Belly of the Beast

by Judith L. Pearson

  From the water, the POW commanders negotiated with the JNLP and finally convinced them to allow the feeble group to climb the seawall and rest in the sun. But it would be under watchful eyes and warm gun barrels. As the men straggled over the seawall, the commanders tried to explain to their new Japanese guards how they had been without water for two days. The guards begrudgingly agreed to let a few five-man details go to a nearby faucet for water.

  The prisoners were at first grateful for the hot Philippine sun as it warmed their bones, numbed from their immersion in Subic Bay. But after two hours, their unprotected skin began to burn. Meanwhile, the former medical officer and other doctors from Bilibid organized an aid station. The medical staff pooled the first-aid supplies they’d managed to salvage. Myers, Tex, and Tarpy were only an hour into the job of assisting the most wounded when the Japanese ordered that they break camp and get ready to move.

  The Imperial marines formed a line from the beach to their headquarters half a mile away. They stood one hundred feet apart and brandished their rifles, convincing the POWs that any who tried to escape would be shot without hesitation. But the prisoners were far more concerned with holding one another up than escaping. Weak, most of them naked and barefoot, they marched with difficulty along the coral-encrusted path. If one of them stopped to rest or pull a shard out of his foot, he was immediately goaded with a bayonet or clubbed with a bamboo pole.

  When they arrived at the gate of the Old Naval Station, the harried prisoners were again told to sit down, which they gladly obliged. Myers watched as the JNLP began a heated discussion amongst themselves with much shouting and pointing. It seemed evident that the marines hadn’t expected the POWs’ arrival and were in no way prepared for it. Keeping a large group of men under control, no matter how frail they were, would be no small task.

  While another long wait ensued, Myers and Tex lay exhausted in the grass.

  “They’re starting to get to me,” Tex said. “I’m tired, Myers.”

  “I know, pal,” Myers answered. “I’m tired, too, but we’re still on Philippine soil and now we know for sure the Yanks are on their way. It won’t be long now.”

  At last the JNLP decided that a concrete tennis court was to be the new prison area. In the early part of the century, when the Old Naval Station had been occupied by the Americans, a tennis court had been constructed, along with theaters and nightclubs. Much like the other base areas in the Philippines, Olongapo enjoyed an ambiance of lighthearted gaiety. That was back in the days when life in the service on the islands was more like duty at a country club.

  In the old days, the tennis court had undoubtedly been the site of lively games. Now it caged a collection of dirty, bloodied, bearded men. They were shell-shocked and ravaged by disease, and many had been wounded by friendly fire. Many were confused and all were starving, having had nothing to eat all day and practically nothing the day before. Droves of mosquitoes stung their unprotected skin.

  The only overhead shelter on the court was a tall referee’s platform; the only water source was a single faucet. As they had done aboard the ship, the commanding officers tried to organize the tightly packed group. After a great deal of arguing and shouting, the prisoners were somewhat assembled and roll was called. Their number had dwindled from the original 1,619 to less than 1,300.

  The incomprehensible plight that Myers and the others found themselves in was not unique in the Pacific war. The Japanese had begun shipping prisoners from their captured islands as early as 1942. The ships’ eventual destinations were Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea, and they had earned the moniker “hell ships” for the nightmarish voyages that ensued. The prisoners were moved for one reason: the Empire needed as many laborers as could be found to support the Japanese war machine. The POWs proved to be an enormous asset.

  The Japanese claimed they did not treat the POWs any differently than they treated their own fighting men when it came to transport by sea. It was true that Japanese forces did not have it easy; they, too, were packed into ships like broiler chickens, on their way to their next battle. But when POWs shared the old, disreputable freighters with Japanese troops, the former were always stuffed in the most tightly and kept down the deepest in the holds. Measured by the number of bodies crammed into airless holds, the hell ships were as bad as the slave ships that came from Africa in the eighteenth century.

  While the seas were still controlled by the Imperial Navy, the transports were at least safe from Allied attack and spent only days on the water. The first hell ship, the Argentina Maru, a passenger ship, sailed from Guam with her human cargo on January 10, 1942. There were no prisoner deaths for any reason during her voyage. As the Allies drew closer, the Japanese began moving POWs out of the islands in greater numbers. They used transports bearing Red Cross markings for their weapons while the ships carrying prisoners of war were unmarked and targeted by American carriers and submarines. In 1943, the prisoners began suffering casualties aboard the hell ships, and 1944 was the worst year of all.

  A total of nine hell ships made their way out of the Philippines that year between August and December. Only the first one, the Noto Maru, which left Manila on August 24 with 1,035 POWs aboard, arrived in Japan with all her human cargo still alive. On board all of the other ships, POWs died at a horrendous rate, some from lack of water, food, and air, and others as victims of American firepower.

  On September 7, 1944, American torpedoes hit their target, the Shinyo Maru. As the prisoners fought their way off the sinking ship they were fired upon by their Japanese guards either while coming out of the holds or after they had made it into the water. Of the 750 Americans who began the voyage, only 82 made it ashore. On October 10, the Arisan Maru left Manila with 1,800 American prisoners on board. Eight days later she was torpedoed by the USS Snook during a typhoon. The ship sunk rapidly, taking with her 1,792 men still locked in the holds. Eight men managed to escape and survive. Meanwhile, on October 16, an unnamed ship left Manila Bay only to be torpedoed on October 22, resulting in 1,100 prisoner deaths. Before Myers had even set eyes on the Oryoku Maru, 3,852 prisoners of war had already suffered needless and malevolent deaths.

  Most of the POWs not shipped off to slave labor didn’t fare much better. On the Philippine island of Palawan, work details had been toiling at a feverish rate to build an airstrip. Soon it became evident that the work would not be completed by the time the Americans arrived.

  The prisoners had been forced to build their own air-raid shelter, a deep burrow half underground in a small bunker. It was perched near a cliff overlooking the ocean. Contrary to their orders, the men built the shelter with two openings: one in the front that the Japanese knew about, another secret opening in back. The 140 Americans from the work detail were herded into the shelter on December 14, 1944, the same day the prisoners aboard the Oryoku Maru were praying to be spared from the first wave of American bombers.

  When all the POWs were inside the shelter, the Japanese doused the opening with gasoline and threw hand grenades to ignite the gas. A few frantic men made it out the back entrance, and as the rest tried to escape the flames through the front, guards peppered them with machine-gun fire. One prisoner decided in a frenzy that if he was going to die, at least one enemy was going with him. He ran out of the shelter, his body ablaze, and bear hugged the nearest Japanese soldier, dragging him back into the inferno to die with the rest of them.

  The men who escaped out the back tumbled down the steep cliff toward the beach, hiding in caves or behind boulders. The Japanese suspected that some of the men might have escaped and a search was mounted but ultimately abandoned. Eight men of the original 140 survived.

  Stories circulated throughout prisoner groups that any men not moved from the Philippines to Japan would be killed. Some thought this was the enemy’s plan to prohibit the prisoners from ever relating stories about their mistreatment in the camps. Others just assumed these events were one final act of brutality. In all, thousands died
during these final chapters of an already unspeakably barbarous theater of war.

  An average tennis court measures 78 by 36 feet for a total of about 2,800 square feet. Arranging thirteen hundred men in such a small concrete space was like the nightmare of the ship’s holds all over again. At least now they had air. The officers finally decided that the men would sit in rows of fifty-two across, twenty-six rows on one side of the net and another twenty-six on the other side. They sat with their knees pulled up under their chins. The only alternative was sitting spread-eagle, with each man’s haunches in the fork of his neighbor’s legs.

  Myers, Tex, and Tarpy had managed to regroup on one end of the court. Survival was the prime consideration of most and the medical corps, through force of habit, did what they had been trained to do. Again, they had designated a hospital area occupying the fifteen-foot strip of space beyond the tennis court’s baseline. The corpsmen collected various garments from among the uninjured, stringing some overhead to serve as protection for the wounded against the burning sun, and reserving others for use as bandages. They managed to pull up bamboo shoots growing under the tennis court’s board fence to use as splints. Beyond that, the hospital was no different than the rest of the court. Enough supplies had been collected to start another of their now famous improvised aid stations. The Japanese, of course, furnished no medical supplies.

  “Here they come again,” Myers yelled. The men around him looked skyward to see a surging contingent of three American planes. “Hit the deck!”

  The men crouched as best they could, given their tight space, not sure whether they would be strafed or ignored. The first plane headed for an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the knoll beyond the tennis court. The second plane headed straight for the Oryoku Maru, dropping its ordnance in a direct hit. The third plane’s bomb hit off target, but by this time the ship burned furiously.

  Standing on tiptoes, Myers was able to see the ship ablaze and the explosions from the remaining ammunition on board. The Oryoku Maru sank completely after a couple of hours, taking with her the remains of the dead POWs.

  Myers and the other corpsmen had absolutely nothing with which to relieve their patients’ pain. They regaled those who hadn’t seen the final attack with tales of the burning ship and the likelihood that they would be liberated long before they could be reloaded to continue their trip to Japan. The goal was to take the patients’ minds off what, for some, was the inevitable: excruciating pain followed by a grisly death.

  Dysentery and diarrhea still plagued many of the men. There were no drugs to alleviate this situation. Many of the men were in stages of nutritional decimation; their bodies would have been unable to tolerate nutritious food even if it had been available. Those, Myers among them, who had tried to save brown sugar from scavenging aboard the Oryoku Maru, would now have found it of no use. The Japanese had allowed them to dig straddle trenches for latrines outside of the tennis court fence but would only allow two or three to go at a time. Consequently, the stream of men there and back was continuous. Those who couldn’t wait had no choice but to relieve themselves on the tennis court, the stench drawing flies in tremendous swarms.

  The men carefully filled canteen cups from the worn-out, rusted faucet at one end of the court and distributed the water four spoonfuls per man. The future did not look hopeful, however, as the trickle of water from the tap grew ever more scant. Sitting in the full sun as they were, with some of them nearly naked, made their thirst ever more powerful.

  Myers and the other corpsmen worked feverishly among the injured, nearly to the point of their own exhaustion, cleaning faces and wounds as best they could. Many of the men from the aft hold were badly burned; other prisoners’ bodies were covered with the ship’s oil that had been floating on the surface of the water. Their beards popped through in spots and were matted down in others, causing them to resemble grotesque cavemen.

  The severity of their wounds varied. There were slashes and puncture holes caused by the shrapnel from the bombs. There were burns of assorted degrees, although those with the severest burns had already died. Some POWs had been crippled by debris falling into the holds. And many of them had wounds that had occurred before they’d boarded the ship. These were now infected from exposure to septic conditions.

  Two men with ragged arm injuries were in such a horrible state that the doctors determined they had no choice but to immediately remove the limbs. The patients had a high likelihood of dying from the crude surgery, as there was no sterilization, anesthesia, or instruments. The only usable equipment the doctors had was a pair of tissue scissors, a hemostat, a razor blade, and a mess kit knife sharpened on the concrete surface of the tennis court. But without the amputations, the men were certain to die.

  Myers happened to be near one of these men, a young Marine corporal. The doctor who was working on the Marine told Myers and another corpsman they would have to assist him with the surgery.

  Myers knelt next to the young Marine and asked, “How goes it?”

  “No sweat,” the Marine answered. “They gotta take the arm”—he jerked his head toward the blood-stained strip of uniform shirt he was using as a bandage—“but shoot, I got another one.” He grinned feebly.

  Myers had seen enough carnage over the past three years to know that the Marine’s situation was grave.

  “I haven’t got anything to sterilize the instruments with,” the doctor said as he fumbled in his mess kit. “And nothing to cauterize the stump.”

  Myers got up and walked cautiously toward a guard watching from the edge of the tennis court. The prisoners knew the guards were cooking, they could smell the campfires. Myers talked this guard out of a burning stick to use during the surgery, promising to return it as soon as they had finished.

  One of the other corpsman fastened the hemostat to the tattered skin on the Marine’s arm, pulling it back and revealing the wound in full.

  “Most of the muscle is already exposed,” the doctor said. “Getting through it will be easy.” He looked at Myers and motioned toward the burning stick. “You’re going to assist.” Myers picked the stick up as the doctor handed the knife to another corpsman. “I’ll use this when we get to the bone. And both of you need to keep the patient calm and still.” Then he looked at the Marine. “Ready, son?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Marine answered, as positively as if the doctor had asked if he enjoyed cold beer.

  All of the surgeries Myers had assisted in thus far in his career had been performed in a far more stable environment. Even the hospital at Bilibid now looked like a top-notch medical facility. He felt his empty stomach lurch. It wasn’t looking at the shredded tissue of a human body that bothered him; it was the fact that the Marine was completely conscious that made Myers uncharacteristically squeamish. He’d been good at soothing animals on the farm when they’d been injured or were giving birth. His current task wasn’t dissimilar except that the outcome of this procedure carried a much higher price—that of a human life.

  Myers spoke to the Marine, whose eyes alternated between being squeezed tightly shut and looking around wildly.

  “Keep looking at me, buddy,” Myers told him, holding the mangled arm steady under his knees. “Pick out a scar or a mole or something on my face and just stare at it as hard as you can.”

  The Marine did as he was told and never took his eyes off a spot on Myers’ left cheek. Myers spoke in a tempered, steady voice, quoting Bible verses and song lyrics and anything else he could think of to fill the Marine’s mind, just as he’d done with the animals in distress. His strategy was working and the Marine never made a sound. As improbable as the idea of doing delicate surgery in such bizarre and underequipped surroundings seemed, it was going relatively well. All of the men, from doctor to corpsmen to patient, had already seen and endured so much. How could this possibly be worse?

  As the doctor sawed through the man’s arm, Myers cauterized each section with the burning stick. When the arm had been comple
tely removed, they rebound the stump, using a fresh, albeit not clean, bandage made out of the Marine’s cutoff pants. Myers stayed with him through the night, providing him with as much water as possible, including adding a portion of his own ration to the Marine’s. He opened the emergency can of meat he still had tucked in his shirt pocket. The Marine choked some of it down, Myers had some, and the rest was shared with other nearby patients. The Marine survived the night and awoke clear-headed.

  Other men fared less well that night. After watching the break-downs aboard the Oryoku Maru of fellow prisoners who had been friends, every man regarded the man next to him suspiciously. None of them were quite sure they could trust their neighbor and carefully guarded whatever possessions they had. The beginnings of an “every man for himself” philosophy pervaded. It was a study in witnessing civilized men return to their primitive, base instincts.

  The men’s physical discomforts were as intolerable as their emotional ones. The surface of the tennis court, which was like a hot griddle that had seared the prisoners in the full sun, lost its heat and became almost glacial at dusk. The men with the most severe sunburns developed chills, hugging themselves to stop their violent shaking.

  Toshino’s remaining Formosan guards mingled with the JNLP around the tennis court. The Formosans had all spent the war guarding other camps and they recognized some of the prisoners who were once again suffering under their watch. A few among them exhibited rare flashes of compassion. They threw a couple of shirts over the fence and shoved casaba melons and cigarettes through the broken wooden slats.

  Given their interlocking positions, the men in rows on the court all had to lie down, or none of them could. The rows that chose to lay did so on their sides, fitting together like spoons in a drawer. When the cold, hard concrete became too painful for their unpadded bones on one side, someone would yell, “Turn over, boys,” and the whole line would roll to the other side. The fact that so many had to use the latrine during the night, coupled with their hunger, thirst, and disheartenment, allowed very few to get much sleep.