|
|
How Marine POWs Hung ToughBy Gregory J. W. Urwin | World War II | Single Page | 10 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post  Live-fire training, Quantico, Virginia Subscribe Today
How Marine POWs Hung ToughThe American and Filipino forces that defended the Bataan Peninsula from January to April 1942 fought on desperately short rations. Within two months, Americans who had weighed 175 to 200 pounds had been reduced to walking skeletons of 135 to 145 pounds. Thousands contracted malaria and dysentery. Surrender on April 9, 1942, brought the exhausted American and Filipino troops no relief. Instead, the Japanese subjected their prisoners to the infamous Bataan Death March, forcing them to walk up to 140 miles without adequate food or water to a railroad station just off the peninsula. An estimated 10,650 POWs died on this hellish trek, many of them murdered when they could no longer stay on their feet or keep up with the others. Of the Death March victims, 650 were American. On their arrival at Camp O'Donnell, most of the survivors plunged into despair. Reflecting on the horrors he witnessed at the POW enclosures in the Philippines, 1st Lt. Jack Hawkins of the 4th Marines wrote in his 1961 memoir Never Say Die, "There were many indeed who became so demoralized that they abandoned every tenet of personal integrity, honor, loyalty, and the accepted standards of human behavior. These sank to the level of animals or worse. There was a selfish, dog-eat-dog, every man for himself attitude among the prisoners and little group spirit. Discipline generally collapsed at the time of surrender. Many of the men would no longer obey the orders of their officers. Many of the officers, on the other hand, abandoned all responsibility to take care of the men. Military organizations fell apart, and were further broken up by the Japanese in a well-calculated effort to destroy group cohesion and convert the prisoners into an easily dominated, amorphous mass." Maj. Alva R. Fitch, an army artilleryman, described the dismal atmosphere that prevailed at Camp O'Donnell: "I have seen men try to go from barracks to the latrine who were too weak to walk and would fall down in the mud and rain, unable to rise—their friends, officers, or enlisted men, would sit in the barracks sheltered from the rain and look at them without moving to help them. I have seen men, not one but fifty or more at a time, lying in their own feces too weak to move and no one to move them." Col. J. V. Collier, a senior army staff officer at O'Donnell, also portrayed the camp as a place devoid of discipline and decency: "Food and water details were not supervised. Thirst crazed men were drinking the stream water. Food was not equally distributed to messes and it looked as tho the main officer's mess was never the loser. Care of the sick was haphazard if at all. Men were found dead who had apparently died alone and unnoticed until the odor called attention to the decaying body." Some 17,600 Bataan survivors—1,600 of them American—perished at O'Donnell in the first seven weeks of captivity. But one group stood out through all of these hellish ordeals. Not one of the 650 Americans who died on the Death March was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. Of the American POWs on the Philippines, U.S. Army POWs experienced a death rate of 42.6 percent for the entire war, while the marines had a death rate of 31.8 percent. For the Pacific theater as a whole, the marine POW death rate was half that of the army's: 22.8 percent vs. 40.4 percent. Some of these differences, to be sure, reflected lucky breaks. Marines taken prisoner in North China and Wake Island were mostly held in Shanghai, which had a healthy climate compared to the disease-ridden tropics. Cosmopolitan Shanghai also had a large international settlement housing thousands of affluent Westerners who were willing to send the POWs cash, extra food, clothing, sports equipment, and a 3,000-volume library. Neutral Switzerland maintained a consulate general in the city, and its staff exerted tactful pressure on the Japanese to improve camp conditions. Shanghai was also one of only three urban centers behind Japanese lines where the International Committee of the Red Cross received permission to operate. Shanghai's ICRC delegate, a Swiss national named Edouard Egle, sent the POWs extra food, clothing, and recreational gear. "If it had not been for the International Red Cross," acknowledged Pfc. Floyd H. Comfort of the Wake Island marine garrison, "I guess we all would have starved to death." Pages: 1 2 3 4 5Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
What is HistoryNet?The HistoryNet.com is brought to you by the Weider History Group, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. If you are interested in a specific history subject, try searching our archives, you are bound to find something to pique your interest. |
From Our Magazines
|
Weider History Group |
Weider History Network: HistoryNet | Armchair General | Great History | Achtung Panzer! Terms of Use | Copyright © 2009 Weider History Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. |
||
Loading ...
10 Comments to “How Marine POWs Hung Tough”
SEMPER FI, BROTHERS .
By otto11 on Jun 17, 2008 at 7:37 pm
What more is there to say?
The Few, The Proud, The Marines.
I hope my son grows up to be a Marine.
By Tim on Jun 27, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I want to thank all the amreicans at that time for their hardwork in liberating our
country…
By Unknown on Jul 1, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Thank GOD for our "Greatest" generation! My personal belief is that the entire generation was 10 times tougher than the present group of wusses that call themselves Americans. As far as the Mairines losing less men they are just some bad men………
By rsmith68 on Jan 3, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Just read ghost soldiers about the US prisoners liberated by the rangers on luzon.
What a shame macarthur vetoed a similar jailbreak for 2400 australian soldiers at sandakan,north borneo.
And shameful that we executed general homma but the man probably most responsible for the death march general tsuji escaped punsihment,later served in the parliament and was unrepentant about his crimes.
Shame macarthur,shame.
But a great book.
By humphrey on Jan 20, 2009 at 4:36 am
how didnt they survuve were they in the way
By domonique bazemore on Jan 27, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Read about the Marines who were sent to Mukden Manchuria. Arriving on Nov 11, 1942, these great American Heroes- Marines, AirCorps and Sailors stood in freezing weather in this infamous POW slave labor camp. A recently published story entitle Undaunted Valor details the horrendous activities of these abandoned and forgotten National Treasures. They survived the Death March, the slopes of Corregidor and Cabanatuan and O'Donnell. They survivied the Tottori Maru. Arrivivng in tattered threads from their worn uniforms, they were provided with Japanese summer uniforms where the thermometer seldom moved above minus 22 until March. They had to walk 6 miles in this tundra like weather. Performing slave labor tasks, they fought back the only way possible. Sabotague. In the summer of 43, they were relocated to the new camp in Mukden, (now the city of Shenyang. Two hundred of these heroes died during the first 90 days. In June of 43, three men, two Marines and one Sailor escaped and evaded capture for a couple of weeks. Betrayed by the Chinese, they were brought back to camp and executed in July 43. The men continued their frugal existence. Most weighed below 100 – but didnt realize how bad they looked – why- they all appeared the same.
On Dec 7, 1944, American B29's bombed the camp and killed 19 men and wounding 54. Bob Brown an Air Corp PFC and medic helped save the lives of those wounded in this tragic error. ByJan 45, the war in Europe was coming to a conclusion, and FDR allowed the3 Russians to sing treaties that would enable them to declare war against the Japanese. By May of 45,with the war over, our focus was back in the Pacific. This area abandoned initially by Marshall and FDR was now the last bastion againt fascism. In May, Gen wainright and other senior officers were in the Mukden area camps. Early that month, most of the seniors were sent to the main amp in Mukden and in August, the OSS team Cardinal was assigned to parachute into the camp area and liberate these men. Hours from execution, their lives were saved on the 16th of Aug and on Aug 20, 1945, the men were freed by the Russian Army. Over the next few weeks, the camp survivors were on their way home. Marines like Roy Weaver, Glenn Stewart had survived. tragically on the way home, SGt Wm Frisier 4th Marines was killed when his ship hit a Japanese mine.
These men have never told their story until the narrative Undaunted Valor was published this past Sept 08.
These men although surrendered and captured were never defeated,. Many returned to serve in Korea and a few in Viet Nam. Today, they meet annually as the Mukden Survivors and Edescendants Group. They along with their fellow service men and woman changed the course of the war. They had given our nation the time to keep the enemy from invading Austraila and allowed MacArthur and our country to reinforce Australia. Most importantly halted the Japanese advance. Yes, they had been surrendered by their officers, but had stopped the Japanese in the Philippines. They were invaded hours after Pearl Harbor- but no one celebrates nor commemorates their great courage and sacrifice.
God Bless these great American Heroes-
By Shelly Zimbler on Jan 29, 2009 at 4:52 pm
thank you allyou brave men. thanks to you i live in freedom today.
By mike cox on Apr 13, 2009 at 4:28 pm
"Not one of the 650 Americans who died on the Death March was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps." Need I say more?
By Matthew Harper on Apr 24, 2009 at 3:52 pm
All the best from the son of Captive 1210
By Maurice A Christie on Oct 2, 2009 at 4:11 pm