Belly of the Beast

by Judith L. Pearson

  When morning arrived, during the brief period in which they were no longer freezing and not yet burning, they again began the tedious process of roll call, with an officer shouting out names from up on the referee’s stand. The Japanese were fastidious record keepers and had supplied the commanding officers with their lists. It took nearly two hours as arguments routinely broke out over whether or not a man was dead or alive.

  A commanding officer would yell out, “Smith?”

  “He died on the ship,” someone would respond.

  “No, he didn’t. I saw him yesterday,” another would chime in.

  “You’d think you saw your mother yesterday.”

  Finally, the man in question would answer: “Here, sir.”

  The process continued until the group had determined that another six men had died during the night. The clothing was removed from the bodies to be used elsewhere, and the JNLP allowed some volunteers to bury the corpses down near the seawall.

  Later in the day, the prisoners received their first food since arriving at the tennis court. Each prisoner was given two spoons of raw rice. Wada was lurking around and they begged him for more food but were reminded he had no control over the situation for “jurisdictional reasons.” Wada said it was of no matter to him if all 1,300 starved; they were now the army’s problem.

  The men shared what few articles of clothing they had with one another. A man who had a full set of trousers or a long-sleeved shirt gave the legs or arms to other men who were less protected from the elements. A load of cast-off clothing arrived by truck from Bilibid, and by the time it was all distributed nearly every man had at least one article in the form of a shirt, pants, or hat.

  The medical staff was finally able to persuade their captors to let them move the most badly injured among them to a grassy, shaded area outside of the tennis court. Only one hundred were allowed outside; the rest were ordered to remain in the sun. And those who were moved outside had to be brought back onto the tennis court again at night.

  On December 18, the prisoners again received food. The next day, they received nothing in the morning or at noon, but two more spoonfuls of raw rice were distributed at night. Finally, on December 20, a convoy of nineteen trucks arrived. The Japanese removed about eight hundred of the thirteen hundred prisoners on the tennis court and loaded them into the trucks.

  Myers, Tex, and Tarpy remained on the tennis court, mustering meager curiosity about where the other group had gone.

  “Bet those bastards are tired of messing with us. We’re dead weight, too much trouble. They’re probably gonna kill those other guys,” Tarpy spat out as they huddled together on the cold concrete that night. “Probably kill us, too.”

  “I don’t know,” Myers said. “The Japs need us—we’re their slave workforce. I was thinking maybe they took ’em back to Bilibid to put ’em on another ship. I think we got a fifty-fifty chance. That’s better than no chance.”

  The next morning the truck convoy returned and loaded up the remaining five hundred prisoners before heading north. Each time the Japanese guards heard or saw American planes overhead, the trucks veered off the dirt road and hid under the canopies of trees until the threat passed. Eventually, they arrived in San Fernando Pampanga, about two hundred miles from Manila. The trucks drove by a prison yard, where the prisoners saw the first group encamped. Both groups of POWs were so relieved to see that their comrades had not been executed, they hooted to one another as the convoy passed. The trucks drove on to the town’s theater, where Myers’ group was offloaded.

  The prisoners took stock of the last five days. They’d been bombed, shot at, and exposed to the elements. Several hundred had died. Those remaining had lost more of their rapidly ebbing strength. But they were still in the Philippines. And MacArthur was still on his way.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Feast Before Hell

  San Fernando Pampanga’s dilapidated theater was the closest thing to paradise the POWs had seen in years. The building was filthy, its seats removed from the sloping floor. Nothing was provided for the men to sleep on save the cold concrete floor, but in an amazing act of humanity, the Japanese set up equipment to cook rice. On December 22, the prisoners received their first hot meal since the morning of December 14.

  Half a canteen cup full of cooked rice, with a little steamed camote alongside, was served from a sheet of corrugated roofing material to Myers and his fellow prisoners. The Filipino yams made him think of a yam concoction his mother made to accompany all of the family holiday meals. Those thoughts led him to wonder who would be present for dinner at his parents’ home this Christmas, which was only days away. Then he wondered if he would ever be present at one of those meals again. Quickly, he forced the fear out of his mind. He ate the feast currently before him slowly, in tiny bites, to draw the pleasure out as long as possible. The prisoners also had water available to them from the theater’s toilet intakes. The line to get water had been continuous since they’d arrived at the theater, and it moved at the same speed as the water flowed: slowly. Many men fell asleep waiting before their turn came.

  As if miracles would never cease, a few Red Cross boxes arrived that night from Manila. They contained much-needed drugs, which dwindled to next to nothing by the time they were divided among thirteen hundred men. The medicine arrived too late for the young Marine corporal who had bravely endured amputation on the tennis court. He died that night in the theater, as quietly as he had suffered over the previous several days.

  Early the next morning, good news traveled to the prisoners from a few Filipinos who had surreptitiously snuck up outside a theater window: the Yanks had landed at Batangas, a town less than two hundred miles south. But the men’s high spirits soon plunged when Wada and several Japanese guards stalked through the theater, looking each man over carefully.

  After the contingent passed him, Tex muttered, “Assholes!” Wada talked for a few minutes to the two group commanders, who relayed his orders to the corpsmen. Fifteen men in the worst physical condition were to be removed and, as Wada benevolently explained it, sent back to Manila where they could recuperate. The doctors and corpsmen were to choose the men.

  “God, I hope they make it,” Myers wished out loud.

  “I’m telling you, we’re getting to be too much trouble,” Tarpy told him. “Japs’ll probably finish ’em off here. They’re no good as slaves. They’re probably better off wherever they’re going. They won’t be hungry or sick or scared no more. I kinda wish I was goin’, too.”

  “Cut that crap out right now!” Myers demanded. “Only way we’re gonna get through this is because we want to. Don’t stop wanting it, Tarpy.”

  Tarpy hung his head.

  At 0500 on December 24, the men were rousted out of the theater and were joined by the group from the prison. The entire assemblage was counted and then recounted before being marched to the town’s railroad station. Even in the early morning light, the bullet holes that riddled the narrow-gauge locomotive which awaited them were visible. Attached to the engine was a string of freight cars, each six feet wide and twenty-six feet long. The first few cars were loaded with ammunition, the next seven or eight were designated for the prisoners, hardly enough to carry them all. Wada explained the next leg of their journey.

  “Injured men to be put on top of cars. If American planes fly overhead, wave bandages to show that you are POWs. You are protection for the prisoners inside the cars. Wave bandages so your friends up there will recognize you.”

  His wicked, twisted mouth imitated a smile and every prisoner understood Wada’s rationale. The men on top of the cars would also protect the three that were loaded with ammunition. The guards were ordered to begin loading the cars. One hundred and fifty men were stuffed inside each car, with another fifty on top. A guard rode inside each car, as near to the door as he could position himself to avoid having to breathe the foul stench exuded by the prisoners. Two more guards went up on top.
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br />   Someone saw planes engaged in a dogfight in the distance and the news spread through the crowd of men around Myers. While they waited their turn to enter a car, the men silently cheered on the American pilots. To do so out loud would have antagonized their captors and meant sudden death. Finally, the guards reached Myers, Tarpy, and Tex, and they were pressed into a boxcar along with a hundred and twenty others.

  The heat within the boxcars was as intense as it had been aboard the Oryoku Maru. The men’s sweat quickly plastered their tattered clothing to their bony frames. There was no water available, and except for near the open door blocked by the guard, the air became stifling almost immediately. The train moved out around 1100 hours. Predictions of their destination circulated through the rank air.

  “We’re goin’ to Cabanatuan.”

  “Naw, Camp O’Donnell.”

  “Bilibid for supplies.”

  Most bets ran in favor of a return to Bilibid. When the train finally did pass the switch to Cabanatuan, their legs ached from standing. Another dogfight broke out overhead but the Allied planes did not threaten the train. Headed northward through the mountains, the train at times was forced to creep through still smoldering wreckage of Imperial aircraft and tanks. This was yet another cause for silent celebration among the POWs.

  The train rumbled to a slow stop, and it soon became obvious it was a dinner stop for the guards. Myers smelled the cooked rice, and as vile a substance as it had become over his three years of imprisonment, he was so hungry he would have gladly accepted a serving of it. Some of the more able-bodied prisoners conjectured on their chances of making an escape through the enemy-infested hills. No one gave the idea very favorable odds and the suggestion was dropped.

  The train got underway again, and by the time they passed Camp O’Donnell the men’s lips were parched and quite a few passed out from the lack of air. When they did faint, the car was so crowded they couldn’t fall to the floor. Instead they were passed overhead, hand to hand, until they arrived at the boxcar door, where the increased air circulation revived them. When night fell, the air turned cold again. The men on top begged to be brought down and the guards did make a few exchanges during another brief stop. Once the train started up again those who hadn’t been moved begged to be brought down, too. The guards became irritated and threatened that anyone else making noise would be shot immediately.

  After a journey of more than sixteen hours, the train pulled into a station at San Fernando La Union in the early hours of Christmas morning. Thirteen hundred men tumbled out of the suffocating boxcars and onto the station’s platform. It appeared as though no one had died during the bone-jarring train ride.

  They immediately all lay down on the cinders to rest, but their respite was brief—they were ordered to their feet moments later and herded to a small, single-story trade school, half a mile away on the outskirts of town. The men arranged themselves throughout the schoolyard, grabbing handfuls of leaves and flowers from the hibiscus bushes on either side and devouring them. The building itself became the ever-present dispensary, in name only, for the most seriously ill. The doctors and corpsmen had little help beyond their hands and their heads in their pathetic attempts to ease suffering.

  Wada announced that water was available, but they would have to dig for it. When the prisoners found some, they used iodine to purify it.

  “What is this place?” someone asked, shivering in the cold and dark. He was answered, and soon much speculation began.

  “I saw a sign at the station; we’re at San Fernando La Union.”

  “That’s a shipping port. We’re on the Lingayan Gulf.”

  “Oh, God, another ship?”

  “Won’t happen.”

  “How in the hell do these stupid Japs think they’re gonna get us outta here? There must be a Yank blockade of subs surrounding this entire island.”

  “Bet they’ll be here in short order.”

  It was Christmas day. On previous holidays celebrated in their respective prison camps, many had shared stories of Christmas back home. They were long past the stage where they missed the details that meant home to each of them. Their most compelling drive now was to simply survive.

  Nonetheless, the chaplains prayed in ironic recognition of the day the Prince of Peace was born. The prisoners were fed a half cup of steamed rice with a couple of pieces of camote. They were given rust-colored water to drink from a nearby carabao wallow teeming with mosquito larvae. They were exhausted, and yet sleep was impossible; they were once again exposed to the blazing Philippine sun.

  As dusk fell, the POWs were lined up in ranks of four and marched again down a road paved with shards of coral and shell. The chalky white road soon became streaked with crimson, as the road’s surface sliced at the feet of the men without shoes. Only an air-raid alert gave them a brief chance to nurse their painful, bloodied feet.

  Three miles later, around 2100 hours, they arrived at a beach and were grouped near a loading dock covered with boxes, where they were expected to remain for the night. They could see the lights from several ships anchored out in the bay. As on the tennis court, the temperature swung from a furnace-like day to the numbing coldness of night, making sleep on the wet beach unlikely. Some of the men tried to bury themselves in the sand for protection from the cold wind and discovered as they dug that hundreds of drums of gasoline had been buried under the beach.

  On the morning of the 26th, the prisoners were roused at an early hour. The day’s first meal consisted of a lump of rice the size of a tennis ball. Myers and the other corpsmen tried to assist in serving, but any organization soon broke down. Consequently those who were strong enough grabbed several lumps of rice; the weaker ones received none.

  Myers watched in disgust as the men around him continued to sink to their basest instincts. Taking food from a fellow serviceman was bad enough, but Myers saw officers taking from enlisted men. This was strictly against all the rules. It appeared that some of the men, however, had not only abandoned the rules of the military, but all other rules for decent human behavior as well. The brutality of the enemy combined with the courage of the captives brought out the very best in some men, and as he was witnessing, the very worst in others.

  The rising sun again seemed to ally itself with the Imperial troops, as it reflected off the sand and the bay, to fry the men’s skin. For all their thirst, the prisoners were issued only the equivalent of two tablespoons of filthy water from the carabao wallow. The commanders saw the toll the exposure was taking. The men around them were parched, their dehydration not even allowing perspiration.

  The Japanese were finally impressed by the suffering, and in the afternoon the prisoners were finally shown mercy when they were allowed to go down to the water’s edge in groups of one hundred. The groups were each given five minutes to bathe, splash, and do whatever they could to rejuvenate themselves in the stinging salt water. Those who were the most dehydrated scooped the water up and drank it. As one group was being marched back up the beach, an Army captain broke ranks and ran back into the water to drink up more. The guards raised their rifles to their shoulders, but some men quickly dragged the captain out again, saving him from certain execution.

  Their brief ocean dip began to work against them as soon as they began to dry. The salt from the water clung to their bodies and intensified the sun’s piercing rays. A few hours later, the commanders again implored their captors for relief from the hellish effects of the afternoon sun. This time it came in the form of one canteen of water for every twenty men. The water was divided into four tablespoonfuls per man, and enough was issued for each man to receive his share every ninety minutes.

  Japanese activity reached a fevered pitch that day. Enemy reinforcements, horses, and supplies came ashore from anchored ships in droves. Myers, Tarpy, and Tex watched the goings-on with only mild interest. It appeared as though the enemy was preparing to defend the area down to the last man. And for the prisoners, the next days
spread out like the vast Pacific Ocean. But surely, they had already experienced the worst suffering they would ever see.

  The troops of General MacArthur’s army had found no more time to celebrate the holiday season than Myers had, although they at least had a hot meal, a warm bed, and their freedom. In December of 1944, the battle for the island of Leyte wasn’t over, but it had already been decided in the Allies’ favor. With the victory undoubtedly would come supremacy throughout the Philippines. Japan had consolidated her forces from other islands and redeployed them in Leyte to fend off the two hundred thousand American combat troops on the island. This redeployment would likely cost the Japanese in their defense of other islands.

  The significance of the Leyte defeat did not escape the Imperial powers. The price would be half of their empire. Radio Tokyo reported that the Battle for Leyte Gulf was not only important in deciding “whether we lose one corner of the Philippines” but also “whether we lose our sea routes to our southern regions…. We cannot withdraw even a single step, for we have burned our bridges behind us.”

  Allied landing craft began cruising close to the shores of other Philippine islands, offloading patrols whose job it was to root out the enemy from wherever he may be hidden. Loudspeakers on the landing crafts announced in Japanese that giving up was the wisest thing to do. There were promises of good food, clean beds, and bathing, far more generous than anything the Japanese were providing the Allied prisoners. The Japanese troops were told that this would be regarded as an “honorable surrender.” The vast majority of those troops within earshot, however, clung to their belief that there was no such thing as an honorable surrender, and very few accepted the Americans’ offer.