Bataan Survivor by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780826273598
Publisher: University of Missouri Press

CHAPTER 13

Final Days at Dapecol

We had been returned from penance only a few months when a detail of about 11 men working in the edge of the jungle cutting fence posts became irked with the sentry. Ever since the McCoy-Mellnik escape, the Japs made our officers and men go to work barefooted or in wooden chinelas (sandals). They had the rifles and bayonets, the shoes and clothes and were well fed, but felt unable to guard a handful of ragged and half-starved Americans if equipped in shoes and rags, so off came the shoes. It was not uncommon to see details go out or come in with men and officers’ feet bleeding. The sick call was always full of men with bleeding and ulcered feet. Our resistance was so low that the least scratch on the feet, despite careful nursing, produced ulcers. The Japs later consented to some of the harder details wearing shoes.

When Lieutenant Watson of Siloam, near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who worked on this post cutting detail became irritated with the sentry, he was cautioned by Captain Wohlfeld, an officer on my old regiment, to take care as all the men on the detail did not have on shoes. Watson was quick-tempered and hot headed so all the members of the detail wore shoes from then on. A few days later some irritating situation came up. Watson felt that the Jap sentry was picking on him, and he struck the sentry dead with his shovel while they were resting in the edge of a jungle. Wohlfeld struck the other sentry but not hard enough to kill him. The wounded sentry gave the alarm. The detail leader called for all to come out of the edge of the jungle with their hands above their heads. He and three others did so and were kept in the Jap guardhouse until the investigation was over.1

A clash followed. Warrant Officer Boone of the navy was killed, but the other six men made good their escape. It seemed a pity that an old man like Boone, with about 30 years service and probably no intention of making an escape should be caught and killed in such a trap, but such is the fate of prisoners of war. The Japs sounded the alarm, called in all work details, and kept us locked up for three or four days until the search was made. At retreat that night, Mr. Wada made a statement to us that the prisoners had been surrounded, one had been killed, and all would be captured or killed in the next 48 hours.2

It seemed so ridiculous that 200 well-equipped and armed Japanese could not close right in on a half dozen unarmed, nearly naked, starved prisoners. We held our peace, except for Major Harrison who sounded off, “Do you expect us to believe that?” The situation was very tense, and we expected trouble from Harrison’s remark, but the interpreter pretended not to hear it. Mr. Wada had his faults, but this was not one of them.

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