Death Cruise . . . Christmas, 1944
BY GEORGE WELLER
After eight days of their tortured odyssey from Manila to Japan, 300 American prisoners were dead and the toll was mounting daily. But those remaining found cause for hope.
At least the hell ship into which they had been jammed had been sunk and they were back on land -- at San Fernando Pampanga on the island of Luzon. And there was food and water -- cooked rice served on a sheet of corrugated iron and water from a toilet intakes but to parched and starving men like the manna from heaven.
An Army Lieutenant Colonel Harry J. Harper, well know at Cabanatuan, died at Pampanga. On the night of December 23, 1944, four Red Cross boxes came down from Manila. For 1300 men the amount of needed drugs were minute, but they gave hope.
Evacuation by Rail
On the same night several of the most ill were evacuated back to Bilibid Prison in Manila. The handful taken included, as well as survivors can remember, a Lieutenant Commander known as "Bull of the Woods" Harrington for his heavy voice, and a Marine Lieutenant Colonel who had been given at Cabanatuan the name of "Caribou Sam" for his ability at rustling meat under the eyes of the Japanese field guards
At 3 a.m. of the day before Christmas the men were routed out of the prison and theater where they had been held and marched to the railroad station. An aged locomotive, whose multiple bullet holes testified to what the American planes were doing to the Japanese rail traffic, awaited them with a string of, inadequate 26-foot freight cars.
The wounded were piled on top. The merely ill were packed in below. Curtis, the automobile agent, counted 107 men in and on his car. Mr. Wada, the Jap interpreter, soon explained why the wounded had been placed on top. "If the American planes come," he said, "you must wave your bandages." The train, thus "protected" by its prisoners, was loaded with ammunition and supplies for two stations along the line. "Wave white clothing," said Mr. Wada encouragingly, "so that your friends up there will recognize you."
The heat in the closed boxcars was so terrific that conditions soon equaled those aboard the prison ship Oryoku. Perspiration plastered the rags of the prisoners to their bodies. But outside they could hear the indefatigable Filipino urchins yelling to the wounded on top, "Merry Christmas! Merry Chreeeestmas!"
Christmas Morning
The rumor spread through the train that they were going to be taken back to Bilibid to be clothed. But in mid-morning and air flight broke out overhead. They saw planes dive bombing the Manila airfields. The train stopped amid wreckage that was still smoking.
"We sweated out being raided again," says Major F. Langwith Berry of Burlingame, Calif., who was seated on the top of a boxcar with a fractured arm, "but fortunately the show was over." No man was allowed to leave the train.
As night fell the train was still crawling northward. At 3 in the morning it reached the town of San Fernando Del Union, on Lingayen Gulf. The doors grated open and the filthy, cramped men tumbled forth. They sprawled on the station platform, slumped to sleep. It was Christmas, 1944.
At daylight the Americans were marched to a single story trade school on the outskirts of town. A bush with green leaves and red flowers stood by the gate. They ate the leaves by the handfuls.
They lay there all day. The menu of their Christmas dinner was one-half cup of rice and one-third canteen cup of dirty surface water. They pulled up grass for beds and the Japanese soldiers gave them some disinfectant
About 7 p.m. they were counted off by sections of 100 men and marched three miles -- nearly all barefoot ---- over coral shell road to a beach overlooking the Japanese anchorage. Lingayen, being more than a hundred miles north of Manila, was freer from American fighter attacks. The docks were loaded with supplies recently arrived from Japan, and there were several ships winking their lights in the harbor.
Escape Attempt Forbidden
The sand was hitter cold. The naked men shivered and pushed against each other for warmth. At least two died, one of them Lieutenant Colonel Edmundson of the Philippine Scouts, who had been suffering from acute diarrhea. A West Point Captain Wilson Farrell of the 31st Infantry, who had organized a "swing shift" of cloth wavers to get air into the suffocating boxcars, labored hard to encourage the downhearted. But it was bitterly clear to all that they had been moved once again beyond hope of rescued by General MacArthur. They were going to Japan.
The officers of the 200th Coast Artillery, almost all outdoors men from New Mexico, got together and began to lay plans for an escape. They would steal a rowboat and make their way up the coast. But Lieutenant Colonel John Luikart of Clovis, N. M. -- who was to die within a week -- forbade the plan.
He reminded them that the Japanese had shot at one time on Bataan Major James H. Hazelwood of Albuquerque, Captain Ray Gonzales of Taos, Captain Eddie Kemp of Albuquerque, Captain Raymond Twaits of Silver City, Sergeant Barney Prosser of Deming, and a Navajo Indian, Charleston Miller of Manuelito, simply for deviating for trade from the line of the death march to Camp 0’Donnell. "You cannot expose the lives of these other prisoners to reprisal," he said.
Again the burning sun came up. Again the skin of the weakened men began to curl with sunburn. Commander Frank Bridget begged the Japanese to give water. A rice ball was issued for each man, but discipline was cracking again. Some got two; some got none. Bridget and Lieutenant Colonel (now Colonel) Curtis Beecher of Chicago then secured permission from the Japanese -- Major John Pyzig of the Marines shared interpreting duties with Army Lieutenant Colonel E. Carl Engeihart -- for the men to enter the water and bathe their blisters.
They were allowed five minutes in the water, barely enough time to splash themselves. Many were so dehydrated that they scooped the salt water into their mouths.
When they came out Bridget renewed his pleading for drinking water. An Army Captain of Engineers from Hope, Ark., lost his head, dashed out into the water, drinking it like mad. The Japanese raised their guns to fire but he was pulled out in time.
Finally the Japanese issued water: One canteen cup for 20 men. It worked out to four tablespoonfuls for each thirsty mouth. But there was a rotation. After 90 minutes more in the sun you could have another four tablespoonfuls.
(Tomorrow: Life in a Floating Stable.)