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

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

Another enlisted man remembered Devereux as saying that “he only wanted the good marines, the people that behaved like marines, and he was going to bring them back—even if he sacrificed the other half.” The major let it be known that he was keeping a list of insubordinate and disobedient men who would be court-martialed on their return home. Eventually, that list grew to a hundred names. The threat of court-martial turned out to be a bluff, but it gave Devereux an extra tool for preserving discipline and unit identity.

The two senior noncommissioned officers at Shanghai, Gunners Clarence B. McKinstry from Wake and William A. Lee from North China, judged and set punishments for POWs accused of minor offenses. McKinstry and Lee sentenced two inmates caught stealing to have their buttocks marked with the letter “T” in silver nitrate and paddled through camp. “The men were taken to each barracks,” related Pfc. Chester M. Biggs Jr., “where two swats were administered to each man’s buttocks with a large wooden paddle. This punishment was harsh but necessary, and it was effective. Theft nearly ceased.”

Japanese propaganda photograph

High recruiting standards, a luxury the Marine Corps could afford because of its relative smallness, provided marine drill instructors with young men who flourished under high training standards. In boot camp and afterwards, marine training stressed pride, aggressiveness, physical fitness, military bearing, personal hygiene, group sanitation, teamwork—and most important of all, the obligation to look out for one’s fellow marines. “Marines don’t surrender!” drill instructors would scream over and over. “Marines bring out their wounded! Marines don’t desert their buddies!”

During the Bataan Death March, long-service marines warned their juniors against drinking unsterilized water. Whenever the old hands came across water in the ruts and carabao wallows lining their route, they first purified it with iodine that they had secreted on their persons prior to the surrender. In prison camp, enlisted marines acted on their own initiative to establish “buddy systems,” which measurably improved their survival prospects. If a marine fell ill, sustained a serious injury, or pulled a stint in solitary confinement without food, his buddies often pooled small amounts of their own rations to sneak him double portions. These voluntary assessments kept up until the man in question was out of trouble. Several marines risked beatings and even death to steal food from the Japanese for ailing comrades.

Cpl. Henry L. Durrwachter, who was also captured on Wake Island, testified to the power of even the smallest supportive gesture in this entry from his secret diary: “Yesterday was my birthday and believe it or not I had a party. There wasn’t much to it as we only had bread and sugar to eat for cake. I thought it was swell of the fellows to remember. They gave me a couple of packs of cigarettes and a ring made out of a quarter. It made me feel fine to think I had friends like that.”

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

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