|
World War
ll Experience of
L. B.
Preslar of the U.S.M.C.
On December 8,
1941, the day after World War ll began for
the United States, we, the U.S. 4th
Marines, arrived on Bataan in the
Philippines at noon from Shanghai, China. I
had just completed 2 years duty in China.
The next 5 months we were pounded by
superior Japanese forces. Since the U.S.
Battle Fleet was destroyed at Pearl Harbor,
we never received any help or supplies of
any kind from the United States.
Finally on May 6th,
1942, in the face of overwhelming numbers of
Japanese landing forces, starvation,
shortage of water, and 5 months of constant
air and artillery siege, all U.S. forces
were ordered to surrender by General
Wainwright. From December 7th,
1941 to May 6th, 1942 we lost 62%
of our men including our Company Commander,
Captain Lang.
We were starving for water
and food for 5 months, almost ½ a year and
we had already became almost walking
skeletons even before we were finally forced
to surrender or all would die for sure!
During the following 40 months, I was a
prisoner of war of the Japanese Military
Forces. Since the Japanese had never lost a
war, they were extremely aggressive and
brutal. As soon as we faced our first Japs
after our surrender, we were each searched
and asked if we were a machine gunner. If
you answered yes – your hands were tied
behind your back and bayoneted to death!
Soon word spread somehow to deny you were a
machine gunner. Watches and rings were
immediately confiscated of course. If you
had any Jap invasion money, you had better
not get caught with it or you would be
executed. The reason being that if you had
Jap money, you had killed a Jap to get it!
During the first 10 days of
our captivity we were not furnished any food
what so ever! The Japs knew we had a little
food here and there and that if we formed
groups of 8 and divided our food as a family
we could barely survive until it was all
gone. For about 12,000 men on Corregidor
where we were captured, there was one water
well with one rope and one bucket about 8
inches in diameter for all 12,000 captives
that were herded onto about 3 acres of
concrete. In order to survive, we had 2 men
of our group in the water line constantly.
The line was so long that at first you may
not get to the well in time that day because
the Japs closed the well at dark until
daylight the next day. Our group of men came
back the first day with no water.
The Japs would not allow us
to stay in line all night for our spot
because the well was too far from the main
group of 12,000 captives. Only at daylight
would they, on a signal, allow a new line
for the new day to form. Hundreds of
captives received beatings for not forming
the line in an orderly manner! Many bones
were broken, especially arms and upper
extremities with the beatings. The second
day our water men got one gallon of water
but we barely made it and cooked a pot of
rice and beans. Soon into the future we
would never see a luxury like beans again!
The day after our surrender,
12,000 American prisoners were addressed by
the Jap Commander of the landing forces, who
told us that, “If I had my way, you would
all be executed today. I am a military
officer and I must obey orders from my
superior, the Emperor of Japan, who has
decreed that your lives are to be spared as
long as you obey all orders. Japan did not
sign the Geneva Accords concerning prisoners
of war; therefore you are not considered
prisoners of war, but merely, battlefield
captives. You have no rights at all.”
Three and one-half years of
starvation, slave labor, beatings, and other
forms of torture followed. We were fed only
the tiniest amounts of rice daily. When
clothes wore out, they were not replaced.
Most of us were in rags and without shoes.
My normal weight was 205 lbs. and I was 6
ft. tall. I spent my entire 3 ½ years of
captivity weighing 75 to 85 lbs.
I was used for slave labor to
build an airfield carved out of the jungle,
giant trees and coral rock on Palawan Island
in the Philippines from September 1942 to
September 1944. The work was extremely hard,
with “Hurry” and “Speedo” constantly from
the Jap guards. Beatings and torture were
administered with extreme aggression and
satisfaction 24 hours a day! Cement ships
docked regularly for unloading and I was
always on the cement detail for two years.
The hold of the ship is where I was always
assigned, loading basket-weave sacks of dry
cement onto cargo nets to be lifted onto the
dock. The bags leaked cement dust profusely
and it became almost impossible to see or to
breathe. Since only a small detail of men
was assigned to this duty, unloading a ship
would require a week to ten days. After the
first year of breathing, eating, smelling
and stumbling through cement dust, I
contracted acute bronchitis and kept it
until 1980, when the bronchitis turned into
acute asthma.
The following diseases and
inhumane treatment occurred during my 40
months of captivity;
1.
Malnutrition
2. Beri Beri
3.
Bronchitis
4. Pneumonia
5. Vitamin
Deficiency
6. Chronic Dysentery
7.
Pellagra
8. Helminthiasis
9.
Neuritis
10. Neurosis
11. Pyorrhea (Lost all teeth)
12. Tropical Ulcers
13. Hearing Loss (Almost Deaf)
14. Malaria Fevers
15. Dengue Fevers
16. Extreme Dehydration
17. Body Lice
18. Body Fleas
19. No Medicine
20. No Medical Supplies
21. No Anesthesia for surgery
22. No soap or water for bathing
23. No
clothes
24. No mail from home
25. Beatings – Average 2 each month – 40 months =
80 beatings
26. Shell fragment right leg muscle- still
embedded
27. 100 % blackout of war and world news or information
for 40 months.
Some of my current symptoms
are; Asthma with unpredictable attacks, Pain
to lower extremities, Surprise falls,
Deafness, Indigestion, Heartburn,
Irritability, Night mares, Impaired memory,
Insomnia, Anxiety neurosis, Depression,
Social isolation, Restlessness and dislike
of crowds.
Back on the Palawan Island
airfield construction detail, when Italy
surrendered to allied forces in 1943, we
were promoted from Battlefield Captives to
P.O.W.'s. The Japs were mad because
Italy surrendered, so they gave beatings to
every P.O.W. with an Italian surname.
Some died from the beatings. We also lived
under Jap rules of ten man shooting squads!
All men were numbered in squads of ten. If
any one escaped and were not recovered in 5
days, the remaining members of the 10 were
executed by a Jap firing squad. If recovered
within 5 days, only the escapees were
executed by Samurai Sword beheading!
Three of our P.O.W.’s
became almost completely blind from
malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. Jap
guards were placed everywhere within our
living quarters especially on the trail to
the latrine. Jap rules require you to salute
the guard without fail every time you
approach him. Our blind guys were getting
beat up many times each day and night, so
finally we made signs, front and rear in
Japanese, which they wore at all times
declaring “I am blind”. Believe it or not,
it did not stop the beatings, but it helped
a little. Some of the guards didn’t believe
the signs, or didn’t give a damn!
The Japs favorite punishment
for stealing food or water was to tie the
victims hands around a tree and beat them
with green clubs the size of a baseball bat
until they were unconscious, pour a bucket
of cold water over their head and repeat the
procedure over and over until the victim was
finally unable to move at all. The victim
usually dies most likely from crushed
kidneys, shock and broken bones.
Some victims were required to
climb up a slick, metal flag pole and stay
up the pole indefinitely. When their arms,
hands and legs are numb and exhausted, they
would finally slide down the pole just to be
beaten repeatedly to force them back up the
pole. The final result was beatings until
there is no longer any movement. Some
recovered, some did not.
As of December 14th,
1944, 150 P.O.W.’s remained of the
original 300 construction P.O.W.’s
who had built the air field from scratch. As
the U.S. McArthur forces neared Palawan, the
Japs put 150 P.O.W.’s in small air
raid shelters with only one opening. The
Japs then set fire to the shelters using
aviation fuel. On fire and desperately in
pain, some attempted to run out and Jap
machine guns were ready to finish the job.
Some were also bayoneted while on fire.
Eleven P.O.W.’s miraculously escaped
to live somehow in the jungle for 2 ½ more
months until American Forces finally came to
Palawan.
It was not over for me yet.
Before the American troops reached Palawan,
I was put with another group of 750
P.O.W.’s that were being shipped to
Japan in unmarked non-military ships for
more slave labor.
As bad as these experiences
were, they dim in comparison to the horror
of our voyage from the Philippine Islands to
Japan aboard a Japanese Hell Ship. The hold
of the ship was heavy timbers and canvas
cable battened down. One 4 ft. X 4 ft.
square hole is all the air available. 40 of
the 50 days were in the tropics and we
constantly passed out from lack of oxygen.
No P.O.W. was ever allowed topside.
The trip lasted 50 days and we had standing
room only, with daytime temperatures in the
hold of 120 degrees. Of course no one can
stand for 50 days and nights so it became an
unbelievable mass of humans fighting each
other and in the total black of night, I
believe but cannot prove, killings for a
little more space were committed. Absolutely
no discipline whatsoever, every man for
himself!
A toilet facility for 750 men
in the hold of this Hell Ship was two
buckets on a rope let down from the deck
above. If you needed the bucket, your
chances of actually getting it were about
the same odds as winning the lottery! We
were given very little water or food and we
were under constant attack by U.S.
Submarines as well as attacks by U.S.
planes. Men went mad with brain fever.
Others, in their desperation for liquids,
made incisions in the man next to him and
drank his blood at night. Others urinated in
their canteens and drank it.
Every morning the Japs would
open the square above our heads and tell us
to shake the fellow next to us. If he were
dead, a rope was sent down, we would tie the
rope around him and the Japs would haul the
body out and dump it over the side of the
ship. Since nearly everyone suffered from
dysentery, the stench was overpowering.
Upon our arrival in Japan in
January, 1945, the temperature was 18
degrees and it was snowing. The Japs
unloaded us on the docks, where many of us,
including myself, had to crawl around for
awhile, learning to walk again. I was
wearing my only clothes, a pair of canvas
shorts I made myself, no shirt, no hat and
no shoes. While we waited half a day on the
dock to be issued Jap army clothes, the Japs
ordered us to strip and they burned our
P.O.W. clothes. As we waited, completely
naked in the 18 degree temperatures and
snow, I thought it was surely my last day on
this earth. I wanted to run and keep from
freezing, but I could barely walk. Somehow I
didn’t die and finally heard my name called.
I was issued a Jap army coat and pants. The
coat came just below my elbows and the pants
just below my knees on my six foot, 75 pound
skeleton frame. No shoes and no socks as
usual, never had any shoes the entire time
until the war was over and I got back with
the Americans.
Several days or a week or so
later (I really have trouble remembering how
long because I was so near death). They said
I had Pneumonia as did many other
P.O.W.’s off the Hell Ship from the
tropics. There was no heat in any buildings
in wartime Japan!
One of the hardest things to
bear during our captivity was not having any
news of what was going on in the war. We had
no idea how long we would be held or who was
winning the war. This made day-to-day life
even more difficult. As year after year
unfolded, and absolutely no signs of
American war planes in our area we were very
depressed and dumbfounded because we knew
America was very, very strong militarily by
now.
On the 50th
Anniversary of the end of World War ll, in
September of 1995, a few columnists and
other people who weren’t prisoners of war,
questioned whether it was necessary to drop
two atomic bombs on Japan. I can assure you,
had the bombs not been dropped, I would not
have been here to tell you this small part
of my story!
Blanket orders had already
been issued by the Emperor of Japan, that
the moment a U.S. invasion of Japan began,
ALL American and Allied prisoners would be
executed!
I thank God that I survived
World War ll, even though I can not claim
any heroic action. All I can claim is a lot
of suffering, physically and mentally, for
my country. I also thank God that the U.S.
and Allied forces rescued us at last.
 |
|
|
|
| Lyn
Preslar & John Taylor
Nov. 2005 |
|
|
|
|
