be torpedoes from subs. We must have been in a convoy. The ship I was on didn't get hit. We were all yelling, sink this tub, we had had enough. After we got home we gradually learned about the other ships that had been hit and of the casualties. Sometime later, we docked at Nagasaki Harbor where we were split up. This is where the term "Slave labor" started. Some went to steel mills, some to coal mines, others to ship yards. I was in a small group, 100 men. After we were deloused, we were issued a shirt and pants and a pair of split toed canvas shoes. After a while, we were loaded on a train, an old passenger train that actually had seats. We rode about an hour or so and then walked a short distance to the camp. There was a high wood fence around two barracks, a mess hall and a bath house. The Jap officer and guards had another building. They lined us up and the camp commander came out. Word got around later that he had been going to school in the states and came home to visit his folks and got put in the Army. He spoke fair English. He said you will be treated well, you will be fed and you will work. He went on to tell us we would work in a coal mine 12 hours a day. We had to count off and that was our number. Read part 3