This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Lawrence Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/hkB.2ACE/5611 Message Board Post: Rockdale Reporter, Thur., 14 Nov 2002 "Bataan: to hell and back" = = = = = Editor’s note: Bataan Death March survivor Wayne Lawrence, 84, of the Tracy community has previously declined to be interviewed through the years as The Reporter has presented Veterans Day features. However, at the urging of his family, he compiled this account which he has appropriately titled "Bataan: t o hell and back." It is presented here in honor of all veterans. By Wayne Lawrence, World War II Veteran = = = = = On Dec. 8, 1941, I was stationed at Clark Field in the Philippines. On that day the Japanese flew in and started bombing about 12-noon. It was the same day they bombed Pearl Harbor. (West of the International Date Line, it was the same day as Dec 7 at Pearl Harbor, half an ocean away–ed). We were already out on field maneuvers and had our guns set up. We had not yet heard about Pearl Harbor. We heard the roar of the planes and could see 54 high-flying bombers coming in. We did not know who they were. The planes were white and some of the men thought they were our Navy planes. It wasn’t long before we heard the bombs falling. We started firing back without any orders but the planes were up much higher than our guns could reach. As soon as they went by a group of dive bombers went by and were followed by a group of planes with machine guns. They just about knocked out all of Clark Field. There were quite a few people killed and I think only about two planes were left. Clark Field was the only Army bomber base on the island of Luzon. SURRENDER After that, we withdrew further down the Bataan peninsula and set up our guns in a banana orchard and stayed there until April 8, 1942. As time went by we began to run out of food. First we ate the water buffalo, then we ate what horses and mules were left from the cavalry. We also ate some monkeys and bananas. On April 8, the Japanese broke through the front lines and we were told to destroy our guns and we were turned into infantry to make a second line of defense. We were loaded on trucks and moved farther down the island. We were put out that night and told to start digging in. Well, we had nothing to dig with and it was the dry season. The next morning no one had a hole even deep enough to cover his feet. About noon the next day we got word to come up on the hill behind us, that we had been surrendered. We lay down our arms. The first thing the Japanese did was line us up and move their big gun behind us and started shooting at the (rock fortress of) Corregidor. I guess they thought Corregidor would not shoot back with us behind them but it wasn’t long until it did. When the shells started exploding right on top of us we started running but we didn’t have far to go. The ocean was right in front of us. So after that they rounded us up and that night we started on the Death March. By then we were already pretty weak from lack of food and medication. It was the dry and hot time of year over there and we got only a very small amount of rice to eat and it was even harder to get any water. The best I can remember it took us 10 to 12 days to get through the march. I think it was about 60 to 90 miles, depending where you started. It was estimated about 3,000 were killed on the march and 2,000 more were buried at Camp O’Donnell as a result of the march. If a prisoner fell down and was unable to get back up he was killed by getting his head caved in or bayoneted or shot. They left none behind that were alive. ‘JUST SKIN’ After we got to Camp O’Donnell everyone took dysentery, malaria and beriberi. Men were dying at a rate of about 50 a day. We had to bury the dead. At first we buried them in single graves but they started dying so fast and the ground was so hard and dry that we started digging a shallow grave and putting 10 men in crossways and covering them up with a small amount of dirt. The next day, when we would take more men to be buried you could see dogs eating on some of them where the dogs had scratched off the loose, dry dirt. We couldn’t keep up with burying the dead so some had to lay out in the hot sun several days and, when you would go to pick them up their skin would just slide off and all you would have is a handful of skin. There were a few who would try to escape but they were caught and were put before a firing squad. They made us watch while the prisoner was shot. After that we were put in groups of 10 and given a number. We were told if one of the 10 tried to escape all 10 would be shot. That made us watch one another real good. We were fed one cup of rice a day and given very little water. We ate anything we could get. Our toilet was a trench dug in the ground and it wasn’t long before it was full of little green frogs. We would catch and eat them. Those little green frogs probably saved our lives. We were kept in barbed wire pens. Sides of the pens were almost 15 feet tall. We slept on the ground. We had only pants to wear, no shirt or shoes. It would be almost three years before I had a pair of shoes on my feet. HUNGER As soon as we got some strength back they took us to our work in the rock quarry. They gave us a pick and we broke rocks all day. We would go back to camp about sundown, get a cup of rice and then we would sit and talk about food until we went to sleep. The next day we would do the same thing. It continued this way for the rest of my stay in the Philippines. If there is one thing I learned while being in prison camp, it is that you never get used to being hungry. >From the first day to the last we were talking about food. About a year before the war was over I was shipped to Japan. We were taken to a big room down in the ship. The first line of men were put with their backs against the wall and the next line of men were put with their backs against the first line of men. They entombed 1,050 of us this way. We had to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom in the same spot. I think we stayed that way for about 8 to 10 days and nights. No one thought we would make it and I still do not know how we did. Some died and some went crazy. There was another ship of prisoners loaded the same as our ship that started behind us the next day. An American ship sank it as they had no way of knowing the ship was carrying American POWs. After we got to Japan, I fared a little better. The treatment was the same but I was put in a work group to clean up the engine rooms of wrecked ships and some of the Japanese would eat their dinner on the ship. After they ate they would dump their plate in the garbage can and, if the guard would leave for a few minutes, we would run to the garbage can and start eating the food they had dumped there. It was half rice and the other half was fish bones and cigarette butts but it sure tasted good to us. I got to weigh myself once in Japan and I weighed 90 pounds. At the beginning of the war I had weighed 186. BIRTHDAY After 1,250 days of being a POW, a Japanese general came in and told us we did not have to work that day, that Japan and the United States had made friends. Three days previously, Emperor Hirohito had announced that Japan had accepted terms of surrender. I did not know what year or day it was but it turned out to be Aug. 17, 1945. It was my 27th birthday. After that, we stayed about 30 more days before anyone came to get us. We were all right because U. S. planes came over and dropped a lot of food. I heard there were supposedly one out of three of us living at the end of the war.