One Take; 101; Memories of Hell

<v Speaker>So what we did was carry the bodies and just dump and then dump them and dump them in <v Speaker>that in that hole. <v Speaker>Well, sometimes the hole would fill up and some of the bodies were sitting up the elbows <v Speaker>up or with their knees up. And then we had to after we put so many in there. <v Speaker>We didn't keep track of how many. But as soon as the hole would fill up, we had to jump <v Speaker>in that hole and tramp them down. So those knees and elbows <v Speaker>wouldn't be sticking out because at night we'd come in and eat out of <v Speaker>whatever was taken out of the out of the hole. <v Speaker>And they'd started killing- to suck their blood because <v Speaker>of the thirst. <v Speaker>And so when, what we started, we'd get the closest, <v Speaker>the ones that were closest to us would gather and sleep back to back. <v Speaker>With our canteen in our hand ready to <v Speaker>to strike anybody that would try to do harm any of us, there'd be four or <v Speaker>five of us get back to back.

<v Speaker>And so you can just imagine how desperate <v Speaker>we were when we get hungry. <v Speaker>Thirsty. When you go to the extreme of killing <v Speaker>someone else, to suck their blood, to quench your thirst, <v Speaker>there is something bad. <v Speaker>When I heard about what. <v Speaker>Japanese be done to so many, <v Speaker>so many lives. <v Speaker>Put through the misery on that. <v Speaker>I really ask God to forgiveness for people who doubt them. <v Speaker>And. <v Speaker>I really hope though, the people who repented. <v Speaker>That peace will be on this earth. <v Speaker>And my hope is that. <v Speaker>There will be no more war.

<v Speaker>I had the. <v Speaker>The memories in my sub just mind, which is there all <v Speaker>the time. You get <v Speaker>you try your best to come out of your mind, but it's like. <v Speaker>It's like one of the boys said. <v Speaker>We went through hell. <v Speaker>And there is a poem that was written about the border <v Speaker>of Bataan that they will go to heaven because they <v Speaker>have done their time in hell and that's the way <v Speaker>we look at it. It was hell here on earth. <v Speaker>The guards were the devil's helpers. <v Speaker>And where were the so-called Chevaliers of <v Speaker>the fire of hell? <v Speaker>Memories of Hell.

<v Speaker>A disturbing thought. Yet there's a group of New Mexicans that live with painful, <v Speaker>haunting memories of a hell that dates back more than 40 years to World <v Speaker>War Two. Eighteen hundred young New Mexican boys went off to the Philippine <v Speaker>Islands in 1941. <v Speaker>Half of them returned. Only about 300 are alive today. <v Speaker>The hell they remember is the Baton Peninsula falling to the Japanese. <v Speaker>The long forced journeys to prison camps that somewhere along the way <v Speaker>turned into death marches and the nightmares of the prison camps themselves. <v Speaker>These boys didn't expect war. <v Speaker>Leaving home was, for many of them, a first time experience, and most thought it an <v Speaker>adventure. They were the cream of New Mexico's youth. <v Speaker>Proud patriotic boys turned into National Guardsmen almost <v Speaker>overnight. When they left, they only expected to be gone one <v Speaker>year. Those who made it home returned after four to five. <v Speaker>And how they had suffered hunger, brutality, thirst and much

<v Speaker>worse, the full horrors probably never be told. <v Speaker>Most of the hideous. <v Speaker>Have been buried along with the men who lie areas like this one. <v Speaker>Yet the seven raise the baton defenders contributed greatly to the final defeat <v Speaker>of Japan. They had poor equipment, almost no supplies. <v Speaker>And America only empty promises. <v Speaker>But they held on giving the allied forces time to gather strength in the Pacific. <v Speaker>The 300 New Mexican vets alive today have formed a tight bond <v Speaker>between them. And that bond grows stronger every year. <v Speaker>They wonder why they're misunderstood. <v Speaker>They wonder if their contribution has been forgotten because these men can't forget. <v Speaker>It's words of the Voice of Freedom broadcast after the surrender. <v Speaker>Baton has fallen, but the spirit that made its stand cannot <v Speaker>fall.

<v Lorenzo Banegas>My name is Lorenzo Banegas. <v Lorenzo Banegas>I was born but three miles north of Las Cruces on a little <v Lorenzo Banegas>village called San Ysidro. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And I farm there since I was of age to, <v Lorenzo Banegas>to farm. And in February <v Lorenzo Banegas>I'm- to be draft. <v Lorenzo Banegas>So I volunteered to go into the service. <v Fred Almeras>My name is Fred Almeras, I was born in them in New Mexico, <v Fred Almeras>I joined the National Guard, New Mexico National Guard, which was still a 100 level <v Fred Almeras>calvary. And when we were in training, there <v Fred Almeras>the best unit was going to be shipped out. <v Fred Almeras>First wish New Mexico came out <v Fred Almeras>on top of everybody. <v Felix Salas>Felix Salis, I was born in Santa <v Felix Salas>Rita, New Mexico.

<v Felix Salas>I joined the Army. <v Felix Salas>I was drafted 200 coast artillery, which I wasn't of age. <v Felix Salas>They - four years to my age and <v Felix Salas>that's why I went into the service. <v Felix Salas>Other words, I volunteered. <v Virgil Sherwood>I'm Virgil Sherwood from Clovis, New Mexico, I was a member of the battery <v Virgil Sherwood>of the 200 costguard New Mexico National. <v Virgil Sherwood>I was inducted into service in 1941, I went <v Virgil Sherwood>to El Paso and <v Virgil Sherwood>from El Paso, I went to the Philippines. <v Virgil Sherwood>Supposedly almost six months. <v Virgil Sherwood>So they told us only six months maneuver. <v Virgil Sherwood>Five years. I came back. <v Virgil Sherwood>Five years later. <v Ruben Flores>Yes, my name is Ruben Flores.

<v Ruben Flores>I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. <v Ruben Flores>I, I guess I can say I started off. <v Ruben Flores>I was in the Merchant Marines, I ship Marines from the three seas, the civilian <v Ruben Flores>conservation. <v Ruben Flores>When we were on our way from San Francisco to, <v Ruben Flores>to the Philippines, I was inducted for the second <v Ruben Flores>time, our, our, Cook got drunk and I was inducted into <v Ruben Flores>the kitchen to do the cooking. They knew that I had been cooking while in the three <v Ruben Flores>seas, that I was a cook, a butcher and. <v Ruben Flores>And a. <v Ruben Flores>So I was inducted for the second time and I cooked for them. <v Ruben Flores>Got to the Philippines the 16th of September. <v Ruben Flores>19.- One. <v Jim Colman>I don't like my first [name] and I never use it, so I go by the name Jim. <v Jim Colman>Jim Coleman and when I retired <v Jim Colman>22 years ago, I was a lieutenant colonel.

<v Jim Colman>And I can I've got a lot of serial numbers. <v Jim Colman>How about oh three five eight nine one eight. <v Jim Colman>That's the one I started the army with. <v Lorenzo Banegas>So I told my family that we were we didn't know where we <v Lorenzo Banegas>were going, but we were leaving because we had to pack all night long. <v Lorenzo Banegas>So my family went over to fort base to see me, I guess, for the <v Lorenzo Banegas>last time when they saw me in army fatigues. <v Lorenzo Banegas>They pictured me as a slave, or something. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And they started crying because they didn't expect to see me in army fatigues, <v Lorenzo Banegas>because they hadn't seen me in army fatigues before. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And they started crying, to see me that working <v Lorenzo Banegas>clothes. <v Speaker>Johnny was a soldier, a boy who never looked for a scratch. <v Speaker>But this young buckaroo was Yankee through and through. <v Speaker>Then Johnny heard our country's call to arms against the jack and as he <v Speaker>marched away. His buddies heard him say, good bye,

<v Speaker>momma. I'm off to Yokohama for my red, white and blue, <v Speaker>my country and you. <v Speaker>Good bye, Momma. I'm off to Yokohama just to teach all those <v Speaker>Jap the Yanks are no saps. <v Speaker>A million fighting sons of Uncle Sam. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>And it was pretty much of a- . <v Col. Gilbert Baca>The individuals were awfully happy, pretty much of a social club. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>The Barrio or the neighborhood all got together and four or five kids that belonged to <v Col. Gilbert Baca>the same gang, joined the National Guard. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>They all joined together. They all went across together. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>Some of them didn't come back, obviously. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>But that was the mood that they had. <v Col. Gilbert Baca>Everybody got together in the afternoons when the tortillas and the people were <v Col. Gilbert Baca>were getting ready to eat supper. The kids were sitting under the trees talking about the <v Col. Gilbert Baca>National Guard and how they joined. <v Speaker>My name is Allediano Valdez from Belen, New Mexico. <v Speaker>I was with the DIA from my Lukic. <v Speaker>God was with me until we were forced to surrender.

<v Speaker>I tried to hang on with my compadres, I begged the Japs for mercy. <v Speaker>All I wanted was to be back home with my girlfriend. <v Speaker>Maruca Demetria, pobresita. <v Speaker>She didn't even know where I was. <v Speaker>But the good Lord. He took me away. <v Speaker>And now I can only watch over my compass, Lorenzo and Marcos. <v Speaker>My friends, have tried to keep me alive. <v Speaker>I remember just before the Japs got me, Lorenzo was composing <v Speaker>a corrido. <v Speaker>I wish I had held on long enough to hear him in person. <v Speaker>This is a corrido, shall we say? <v Speaker>A song. <v Speaker>It was composed by Lorenzo Banegas here from Las Cruces, Prezant <v Speaker>with me, and which we never sing it with anybody <v Speaker>else. him and I.

<v Speaker>I don't think that he has ever sang with anybody else but him and I. <v Speaker>I haven't learned the song. <v Speaker>Although he knows it. <v Speaker>I haven't learned this. The reason is that I don't like memories <v Speaker>of prison camp. When I sing this song with <v Speaker>Lorenzo. I read because I have not learned it. <v Speaker>We will would like to dedicate it to <v Speaker>our compadres, our <v Speaker>POW's that never made it back. <v Speaker>And their families <v Speaker>and their dear ones. <v Speaker>[ Singing Corrido <v Speaker>]

<v Felix Salas>The rumors start talking about war. <v Felix Salas>So we still, like I say myself. <v Felix Salas>I didn't believe it until the first day that I saw those bombers came over. <v Felix Salas>And all of a sudden we just heard and our. <v Felix Salas>Officer, which still over there in Silver City. <v Felix Salas>The Name. Cash Skarda. <v Felix Salas>He just hollers, he says commence firing. <v Cash T. Skarda>Then we were hit by, I would estimate, 50 to <v Cash T. Skarda>100 fighter planes. <v Cash T. Skarda>Japanese carriers. And we had. <v Cash T. Skarda>Knockdown, drag out fight for about an hour between <v Cash T. Skarda>anti aircraft and these fighter planes. <v Cash T. Skarda>And we I think we were credited the first <v Cash T. Skarda>day with knocking down fifteen or 17 <v Cash T. Skarda>of the fighter planes.

<v Cash T. Skarda>My particular unit talked about Felix Salas. <v Cash T. Skarda>We got one right in the motor, which was attacking our our gun <v Cash T. Skarda>position. <v Felix Salas>And that's all I remember. We just commence firing and until <v Felix Salas>everything was over, all, smoke and fire and everything, you know, <v Felix Salas>I couldn't hardly breathe. I could die. <v Felix Salas>I was so thirsty and my throat was so dry and I don't know if it was <v Felix Salas>if I was going or coming. <v Felix Salas>But we did a good job, I think very, very good job every one of us here. <v Cash T. Skarda>Of course, I was a kid or a relative kid as <v Cash T. Skarda>22 years old, <v Cash T. Skarda>commanding troops as much as being executive <v Cash T. Skarda>officer of a gun battalion one is twenty two years old. <v Cash T. Skarda>I guess it was just a shocking experience

<v Cash T. Skarda>that you just had to handle it. <v Cash T. Skarda>That was all there was to it. <v Cash T. Skarda>You either fight or you die. <v Cash T. Skarda>And that was that was that was it. <v Felix Salas>From there on, we just knew it was war and started <v Felix Salas>to them. The next day it happened again. <v Felix Salas>And from there, on every day until the order came over to retreat, start retreating. <v Felix Salas>We we didn't know where where we were going until we <v Felix Salas>ended at Baton. <v Speaker>[Corrido <v Speaker>]

<v Virgil Sherwood>They got us in a bunch and, and surrounded <v Virgil Sherwood>half moon around us with tanks and machine guns in <v Virgil Sherwood>my mind and minds of many of the other prisoners of war. <v Virgil Sherwood>They did not mean to take us prisoners of war. <v Virgil Sherwood>They were going to -. All right there on that little strip. <v Virgil Sherwood>Between the tanks they set up of machine gun. <v Virgil Sherwood>Gun on top of each tank. <v Virgil Sherwood>And they cocked the machine guns. <v Virgil Sherwood>And just as a they cocked the machine guns, it seemed like it- it. <v Virgil Sherwood>It's very hard. <v Virgil Sherwood>The men up there shook the earth so hard

<v Virgil Sherwood>that had not the Japanese soldiers on top, the tanks. <v Virgil Sherwood>All there were no prisoner of war standing <v Virgil Sherwood>on the ground. <v Virgil Sherwood>It shook. The earthquake shook so bad that all of us fell down. <v Virgil Sherwood>You could not stand up. <v Virgil Sherwood>It turned the tanks around and faced them the other way from us the machine <v Virgil Sherwood>guns that had been in between the tanks, the tanks ran <v Virgil Sherwood>over them, or shook over on top of them. <v Virgil Sherwood>I think it scared the Japanese so bad. <v Virgil Sherwood>And that is when they started infamous <v Virgil Sherwood>Death March. Down the road it scared the hell out of them. <v Virgil Sherwood>We started out from the little airstrip <v Virgil Sherwood>in columns of fours and six down <v Virgil Sherwood>blacktop road.

<v Virgil Sherwood>And I as I said before, I had no shoes. <v Virgil Sherwood>The temperature was one hundred thirty to a hundred and forty degrees. <v Virgil Sherwood>You could break an egg on the blacktop and fry it. <v Virgil Sherwood>That's how hot it had been. The blacktop was <v Virgil Sherwood>my feet on that became blistered first <v Virgil Sherwood>and then the blisters busted and then <v Virgil Sherwood>the hide from the blisters tore off. <v Virgil Sherwood>And I was walking on raw meat. <v Virgil Sherwood>Ninety five percent of us had malaria and dysentery, <v Virgil Sherwood>all kinds of diseases. <v Virgil Sherwood>We were running temperatures of one hundred and six, 107 degrees. <v Virgil Sherwood>And if you fell down. <v Virgil Sherwood>They would ban at you, or shoot you and leave you lay there. <v Virgil Sherwood>And many of the I saw I saw it happen

<v Virgil Sherwood>along the death march. It was it doesn't sound like far. <v Virgil Sherwood>Eighty four miles. <v Virgil Sherwood>But it's a long ways when you are starved, <v Virgil Sherwood>sick and disgraced. <v Virgil Sherwood>My- on my adventure. <v Virgil Sherwood>Our experience, whatever you want to call it, <v Virgil Sherwood>I was in the middle of the group of the string of the procession <v Virgil Sherwood>and I was about four miles from <v Virgil Sherwood>San Fernando and I was sitting in a bar ditch. <v Virgil Sherwood>And along the bar ditch, along the road there. <v Virgil Sherwood>And this Jap Japanese convoy, holding gasoline backup <v Virgil Sherwood>on the Battan, stopped to to

<v Virgil Sherwood>canteen's at an artesian well. We got across the road from me. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when they got ready to leave, <v Virgil Sherwood>it was a Japanese lieutenant could speak good English in charge of the convoy. <v Virgil Sherwood>He asked me, can you drive- drive a truck? <v Virgil Sherwood>And I told him yes. <v Virgil Sherwood>So he cleared me with the prison guard <v Virgil Sherwood>and put me, he told me I was going to drive the truck. <v Virgil Sherwood>Well I drove back. <v Virgil Sherwood>Watch out. Passing all the rest of the POWs, <v Virgil Sherwood>the prisoners to a point <v Virgil Sherwood>at. <v Virgil Sherwood>Cabcaben, Caben-town or something like that. <v Virgil Sherwood>Well, when it got dark, I told him I had to go to the bushes <v Virgil Sherwood>and I went to the bushes and kept going, thinking I could

<v Virgil Sherwood>escape back into the jungle. <v Virgil Sherwood>Well, when daybreak came. <v Virgil Sherwood>I was still on the move and I ran into <v Virgil Sherwood>what they call a mop up team of Japanese soldiers <v Virgil Sherwood>getting stragglers. <v Virgil Sherwood>They recaptured me, put me back in the death march on <v Virgil Sherwood>the stragglers and the sick ones. <v Virgil Sherwood>Put me back in the death march. <v Virgil Sherwood>And again. <v Virgil Sherwood>I made the death march again. <v Virgil Sherwood>What gave me the strength? <v Virgil Sherwood>I guess my belief in Lord. <v Virgil Sherwood>The thought of uh, <v Virgil Sherwood>and my wife.

<v Virgil Sherwood>And a son that was only five months old <v Virgil Sherwood>when I left waiting for me, <v Virgil Sherwood>gave me the strength to keep going. <v Virgil Sherwood>And that's all that was on my mind. <v Virgil Sherwood>Continuously, every step. <v Virgil Sherwood>She pushed me. She pushed me all the way. <v Placido Rivera>My name is Placido Rivera from Taos, New Mexico. <v Placido Rivera>Two hundred Coast Artillery Battery H. <v Placido Rivera>I remember the march and the look on the faces of my compadres. <v Placido Rivera>We were all suffering. <v Placido Rivera>The Japs made us march and march and march. <v Placido Rivera>I kept falling. They kicked me and beat me. <v Placido Rivera>But somehow I kept going. <v Placido Rivera>The ones that couldn't keep going were on the side of the road. <v Placido Rivera>And I remember the horrible smell of rotting flesh that hung in the air. <v Placido Rivera>It might sound strange, but even with all the others around me, I still felt lonely. <v Placido Rivera>I missed mi familia and the ones that I loved.

<v Placido Rivera>I felt myself crying, but I couldn't help it. <v Placido Rivera>Finally, I close my eyes and prayed to God in heaven to die. <v Placido Rivera>But I'm not sorry he took me because there are things like fighting for my country <v Placido Rivera>that are more priceless than life itself. <v Speaker>[Singing Corrido <v Speaker>]

<v Jim Colman> oh, Donnel was <v Jim Colman>divided. Filipino soldiers were in one section. <v Jim Colman>We were in the other. <v Jim Colman>There was one water tap in our compound for about 4000 soldiers, <v Jim Colman>4000 Americans. <v Jim Colman>We never got to the Filipino side. I don't know. <v Jim Colman>But the line formed at that water tap early in the morning and it stayed <v Jim Colman>there 24 hours a day. <v Jim Colman>And when you got your water, you drank it and went back to the end line and got in the <v Jim Colman>water again. They limited you to one canteen full. <v Jim Colman>If you had a canteen or whatever the hell else, you could carry water in <v Jim Colman>very, very little food. <v Jim Colman>Absolutely no medicine. <v Jim Colman>A viciously egotistic <v Jim Colman>Japanese commander who informed us very strongly <v Jim Colman>that we had dishonored ourselves by surrending and therefore we

<v Jim Colman>were not to be given the honor of being prisoners of war. <v Jim Colman>We were captives and as captives, the Geneva Convention <v Jim Colman>was pushed out the window. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And but that was the worst camp of all. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And Camp O'Donell when we got there, the poor fellows were <v Lorenzo Banegas>so weak and with diarrhea, with all kinds of diseases. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And they put us in a big, big fenced area with barracks <v Lorenzo Banegas>all torn down. And they were so sick that they couldn't <v Lorenzo Banegas>control the the the dysentery. <v Lorenzo Banegas>They were walking. And, you know, [Felix Salas: doing their thing] yea, doing their thing <v Lorenzo Banegas>because we didn't have any any clothes. <v Lorenzo Banegas>We had to sleep on the on the ground or if we ever was lucky. <v Lorenzo Banegas>Now, the fellow that got there just a little before they cut the grass <v Lorenzo Banegas>down and they made it in to, to, to beds. <v Lorenzo Banegas>But the fellow that got there later, they didn't have any any grass or weeds

<v Lorenzo Banegas>or nothing to make their their beds. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And fellows were dying left and right. <v Jim Colman>At ODonnell, the death rate among the Filipinos was running about <v Jim Colman>a thousand a day. <v Jim Colman>And the highest we had, I think, was three hundred and sixty a day. <v Jim Colman>Buried them in a hole in common graves. <v Jim Colman>Great. Huge. Well, just like the Germans did it to <v Jim Colman>Bergen-Belsen or Buchenwald or Dachau is common graves. <v Jim Colman>There was nothing else to do. <v Jim Colman>Nothing we could do. <v Jim Colman>Quite a few people tried to keep records of who died, when and where. <v Lorenzo Banegas>That was every day, every day we had to to bury from I <v Lorenzo Banegas>say, from about 20 to 80 people that died from prisoners <v Lorenzo Banegas>that died every day because they had three details,

<v Lorenzo Banegas>one inside of the fence picking up all the dead <v Lorenzo Banegas>bodies that died that night and line them up towards the close to the gate <v Lorenzo Banegas>up there. Then they had another detail carrying those dead <v Lorenzo Banegas>bodies from the fans to the holes where they were burying them. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And they had another detail, digging those those holes, the <v Lorenzo Banegas>holes where, oh, I'd say about ten, twelve, 15 feet by <v Lorenzo Banegas>15 feet. You know, they were kind of big and bout four or five feet <v Lorenzo Banegas>deep. And then in the rainy season, it was the hardest <v Lorenzo Banegas>because they had to leave at least two or three holes dug ahead. <v Lorenzo Banegas>The fellows that were digging the whole day had to leave the the holes dug ahead because <v Lorenzo Banegas>we'd catch up with them right away, burying the bodies. <v Lorenzo Banegas>So at night, the hole would fill up with water and then we throw the <v Lorenzo Banegas>bodies in and the water would splash out and the bodies start floating. <v Lorenzo Banegas>But we put so many bodies in there that they started going down and down

<v Lorenzo Banegas>and down. So when the hole was full, we throw the mud and whatever <v Lorenzo Banegas>we could on top of them. But then the the water, the mud <v Lorenzo Banegas>would go down and the bodies would start sticking out. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And the blood and all that would run down into the to the camp, <v Lorenzo Banegas>to the fence that we were in and that thing would think that we <v Lorenzo Banegas>couldn't stand the smell of that blood, you know, that watery blood that would run on <v Lorenzo Banegas>because the they hold were kind of high up here and <v Lorenzo Banegas>the fence was lower down there. <v Lorenzo Banegas>So all that water that would slip out of the the hole, it would run into the <v Lorenzo Banegas>fans that we were in then when the sun would come on, that thing would think <v Lorenzo Banegas>that we couldn't stand the smell of it. <v Jim Colman>Thought of home, of course, we thought of home, but home was such <v Jim Colman>a remote possibility that. <v Jim Colman>You went to bed sometimes crying yourself to sleep with hunger.

<v Jim Colman>I mean, I was a grown captain and I've cried myself to sleep many times. <v Jim Colman>I thought I was a mature individual. But I realized how much how much <v Jim Colman>degradation in humanity <v Jim Colman>and hunger can inflict on a human being. <v Grace Santistevan>My name is Sissako Grace Santistevan. <v Grace Santistevan>I was born in Osaka, Japan. <v Grace Santistevan>I look back on those things why it did happen. <v Grace Santistevan>It's just the godless people doesn't think too much <v Grace Santistevan>weight on the life realization of the life, <v Grace Santistevan>that basic humanity is lost through the war <v Grace Santistevan>and cares. <v Grace Santistevan>Because you take one individual from Japanese country. <v Grace Santistevan>Very rarely you find such a mean person. <v Grace Santistevan>Then, when a war happens like this then, killing

<v Grace Santistevan>a lot of people in a malicious way. <v George Kojima>Well, I could imagine from a training on Japanese Army Navy, <v George Kojima>it's almost murderous. <v George Kojima>Being beaten to death wasn't too uncommon. <v George Kojima>So maybe that extends on the bar. <v George Kojima>Tough treatment. <v George Kojima>Going to worst situation. <v George Kojima>On just the battalion deal. <v George Kojima>Others. Japanese soldiers were ready to back home. <v George Kojima>So we are running out of food, running out of ammo. <v George Kojima>Now, this is a suicide attack. <v George Kojima>This is the end, I'm not coming back. <v George Kojima>At that time enemy general just saw, I mean, left <v George Kojima>saying I shall return. <v George Kojima>I left all the soldier behind. <v George Kojima>They think why should we feed POW when we are running our own food?

<v Ruben Flores>When we were taken to the docks to be <v Ruben Flores>shipped to Japan from Bilibid in <v Ruben Flores>the Philippines. <v Ruben Flores>They started putting us in this the <v Ruben Flores>holds, the ships, they were freighters, coal freighters. <v Ruben Flores>It was three of them. They started putting us down in the holds <v Ruben Flores>one by one, start walking in there. <v Ruben Flores>And they told us to stand as tight as we could, one behind the other, line after <v Ruben Flores>line after line. We did that. <v Ruben Flores>And when they couldn't cram any more in there. <v Ruben Flores>That's when they stopped and they told us, OK. <v Ruben Flores>You can do anything you want. We had a heck of a time to sit down. <v Ruben Flores>We couldn't sit down. We were there crammed like sardines. <v Ruben Flores>They'd get us a half a canteen of water a day, which was <v Ruben Flores>not enough. Sometimes some of us would end up with a quarter canteen, with some us with

<v Ruben Flores>nothing. <v Ruben Flores>They would lower down the honey buckets. <v Ruben Flores>That was for us to do our thing whenever them <v Ruben Flores>honey buckets were full. They would raise them up with the rope. <v Ruben Flores>And you can just imagine them things swinging back and forth. <v Ruben Flores>What would happen. They'd dump them out in the sea, and. <v Ruben Flores>And they'd bring them down again and fill up and so on. <v Ruben Flores>So as one of the worst things <v Ruben Flores>that. That I remember that happened and that was not <v Ruben Flores>there, was done directly by the Japanese, they <v Ruben Flores>were responsible for it. But it was inside in <v Ruben Flores>that hold. We were so. <v Ruben Flores>So thirsty that it happened right behind me. <v Ruben Flores>One morning we we we got here at night. <v Ruben Flores>It was dark because you can just imagine there was no light in that hold, but

<v Ruben Flores>they'd started killing each other, to suck their blood because of the <v Ruben Flores>thirst. And so when we started, we'd get to <v Ruben Flores>the closest, the ones that were closest to us would get together and sleep back <v Ruben Flores>to back with our canteen and our hand <v Ruben Flores>ready just to to strike anybody that would try to do <v Ruben Flores>harm any of us that before. Five of us did get back to back. <v Ruben Flores>And so you can just imagine how desperate <v Ruben Flores>we were when we'd get hungry and thirsty. <v Ruben Flores>When you go to the extreme of killing someone else, to suck their <v Ruben Flores>blood, to quench your thirst, that is <v Ruben Flores>something bad. <v Fred Almeras>They they use any kind of punishment they could think of. <v Fred Almeras>They even had two guys got to talking together.

<v Fred Almeras>They set him up and make him slap each other. <v Fred Almeras>And they had slap hard. If they slap each other, just, you know, just <v Fred Almeras>lightly, the guard would say, not that way. <v Fred Almeras>They wham, they'd give them hard. This is the way you do it. <v Fred Almeras>And they had to slap each other as hard as they could. <v Jim Colman>Every place we marched in camp on a work detail we had to carry a Japanese. <v Jim Colman>I saved one of them once and use <v Jim Colman>it for toilet paper when they weren't looking. <v Felix Salas>I don't I don't blame them all, <v Felix Salas>but I can't stand them. <v Felix Salas>Jap to me, I'm not prejudiced, but I can't stand Japanese <v Felix Salas>I'd say so. <v Carlos Maria>My name is Carlos Horgin from Tierra Maria. <v Carlos Maria>I die locked away from the world in a hold of a ship called Banjul Maru.

<v Carlos Maria>We were on our way to prison camps in Japan and I gave up hope. <v Carlos Maria>I knew I would never see my girlfriend again. <v Carlos Maria>Well, we planned to get married. <v Carlos Maria>But now, I see my buddies have made it back and their wives. <v Carlos Maria>And I think maybe it was better that I died because I would have come back a <v Carlos Maria>different man and to lay such a heavy burden on my beautiful Ramona would <v Carlos Maria>have been unfair. <v Nina Banegas>I'm Nina Banegas from Las Cruces, New Mexico, <v Nina Banegas>I am married to Lorenzo Banegas. <v Nina Banegas>He once. He told me more than once that <v Nina Banegas>he he felt that he had died and gone to hell and that <v Nina Banegas>he was in hell for all the things that he <v Nina Banegas>had done mean things that he had done

<v Nina Banegas>and was then paying for 'em. <v Nina Banegas>But for them, it was a living hell. <v Nina Banegas>And it's something they'll they'll never forget. <v Nina Banegas>They'll live with it till the day they die. <v Mary Coleman>I'm Mary Coleman and I was Mary Parkman. <v Mary Coleman>I met Jim Coleman in 1940 and we became engaged. <v Mary Coleman>He eventually went overseas in early 1941, <v Mary Coleman>I was in the movie one afternoon, the six o'clock movie on <v Mary Coleman>the pole on the base Portsmouth Naval Base. <v Mary Coleman>And I saw the movie and we had the March of Times back <v Mary Coleman>in those days and I saw these prisoners being <v Mary Coleman>liberated from Cabanatuan prison camp. <v Mary Coleman>And it showed them some of them walking through. <v Mary Coleman>And there was this one guy with his army hat on. <v Mary Coleman>And the big dark glasses.

<v Mary Coleman>And I was with my roommate and I said I said, that's Jim. <v Mary Coleman>I said, I know that's Jim. And I sat through the movie three times so <v Mary Coleman>that I could see the newsreel again. <v Mary Coleman>And I was sure it was him. So eventually after we married, I told him this <v Mary Coleman>and he did write to the film company and he has the length <v Mary Coleman>of film that was him. <v Lencha Salas>My name is Lencha Salas from Belliard, New Mexico, and I'm married to Felix <v Lencha Salas>Salas. <v Lencha Salas>I hate for him to talk about it because during the night he'll have those nightmares <v Lencha Salas>and he'll wake up during the night. He won't be able to go back to sleep anymore. <v Lencha Salas>The following day he's all upset and he's he'll be like that for, <v Lencha Salas>oh, maybe two or three days. <v Lencha Salas>Most when he mostly when he feels like that, he'll go fishing just to get over it. <v Manuela Flores>I'm Manuela Flores from Las Cruces, New Mexico. <v Manuela Flores>I'm married to Ruben Flores also from Las Cruces. <v Manuela Flores>One day we went to El Paso. He said let's go shop with me. <v Manuela Flores>And we went to El Paso and there was this big plane, of course,

<v Manuela Flores>flying over El Paso. And in it was just very low coming in <v Manuela Flores>and he just went down, down a car. <v Manuela Flores>I said what's happening here? So then he got out and he was so embarrassed. <v Manuela Flores>I said. I thought we were back in the war. <v Manuela Flores>So. <v Nina Banegas>If it hadn't been for God, they they wouldn't <v Nina Banegas>be here today. <v Nina Banegas>And another thing that I think is beautiful now when we all get together <v Nina Banegas>is the fellowship they have between them. <v Nina Banegas>They, there isn't a thing they wouldn't do for each other. <v Nina Banegas>And you've seen the way they greet each other, <v Nina Banegas>just like brothers. <v Nina Banegas>And it's it's a unity that that <v Nina Banegas>is beautiful to see, really. <v Speaker>You know, if we could keep smelling this thing, we'll be drunk before

<v Speaker>we drink our beer. <v Speaker>[?: Can I light up a cigarette now?] Yea go ahead. <v Speaker>What the heck. <v Speaker>I remember right now? <v Speaker>I don't know if you were at the same camp at the time, but we were <v Speaker>working on in the- in the airways making this airstrip's <v Speaker>and we found out that they were they were using alcohol <v Speaker>for fuel. Yeah. So. <v Speaker>So we we got smart, we got it, we got a young hose <v Speaker>and we hid it when we went out there and someone would talk to the Japanese guards upper <v Speaker>and the other one would be siphoning the the alcohol and put it in the canteen. <v Speaker>But we get the camp. We pull good drunks. <v Speaker>And it had it had the. <v Speaker>Well, it had. That's that taste of gasoline, too. <v Speaker>But then, you know, we used to bring out that gasoline that we used to burn out that <v Speaker>gasoline taste. <v Speaker>And we got the Red Cross packages.

<v Speaker>We put some of that concentrated orange juice in it. <v Speaker>I mean, to tell you, we feel good drunks, alcohol. <v Speaker>[Song <v Speaker>]

<v Speaker>My name is Fermino Romero. <v Speaker>Soy de Carlsbad. I was with the battery life of the two hundredth coast artillery. <v Speaker>It was Christmas of 43 when I died and I kept <v Speaker>thinking the war will never end. <v Speaker>I kept thinking that the war will never end. <v Speaker>And now 40 years have gone by, and I'm amazed that any <v Speaker>of the 200 boys are still around.

<v Speaker>God, they were great friends. Soska They worked beside me, shared food <v Speaker>with me when I was sick. They bathed. <v Speaker>They bathed me when I was burning up with fever. <v Speaker>Talked to me when my spirits were low. <v Speaker>But they couldn't save me. <v Speaker>And now I see all these guys getting together after 40 years, and <v Speaker>it looks like a good time. Una celebracion. <v Speaker>And I'm glad. <v Speaker>I'm glad for them. <v Tommy Foy>Tommy Foy, fir- second lieutenant battery <v Tommy Foy>H, 200 Coast artillery, and these are all my men

<v Tommy Foy>that were with me when we surrendered. <v Tom Lee>I'm the former state senator Tom Lee, and one of the battery H and uh <v Tom Lee>515. And uh, I surrendered under [ten peninsula?]. <v Joe Cigora>Joe Cigora was the chief clerk for the battery and it <v Joe Cigora>nice being back at home. <v Joe Cigora>And eating rice and fish. <v Speaker>I'm Dout E. Bon. I went in with the H battery transferred <v Speaker>to G battery and became a captain on the town, commanded a 37 millimeter <v Speaker>gun battery thank you. <v Joey Medina>Joey Medina from Battery H. <v Joey Medina>I forgot what's happening Battan. <v Oracio Montoya>I'm Oracion Montoya. Battery H. <v Oracio Montoya>I can say this about Battan. <v Oracio Montoya>That is a good example of unpreparedness on the part of the US. <v Dan Joplin>We have something wonderful here in these old United States. <v Dan Joplin>And you better hang on to it. And if it means you gotta go in and fight to hang

<v Dan Joplin>on to. Do it because you've got generations coming behind <v Dan Joplin>you that you got to give them the same opportunity <v Dan Joplin>that we have had. <v Speaker>[Singing Corrido ] <v Jim Colman>I weighed about 90 pounds when I was liberated the day

<v Jim Colman>we were liberated. I was down to about 82 at one time. <v Jim Colman>My normal weight was about one hundred and forty five and a little teeny ol' <v Jim Colman>pipsqueak of a soldier. Well, my first shot of whiskey was in San Francisco <v Jim Colman>because when we got back there, the city was ours. <v Jim Colman>You couldn't we couldn't spend a penny in San Francisco for anything. <v Jim Colman>I even bought a new watch. And it wouldn't take any money for it. <v Jim Colman>I got drunk. That's what I did when my family was there. <v Jim Colman>And that as far as the women. <v Jim Colman>Well, I maybe I'm a straight age, <v Jim Colman>straight laced, old fashioned fella, but I was a virgin until the night I got married, <v Jim Colman>so I didn't miss women. <v Ruben Flores>The first thing I did when I when I arrived <v Ruben Flores>in good U- good old USA was get down, <v Ruben Flores>get some dirt and put it in my mouth.

<v Ruben Flores>Taste it good ol USA soil, <v Ruben Flores>and then the next day, the next thing I did was go to the nearest church and pray and <v Ruben Flores>thank, give thanks to my dear Lord that I had given my life and I told him, <v Ruben Flores>eh- if it is your will for me to return. <v Ruben Flores>And if its your will for me to stay here. <v Ruben Flores>I'm behind you. And he he my dear ol' Lord <v Ruben Flores>chose to bring me back. And I did. <v Ruben Flores>And I did what I thought I was supposed to have done. <v Ruben Flores>As far as reception, the only reception we got <v Ruben Flores>was from the people that were there that were waiting for us, the kinfolks <v Ruben Flores>from the others. <v Ruben Flores>And my dear old mother that was waiting for me at home when I got there. <v Lorenzo Banegas>Well, to me, there is nothing as close as <v Lorenzo Banegas>these buddies, these ex prisoners of war.

<v Lorenzo Banegas>I have belonged to different organizations. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And to me, it's not exactly the same when we mean when we have these <v Lorenzo Banegas>conventions or meetings to us. <v Lorenzo Banegas>It seemed like I'm going to, to my family and sometimes, I might even be closer to <v Lorenzo Banegas>the ex-prisoners of war than my own family, because we learned up there <v Lorenzo Banegas>to help each other and be close to each other. <v Lorenzo Banegas>When we see somebody suffering, whether we knew him or not, we still, you know, <v Lorenzo Banegas>try to to help him. <v Lorenzo Banegas>And I myself made a pledge. <v Lorenzo Banegas>I said, as long as I live. <v Lorenzo Banegas>I want to help all these ex prisoners of war. <v Lorenzo Banegas>There is only two of us left. I'm still going to look after him or he's going to look <v Lorenzo Banegas>after me until all of us will disappear. <v Virgil Sherwood>Well, I went down to the deep hole <v Virgil Sherwood>and caught a train to Vaughn, New Mexico.

<v Virgil Sherwood>At Vaughn, I had to transfer up <v Virgil Sherwood>to the Santa Fe to go into Galveston. <v Virgil Sherwood>And I got up to to not to add <v Virgil Sherwood>to the railroad station at Vaughn, and I was talking <v Virgil Sherwood>to the station agent. <v Virgil Sherwood>And he told me, he said there won't be another train through here until tomorrow <v Virgil Sherwood>afternoon. <v Virgil Sherwood>Oh, this was about one o'clock in the morning. <v Virgil Sherwood>Well, I got to talking to him. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when he found out all about me, where I'd been <v Virgil Sherwood>and we're just coming home. <v Virgil Sherwood>He said, I am going to get you home. <v Virgil Sherwood>He said there is a an army train coming through here. <v Virgil Sherwood>And he said it is a red ball. <v Virgil Sherwood>He said, we're not supposed to stop it, but he said, I'm going to stop it. <v Virgil Sherwood>So he went out and stopped that red ball

<v Virgil Sherwood>army train. <v Virgil Sherwood>And the conductor that was in charge of the train <v Virgil Sherwood>was an old friend of my family in Clovis. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when I got on and he seen who I was and I <v Virgil Sherwood>told him, he said, my God, he said, come on <v Virgil Sherwood>to my compartment. He took me in his compartment and he told me <v Virgil Sherwood>to lay down and rest. I said, rest. <v Virgil Sherwood>I can't. I said, I just want to look to wide open <v Virgil Sherwood>spaces. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when we got to Clovis, I did. <v Virgil Sherwood>My folks did not know I was coming home. <v Virgil Sherwood>I did not call them. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when I got to the station, his wife was there to pick him up, <v Virgil Sherwood>to take him home. And he told me, Virgil, we would take you to your <v Virgil Sherwood>father's house because they had moved while I was gone. <v Virgil Sherwood>I didn't know it.

<v Virgil Sherwood>So they took me to where my daddy and mother lived. <v Virgil Sherwood>And my wife was living in a little trailer house right beside that, right beside him in <v Virgil Sherwood>the same yard. <v Virgil Sherwood>And when I got out, they let me out. <v Virgil Sherwood>The point is very hard for me. <v Virgil Sherwood>I walked in to the yard and <v Virgil Sherwood>there was nobody and I hollered. <v Virgil Sherwood>I left my bags, bag and everything out on the sidewalk. <v Virgil Sherwood>And I hollered, Is anybody home? <v Virgil Sherwood>And the trailer house door opened, <v Virgil Sherwood>a little boy about that big <v Virgil Sherwood>open it. And he turned around and said, Momma, daddy is home. <v Virgil Sherwood>So she-.

<v Virgil Sherwood>Excuse me. <v Virgil Sherwood>Anyhow, about that time my sister came round the corner. <v Virgil Sherwood>Her and my mother was in the back of the house doing washing and hang up the clothes <v Virgil Sherwood>and she's seen me and she hollered <v Virgil Sherwood>to my mother. <v Virgil Sherwood>Said, my God. Oh, momma, here's Virgil. <v Virgil Sherwood>About that time my wife came out that trailer door. <v Virgil Sherwood>And you can imagine what went on after that. <v Virgil Sherwood>It was the most happiest feelings I ever had my life. <v Virgil Sherwood>Seeing a boy, five years old. <v Virgil Sherwood>That was only three months old when I left. <v Virgil Sherwood>And he knew me because my wife had the though- <v Virgil Sherwood>forethought to have a life sized picture painted of me so

<v Virgil Sherwood>that he would know his daddy. <v Virgil Sherwood>And he knew me from that picture. <v Antonio Montoya>My name is Antonio Montoya from Gallup, New Mexico. <v Antonio Montoya>There are lots of men in the town who died leaving sons and daughters behind. <v Antonio Montoya>I was one of them. The last time I saw my son, Antonio Junior, he was only six <v Antonio Montoya>months old. I died in January of 1945.

<v Antonio Montoya>The very next month, General, the Army Douglas MacArthur returned to Bataan, he said <v Antonio Montoya>history had recorded as one of the decisive battles of the world. <v Antonio Montoya>He said, let no man henceforth speak of it other than as a magnificent victory. <v Antonio Montoya>Well, it was some victory. An estimated 600 Americans died on the death march. <v Antonio Montoya>Ten thousand Filipinos, Camp O'Donnel alone. <v Antonio Montoya>Sixteen hundred Americans dead. <v Antonio Montoya>Ten times as many Filipinos. <v Antonio Montoya>Thousands more perished in the holds of unmarked prison ships sent to the bottom by <v Antonio Montoya>American bombers. <v Antonio Montoya>Most prisoners of war had been in camps for three and a half years. <v Antonio Montoya>When MacArthur returned and they were spread out from the southern Philippines all the <v Antonio Montoya>way to Machuria. <v Antonio Montoya>Each survivor has unique story to tell. <v Antonio Montoya>But most have a common element that they were surrendered, but they <v Antonio Montoya>did not surrender. <v Antonio Montoya>We were called the battling bastards of Bataan, and our stories can't help but shatter <v Antonio Montoya>illusions of American invincibility.