- Military - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- [Photographs of Bruce STEWART and Herbert DURNER]
-
- Death march: 10 days of hell
- No other group of Janesville military men has been more publicized
than Company A of the 192nd
- Tank Battalion during World War II.
- The group of 99 Janesville men served with the battalion
in the Philippines. Luzon Island, where
- the men were stationed, was attacked by the Japanese shortly
after Pearl Harbor was bombed. The battalion was forced to surrender
and then march 75 miles to a prisoner of war camp where they
were to spend the next three years. By the end of the war, 64
of the 99 men had died.
- Three of the men, Herbert DURNER, Forrest KNOX
and Robert STEWART told of their
- experience to WCLO's Ken REGEZ.
- Company A was sent to Fort Knox, Ky., in November 1940 to
train. In August 1941 the 192nd
- was moved to Louisiana for war games.
- Although many of the men learned through various channels
that they were to be sent to the
- Philippines, Herbert DURNER recalls that the Army
"didn't want to tell us where we were going."
- The 192nd, including Company A, left from San Francisco to
the Philippines on Oct. 27, 1941.
- The men did not know what to expect in the Philippines. "I
didn't foresee any rough times, but I
- didn't think it would be a piece of cake, either," said
DURNER.
- Others, like Robert STEWART, were more optimistic.
On the way to the Philippines,
- STEWART read an article about the Japanese. According
to the author of the article, Japan would never start a war with
the United States. "I thought this is the greatest vacation
I'll ever have," STEWART said.
- The vacation quickly turned into a nightmare. Days after
arriving at Fort Stotsenburg on Luzon
- Island, Pearl Harbor was attacked.
- STEWART remembers hearing the news. "Our commander
called us together before breakfast
- and said he had heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
He said, 'we will schedule noon lunch a half hour early. You
can expect to be bombed here at Clark Field at noon.'"
- At noon, nearby Clark Field was attacked by 54 Japanese bombers.
- The battalion quickly tried to prepare. Many of the guns
were still packed away, the men said.
- The battalion was to follow "Plan Orange" - they
were to go to the beaches and stall Japanese
- landings. If need be, they were to retreat to Bataan.
- The fighting never seemed to let up. "We were in one
battle," said DURNER. "It started Dec. 7
- and went until we surrendered. There was no way to get away
from it."
- Forrest KNOX remembers that many of the men were not
able to cope with the constant attacks.
- On April 7, 1942, after four months of fighting off the Japanese,
the United States and Philippine
- forces surrendered. The men remember being run down from
the fighting and the heat. "Mentally and physically, everybody
was partially run down because there was no relief; we couldn't
get away from the situation," DURNER said.
- DURNER is quick to point out that the men themselves
did not surrender. "The personnel did not
- surrender. The fighting personnel were surrendered,"
he said. "We followed orders right until the last, until
they told us to put our arms down. No man that I know of ever
surrendered."
- The captured troops were taken to Mariveles on the Bataan
peninsula, where they started the long
- march north to Camp O'Donnell, a temporary prisoner of war
camp.
- The 75-mile march took most of the prisoners about 10 days.
About 7,000 to 10,000 men died
- on the forced march; only one of those men was from Company
A.
- The men remembered the brutality of their guards. "If
they saw someone out of line, they would
- either bayonet him or shoot him," DURNER said.
- The men all devised tricks to protect themselves. The Japanese
seemed to be harder on the com-
- bat troops (like tank soldiers) than on other military personnel.
"I learned real fast that I was a cook," KNOX
said. KNOX tried to stay in the middle of the group of
men so it would be harder for the guards to attack him.
- Food and water were extremely scarce. "For me, it was
10 days I didn't eat," KNOX said.
- "The savage part of the march was that there was plenty
of water. There was an abundance of
- wells, but it was Japanese orders that no one would break
rank to get water," STEWART said.
- "I didn't think there were enough personnel to guard
us if we went for water," DURNER said.
- So the men were forced to drink out of pools of scummy water.
This caused dysentery in many
- men. "They say 1,000 Americans died on the march. But
every man that died at Camp O'Donnell of dysentery was a victim
of the death march," KNOX said.
- "I had expected to be treated the way the United States
would treat its prisoners - but that was a
- fallacy," STEWART said.
- Things only got worse. The men arrived at Camp O'Donnell
which was a holding pen until a
- permanent camp, Camp Cabanatuan, could be set up.
- "I thought the death march was one thing, but Camp O'Donnell
was something else - it was the
- pits," STEWART said.
- All three men remember their "welcome" speech to
the camp by a Japanese officer. "The guy was
- red-faced and screaming. He said, 'You think you are the
lucky ones, but your friends who died on Bataan are the lucky
ones,'" DURNER said. "He worked himself into
a regular frenzy. If you could put it on now, it would be a huge
comedy - but I didn't see anyone laughing then."
- Water remained the major problem. According to STEWART,
the whole United States side of
- the camp had only one water faucet (for about 11,000 men).
They would often wait hours to use it. The kitchen also used
the same faucet.
- STEWART was put on the burial detail. He helped in
digging the mass graves for the many
- POWs who died daily.
- "Twenty-four hours a day that line never stopped carrying
guys to the cemetery," KNOX said.
- "They made their point every day that we were dirt and
nobody cared if we lived or died." 40,000 Filipinos died
at Camp O'Donnell.
- The POWs remained at Camp O'Donnell for about one month and
then were transferred to
- Cabanatuan.
- The prisoners said that sanitary conditions were better at
the new camp and there was a water
- system.
- By this time, the Japanese were realizing that the prisoners
could be put to use.
- "They had found out by this time that they could use
the prisoners for the war effort," STEWART
- said.
- "As long as we were alive and able to move, they could
beat some work out of us," KNOX said.
- Cabanatuan served as a "clearinghouse," where prisoners
would be taken to work sites on the
- island. Work details away from the camp often lasted three
to four months, the men said.
- As the war progressed and the United States started winning,
the prisoners were moved toward,
- and finally to, Japan.
- The transfer of POWs to Japan proved to be a harrowing experience
for the prisoners. They were
- put on "hell ship," where many more prisoners died.
- "One reason they were called 'hell ships' is because
they were so hot," STEWART said. "It was
- like a pressure cooker."
- Some of the trips to Japan took little time, while others
took more than a month. Many prisoners
- died from lack of medical attention. "If you became
sick on the ship, you didn't make it," DURNER said.
- Finally in August 1945 the war ended. STEWART remembers
the camp commander giving a
- speech to the prisoners. "When the speech was over,
all the guards had disappeared," he said. "We knew
then that we must have won."
- For the survivors of the death march and prison camps, these
memories will linger forever.
- "I was so mad when we had to surrender. I said I was
going to live through it just to spite them
- (the Japanese)," DURNER said. "I guess I
spited them. But it was a hell of a job sometimes to do that."
- KNOX recalls an incident in a veteran's hospital many
years after the war.
- "A nurse came in at 3 a.m. to take my blood pressure,"
he said.
- "I said, 'It's going to be way up. I'm having nightmares.'
- "She said, 'What's causing the nightmares?'
- "I said I was a prisoner of war of the Japanese in the
Far East.
- "She said, 'Yeah, but that was a long time ago.'
- "I said, 'I got a long memory.'"
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