How Marine POWs Hung Tough
By Gregory J. W. Urwin

World War II  | 3 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

POWs at Fengtai, China

“The Marine Corps had a lot of discipline,” agreed Onnie Clem, a corporal in Hawkins’s regiment. “We followed orders and instructions from our officers. There wasn’t anybody who fussed with what the officers told them to do.”

It would be tempting to dismiss the claims of Hawkins and Clem as so much marine chest-thumping. But their testimony is borne out by many other anecdotal accounts—and the testimony of disinterested sources. Lt. Samuel C. Grashio, an army pursuit pilot who escaped with Hawkins from Davao Penal Colony in 1943, readily conceded, “As a group, the marines stood up better than most others under the burdens, humiliations, deprivations, and temptations of camp life.”

What happened at Cabanatuan, a large POW camp complex in the Philippines, was a striking illustration of marine determination. Cabanatuan was one of the most deplorable POW facilities in the Philippines, with an inmate population that had been decimated by more than two thousand deaths from June to October 1942. Deprived of leadership and inspiration, American soldiers turned on each other. The strong preyed on the weak, stealing the rations of those too sick to prevent it. Second Lt. Charles W. Burris, a fighter pilot with the U.S. Army Air Forces, witnessed unbelievable callousness at Cabanatuan: “That was one place where I learned that a human being is a marauder. You couldn’t keep food around because they’d steal it. They didn’t mind seeing a guy die. They just wanted his food. Everybody was concerned about themselves.”

In late October 1942, Lt. Col. Curtis Beecher of the 4th Marines was transferred to Cabanatuan No. 1. Beecher took one look at the overflowing latrines and the mud-choked paths linking the barracks and sprang into action. He organized clean-up, maintenance, and sanitary squads to install dry walkways, dig deeper drainage ditches, and increase the number of latrines.

It took a while, but Beecher’s efforts bore unmistakable fruit. Cabanatuan experienced its first day without a POW death on January 18, 1943. By February, the camp death rate had shrunk to ten men per month. On June 21, 1943, Capt. William H. Owen Jr. of the Army Coast Artillery pulled out his secret diary to praise Colonel Beecher and his marine staff for their “high sense of duty and long hours of work.”

Whenever the Japanese permitted them the slightest freedom of action, marine officers would assume control of the interior management of their camps, reestablishing order and directing their subordinates to work for group survival. At Shanghai War Prisoner Camp, the marines certainly benefited from the vastly superior treatment and climate enjoyed in that camp, but even there, the officers’ adamant insistence on maintaining discipline saved many lives within the ranks. Col. W. W. Ashurst of the North China marines ranked as the senior POW officer, but arthritis and a heart condition rendered the forty-eight-year-old Ashurst too sickly for active leadership. He had the good judgment to delegate much of his authority to his executive officer, Maj. Luther A. Brown.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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