MH: How did you survive?

Gordon: Words cannot really describe those days or the thousands of individual horrors. Suffice it to say, I went nine days without food and with very little water. My training as an infantryman paid off. I conserved water in my canteen by taking a sip, swishing it around in my mouth and letting a little drip down my throat. I would do this until I reached the next potable water spot. Others, untrained and dying for water, would prostrate themselves along the side of the road and drink water from puddles. All this water was contaminated with flies and fly feces and brought on death from dysentery. Thousands of Filipinos and several hundred Americans died this way. The Japanese beat any who attempted to break ranks and obtain water, killing a number of them in the process. Japanese tanks, moving south to take up positions to attack Corregidor as we marched north, would deliberately drive over the dead and dying on the side of the road.

MH: Did you and your colleagues try to help one another get through the march?

Gordon: No. There was a complete lack of assistance on the part of our fellow Americans. I did not witness a single act of kindness. The desire to survive overcame any idea of helping one another. I was a stretcher-bearer for a wounded officer, having volunteered to do so–out of sense of duty and responsibility. After one complete day of carrying the man, we could not get another four volunteers to relieve us, despite what amounted to begging on our part. That night, when compelled to stop, we left the officer to himself. He was later seen by a friend begging for help along the way. Even fellow officers who had originally carried him deserted him. I believe a lack of discipline led to this horrific situation. Most of our American soldiers had recently arrived in the Philippines, and very few had the discipline necessary for this.

MH: What was it like after you had completed the march?

Gordon: The train ride to Capas was another horrific experience, as men were jammed into each boxcar and the doors closed tightly. Men died standing up. One of our guards did open the door to let a little air in during the slow ride. Filipinos attempted to throw food into the car when it slowed down. Those standing in the doorway caught the food and ate all they could catch–nothing was passed back to anyone. Another instance of every man for himself. Arriving in Capas, we unloaded seven dead men from my car and proceeded to march another 10 kilometers to Camp O’Donnell.

MH: After having survived the Death March, how did you end up in Japan?

Gordon: Our first extended stop was in Camp O’Donnell, and it was there that I almost died from malaria. A buddy of mine, Fred Pavia of New Jersey, stole some quinine and saved my life, only to succumb to malaria and die himself three weeks later. My next ‘home’ was Camp Cabanatuan, where I was placed on the grave-digging detail. The guards at Cabanatuan placed the head of a soldier who attempted to escape on a 20-foot pole, which they marched down the center of the camp as a warning. Soon after this grim reminder, we prisoners were placed in groups of 10. If one man escaped, the remaining nine in his group were shot. My malaria returned at Cabanatuan, and I became so ill that an American doctor recommended I volunteer for a work party going to Japan. On his recommendation, I was moved to Bilibid Civil Prison in Manila on October 31, 1942, awaiting shipment to Japan. Housed in this prison was a complete dental unit that had been captured on Corregidor. Imagine, Army and Navy dentists, with all their equipment–including dental chairs–and clean starched uniforms! For a while we actually imagined we were back home in a dental clinic. Prisoners being moved to Japan were offered the chance to have their teeth checked. For me that meant a half-hour in a chair while two teeth were pulled and one was filled. In my three years in Japan, I never had a toothache.

MH: What was the voyage to Japan like?

Gordon: My ship, Nagato Maru, sailed on November 7, 1942. I was three decks below, in the pitch-black hold of the ship. For 20 days we suffered with no toilet facilities, save for five-gallon buckets that they would pass down to us every four or five hours. We were given rice and fish for the first few days and then just rice. Water was passed down in five-gallon drums once a day. Thirteen men died during that voyage. Just outside Manila we were attacked by a submarine. The Japanese took the few life preservers left in the hold and put them on

boxes containing the ashes of their own dead. We survived the attack, but by this time many were hoping a torpedo would have hit us.

MH: What awaited you in Japan?

Gordon: My new home was Mitsushima, a village in the town of Hiraoka, where I would spend the next three years–three years of misery, freezing every winter. We had no heat and scarce rations. We were employed as slave laborers, building a hydroelectric power dam, which is still in use today. Eventually, I was placed in charge of a 40-man work detail for a civilian contractor handling cement for the dam and was held responsible in every way for their actions. On one occasion a number of the men refused to do some extra work. We were all taken into the camp and forced to stand at attention until the main body of the prisoners returned. Then we were beaten in front of the inmates. I was placed in solitary confinement for three days and two nights because of my men’s refusal to work.

MH: Can you describe your feelings when you were released?

Gordon: I was returned to American military control on September 4, 1945, after more than 3 1/2 years of captivity. We were taken to Arai, a town on the Japanese coast. There we were met by U.S. Navy personnel wearing strange-looking helmets and carrying strange-looking weapons, which turned out to be M1 carbines. Placed in landing ships, we saw the American flag for the first time in more than three years. It was at that moment that I realized how much my country meant to me. We had placed our faith in our country, and our country had kept that faith by bringing us home. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the boat after seeing the Stars and Stripes. From that moment on, I was on a high and did not come down for a year.

MH: Corregidor has sometimes been associated with the Bataan Death March, but you have said that that is not true. How so?

Gordon: In 1982, a joint resolution of Congress honored the men of Bataan and Corregidor who made the Death March, but Congress was unaware that Corregidor had not surrendered until May 6, by which time the Death March was over. Nobody in its garrison participated in that march. For the past 40-odd years, many have assumed Bataan, Corregidor and the Death March to be interrelated. In fact, Corregidor had no connection with the Death March whatsoever.

MH: Any final comments on your experience?

Gordon: No one knows what freedom means until one loses it. Most Americans take it for granted, forgetting that thousands and thousands of their fellow Americans died to give them that freedom. We in Bataan paid our price for our country’s freedom, and most of us would do it all over again if we had to. Many returned sick and died shortly after the war. Many, even today, are seeking something from their country to ‘pay’ for their suffering. They, too, have forgotten that freedom is not free. For my part, I was a Regular Army soldier. I enlisted. I asked for the Philippines. Everything that happened was of my doing. I have no regrets, and my country does not owe me anything.

Each April, the Annual Memorial Bataan Death March is held in White Sands, N.M. Individuals from all over the world march for 25 miles in the White Sands Desert to honor the memory of Bataan’s defenders.

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This article was written by John P. Cervone and originally published in the December ‘99 issue of Military History magazine. Sergeant John P. Cervone is a a charter member of the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society, an organization dedicated to the troops who fought in the Philippines during WWII. For further reading, try: Give Us This Day, by Sidney Stewart; and Surviving Bataan and Beyond: Colonel Irwin Alexander’s Odyssey as a Japanese Prisoner of War, edited by Dominic J. Caraccilo.For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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