My Hitch in Hell

by Lester I. Tenney

  As I started to place all my items in front of me, I noticed one of the surrender certificates fall onto the ground. I was panic-stricken. What could I do to avoid being shot by our captors? I took four or five deep breaths, surreptitiously put the paper into my mouth, and chewed it as fast as I could. After two or three chews and a mighty gulp, I managed to swallow the incriminating document.

  Next, we were told to stand at attention while the Japanese camp commander lectured us on what we were to do and say as prisoners of war. Captain Tsuneyoshi—a man of about thirty-five years old, five feet eight inches tall, and 160 pounds—stood on a raised platform directly in front of the group of prisoners, about three thousand of us at that time. Through an interpreter, he began by telling us that we were cowards and that we should have committed suicide, as any Japanese soldier would have done if capture were imminent. He called us “lower than dogs” and hollered and screamed that Americans had been enemies of the Japanese for more than one hundred years. Nothing we Americans could ever do would change that feeling; we would have to pay for the way the Japanese people had been treated by the Americans. Then he said, “We will never be friends with the piggish Americans.”

  By this time the commander was hysterical, waving his arms and throwing punches at the air. He was in a frantic frenzy. He began to huff and puff as the heat of the day started to get the best of him. With his sword hanging on the left side of his belt and medals draping his uniform, he was obviously an officer who had seen action on Bataan. He then said we would soon find out that our dead comrades were the lucky ones. Oh, how right he was.

  We were then instructed on what we were expected to do and how we were supposed to act. First, we were always to salute and bow to a Japanese soldier no matter where he was and as long as we could see him. Second, any time a Japanese soldier talked to us we were always to stand at attention and say, “Hai” (yes sir). He told us that those who did not follow the rules would be severely punished or killed, whichever the Japanese soldier decided at the time. The intensity of the commander’s screams made believers out of us. He also told us that the Japanese had never ratified the Geneva Convention agreement on the handling of prisoners of war; therefore, we could be treated any way the Japanese soldiers wanted to treat us.

  This speech went on for nearly two hours and ended about 3:00 P.M., the hottest time of day. We had to stand at attention during the whole tirade. At least a dozen men fell to the ground, victims of heatstroke. They stayed on the ground until the commander’s speech was over. Only then were we allowed to pick the men up and give them aid.

  After the camp commander finished his performance, the soldiers looked over our personal items and took whatever they wanted—our watches, rings, photographs of our wives or sweethearts, and just about anything they fancied. Fortunately, my treasured picture of Laura was still safe in my sock, next to my boot. We were then led to the nipa huts and allowed to roam inside the camp and choose our own huts.

  I keep using the word men, as if there were no women on Bataan. That was not the case. Although no women were on the march or in Camp O’Donnell, many women were stationed on Bataan and Corregidor; in most cases they were active-duty nurses with the U.S. Army or Navy. In addition, there were many wives of both civilian and military personnel. All of the women and most of the civilian men captured by the Japanese in the Philippines were interned at the University of Santo Tomás in Manila.

  Almost without exception every man in Camp O’Donnell had something physically wrong with him. Dysentery was by far our worst enemy because it not only affected the victims, but the stench of the men’s feces and vomit sickened all of those around them. In addition, dysentery was so contagious and conditions so crowded, that everyone seemed to have the runs associated with dysentery.

  The American medics established one of the nipa huts as a hospital ward, and another was aptly labeled the “Zero,” or “Z,” ward (meaning no place left to go). The hospital ward was full of men who were too sick to stand. They had one or a combination of malaria, dysentery, beriberi, malnutrition, pneumonia, and various other diseases common to men so deprived of such bare necessities as food and water. Most of the men in the hospital ward were eventually transferred to the Z ward. Reserved for dying men with no hope of recovery, the Z ward’s patients were the living dead. We simply delayed burying them until they stopped breathing.

  Some of the men who were not confined to either the hospital or the Z ward were still so sick and exhausted that they collapsed and fell asleep in their own excrement. Usually their next stop was “Boot Hill,” our cemetery. Those who survived did so because they refused to let themselves become filthy animals. During the day, the healthier ones would walk around and try to help those who had lost their sense of direction or their desire to live. In spite of being sick ourselves, we would not succumb to self pity. At night those who could, would go out to the slit trench—the community latrine—and sleep beside it. That way when we felt the urge to defecate, which was quite often, all we had to do was roll over a little and go. Insects buzzed and climbed all over the stinking mess, but we had to live that way because the Japanese refused to help us improve our sanitary conditions or to provide us with any medication to control either the dysentery or the malaria. Death was running a merry-go-round and we men were the riders, going around and around and never knowing when it would stop to take us off.

  While sitting outdoors near the slit trench one evening, my buddy Bob Martin pointed to the large yellow globe in the sky and said, “Look at that majestic moon. Just think, it’s the same moon being seen back in May-wood. I wonder what our families are doing tonight, what they are thinking of?” That thought was going through the minds of all the men. What was happening at home? What did our families know about us and our trip with death? Some day that glowing moon would shine down on us at home, and we would be able to appreciate fully the glory of seeing a full moon once again. With that thought, hope returned, and my determination to cope with adversities became the dominant factor of my life.

  Before long the realities of life set in. We heard the moans and cries of our companions. Some we knew, some were strangers, but all suffered as brothers. Through the huts’ “window” openings, we spied shadows moving up and down. Someone inside was probably stealing the few possessions of the dead and dying. “Hell can’t be worse than this,” mumbled Bob. “But we’ll live through it, won’t we, Ten-Spot?”

  “We won’t die, Bob,” I reassured him. “The Lord only takes the good.” Then as an afterthought, I said, “We must survive. Someone has to tell our friends and families of the inhumane treatment, the unsanitary conditions, the torture, and murder of their loved ones by the Japanese barbarians calling themselves soldiers. We must live to be able to tell what is happening here.”

  As we discussed the treatment we could expect, Bob declared, “It would be better to die in the jungle than to live here in this degradation. We have to get out of here as soon as possible.” But how? That was the question. When? That was another question. And we did not have an answer for either.

  The Japanese did not bother to count or identify any of us in Camp O’Donnell, however. In fact, the idea of someone escaping was not even a remote possibility in their minds. After all, we were of a different race than the people of the Philippines and the Japanese. So, the guards reasoned, where could we hide without being detected or turned in?

  In the meantime, we established many types of work details in camp. We gathered wood and water for cooking and for our medics to treat the sick. We also had to bury the dead many times each day. There was always something to do but not enough able-bodied men to do all the chores. American servicemen were dying at the rate of fifty or more a day. There were five times more Filipinos than Americans, but they were dying at a slower rate of 150 a day. No doubt the Filipinos were better able to cope with the sicknesses associated with their Philippine environment than we Americans were. How many of the sixty-five thousand Filipinos a
nd twelve thousand U.S. servicemen would survive this ordeal? Only time and God would know.

  After watching the burial detail for the first few days, it turned into a waiting game. We wondered, Who’s next? Two men would carry out a dead man on Monday, and by the end of the week, one of the two grave diggers would be carried out. I did not like those odds, and I knew that if I stayed in the camp long enough, the odds would get even worse. I had to do something, and quickly, to prevent my contributing to these sad statistics. The odor of death permeated the entire camp. Death was everywhere—from the physical act of a person dying to the mental anguish of knowing death was ever threatening.

  When we buried the dead, we could only dig graves about three feet deep, because ground water seeped into the holes if we dug any deeper. In most cases the dead would be buried naked because the living needed their clothes. On many occasions, we would bury a man only to find his body floating up to the top of the grave before we had a chance to pour dirt on it. By leaning on a pole that held down the dead man’s body, one of us could force it down long enough for the other men to cover it with dirt. If they were available, we always tried to place the man’s dog tags on a hurriedly built cross at the head of his grave, hoping that someday someone would find them who could notify his next of kin. All of us on the burial detail would then say a short prayer for the man we had just buried. The Twenty-third Psalm became a very popular part of the burial ceremony. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. . . .” After a burial, we would look at each other and wonder, What prayer will they say for me? Which of us will be next?

  The single most important event of each day was waiting in line for a canteen of water. Sometimes we stood in line for hours. Once I saw a man drop to the ground after waiting in line for more than three hours. We called for the medics, and when they arrived, they said he was dead. He had died in line just waiting for a drink of water. What barbarians our captors were. In spite of the unusually high number of men dying daily, the Japanese still refused to provide us with any type of medical relief or access to adequate amounts of water.

  On the fourth day in camp, I volunteered for a water detail that involved bringing water from a pond back to camp for the men. Although there was spring water in the camp, it was only enough for our drinking needs. We needed the pond water for cooking and general cleaning.

  All of those who volunteered—only the healthiest volunteered—for the water detail were chosen. The detail left camp with only one guard. I knew that if ever there was a time to escape, it was while working on the water detail. I never gave any thought to where I would go or, for that matter, how I would fare in the jungle alone. I did not know the language and I knew little of the area’s geography. But I had seen enough of death and dying, of torture and beatings. I wanted to live, not die, and I knew I could not live long in Camp O’Donnell.

  Without food, water, and medical attention, my fever from malaria hit 102 degrees on a daily basis, and my bowels were being torn inside out from dysentery. I thought my probability of survival in camp was nearly zero.

  If I was going to escape, I would have to do it soon. The rumor from a few of our officers was that the Japanese were planning on instituting a numbering system for all POWs. The system would work this way: each man in a barracks or on a work detail would get a number, and then if one of the men did not answer morning or evening roll call, the guards would execute the men with the five numbers before and after the missing man’s number. We would end up being watchdogs for each other.

  That night before falling asleep in my usual spot near the latrine, I realized my dysentery had vanished, almost like an omen. In spite of my two recent brushes with death while on the march—when Bronge and Cigoi carried me through the malaria seizure and while I got the stitches in my shoulder after my encounter with a Japanese samurai sword—I felt a surge of new life. I felt better just knowing I was going to take charge of my survival. I was determined not to die like so many of my friends, nor did I want to go through the constant mental anguish of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had come this far, and I was not going to give up now. I no longer allowed myself to see the signs of death, but instead I developed a stubborn, unquenchable thirst for life. I was going to make it, I told myself.

  Before dawn I was awakened by boots kicking my back and side and a bayonet jabbing my chest. The guard started to laugh after he screamed at me in Japanese. As I got up, I saw my fellow POWs stumbling out of their huts to use the latrines. Maybe that was what the guard was trying to tell me: get out of the way. Otherwise, I might have ended up reeking with the odor of urine and feces like the ground near the latrine.

  As I got up and looked around, I was horrified to see the bodies of those men who had died during the night being stacked like firewood around the base of one of the huts. The corpses were being placed in one central area so that the burial detail could proceed without too much delay. I turned my face away from the bodies being brought out. I just could not look at the gray faces and sunken eyes that still seemed to plead for help. Which of my friends did not make it last night? Tears filled my eyes as I thought of what was happening. These were my friends; they had families back home waiting for them. Why them? Why was I saved from this end?

  Although the first few days in camp were nothing but utter confusion, at last I was able to look seriously for my good friends Cigoi, Bronge, and Lew Brittan. By the fourth day, there were forty thousand men already in camp, and three hundred more arrived every hour. Slowly I got my mind back in gear. I wandered around the camp, looking all the men over and hoping to see a familiar face. Finally, after walking all over camp, I located someone who said he had not seen Cigoi or Bronge but knew that Lew was in the hospital ward. It did not take me long to locate the building, and inside I found Lew, fidgeting with his clothes, sitting in a corner, and staring blankly as if his mind was a million miles away. When I saw him, I knew instantly that in order for him to live, I had to get him out of that ward. I saw emaciated, half-dead men being helped to stand up by other dying men to give the mandatory salute as the guards entered. Lew, just a shadow of himself, was able to stand up on his own. That made me feel better, made me feel that Lew could make it.

  With a lump in my throat, I implored, “Lew, the first thing you have to do is get out of this stinking sick bay. Take every opportunity, use every ounce of energy to go outside. At least outside there will be fresh air. Volunteer for a work detail no matter how weak you are. There will always be someone to help you; we are all in the same boat here.” Then in order to bring a little humor to my serious appeal, I said, “Lew, my Hasidic grandfather used to say that according to Jewish law it is forbidden to despair. Fm sure that goes for Catholics, Protestants, and all the religions that believe in God. After all, there is only one God for all of us. So you see, Lew, you re not allowed to despair.”

  Then Lew and I went outside for breakfast, if that is what it could be called. It was lugao, rice cooked with much too much water for a sort of hot porridge. Lew did not want to eat, protesting that he could not keep anything down. While we were talking, he offered to trade his ration of rice for a cigarette with a guy walking by. “Lew,” I yelled, “you can’t do that! You have to eat to stay alive.” I pleaded, using all the reasoning and excuses possible to no avail. Then I insisted, “Lew, for God’s sake, eat; otherwise, we won’t be able to get even with these bastards, and if you won’t eat then I won’t eat. We’ll go down together if that’s what you want.”

  He looked at me and a slight smile crossed his face. Lew said, “You win. I’ll try making the most of a bad situation. Where’s my mess kit?” His dark eyes flashed a “thank you,” not just for making him eat, but for my friendship and caring for him as a person.

  I saw firsthand the consequences of not being willing to eat. Many men, too sick to move and too weak to care, traded their small ration of rice for one cigarette. All they wanted was one more drag, one more
taste and smell of tobacco. That was what they traded their lives for. Tobacco, the deadly addictive drug, caused many prisoners to die. During the first few days, only their will to live kept these men alive. Those who traded their rice for cigarettes today were not alive for any tomorrows.

  After breakfast, the guards did not do a roll call or assign numbers to the men. Time was still on my side. We lined up outside for work details, and once again I volunteered for the water detail. I saw Lew standing nearby and told him my plan. “Could you make it, Lew?” I asked. “Could you just make it to the stream where we get the water, about one mile down the road?”

  “No,” he said, “you go and may God be with you. I’ll do as you say. Don’t worry; you have given me a reason for living. I’ll be ready for a work detail in a few days. You go, do what you have to do.”

  Again that day only one guard accompanied us on the water detail. We made three trips from the stream back to the camp, each time carrying two five-gallon containers filled with water. I was confident that the water detail would be my ticket out of the rat hole and to survival I would make my break the next chance I had.

  That night Lew approached me and said, “Les, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in those unfamiliar jungles, not knowing the language or which way to turn once you’re out of here.”

  I answered with the best assurances I could muster. I said, “Look, Lew, over sixty thousand Americans and Filipinos started the march at Mariveles and less than half got here. Many died or were killed, but some must have run away into the hills, and I intend to find some of these guerrillas and join them.”

  Seeing that it was useless to argue any further, Lew removed his belt buckle and handed it to me. I saw a small compass on the inside of the buckle. A motorcycle reconnaissance man from headquarters company, Lew was a man dedicated to his job and always well prepared. He said to me, “Take this. It’ll help you out in the jungle.”