Shadows of Bataan

Shadows of Bataan

By

Benjamin F. Stakes

1950

Adaptation by

Jim Burkett

Smashwords Edition

Published by

Inknbeans Press

© 2013

Cover art: Jim Burkett

© 2013 Jim Burkett and Inknbeans Press

All rights reserved

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Editor’s Note: The events in this book are true, faithfully recorded by someone who lived through them. The opinions about people and events depicted in this book were common for the time and circumstances. As editor, I made the difficult decision to leave in comments and observations that would not be tolerated today; the only comments I chose to remove or soften were direct to or about children.

Table of Contents

Autobiography

Chapter One - To the Philippines

Chapter Two - Out of Bataan

Chapter Three - Camp O'Donnell

Chapter Four - Cabanatuan

Chapter Five - Life in Camp

Chapter Six - Japanese Administration

Chapter Seven - Bilibid Prison in Manila

Chapter Eight - Trip to Japan

Chapter Nine - Fukuoka

Chapter Ten - Jinsen

Chapter Eleven - Prospects of Liberation

Photos

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Autobiography: Benjamin F. Stakes

I was born in Norfolk, Virginia in April of 1905, son to John Wilbur Stakes and Florence Edna Stakes. My mother died in August of 1909 and my father passed in August of 1913.

I began my first year of school at Patrick Henry Grammar in September of 1911. On Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1913, both myself and my older brother, William Sylvester Stakes, were taken by my uncle, Joseph L. Little to the Masonic Home in Richmond, Virginia. There, I entered the third grade in the Home school. After graduating the Home school in June 1918, I attended Highland Springs High School from 1918 - 1922.

After graduating high school, I went on to attend the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia, from 1922 - 1926, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Diary Husbandry and as a Second Lieutenant, Infantry Reserve, USA.

My first job employed me as a Plant Superintendent and Plant Manager with Southern Dairies from June 6, 1926 to August 31, 1940. The day following, I began working for the Richmond Diary Company, in Richmond as Superintendent of Operations, leaving April 16, 1941. On that day, I entered the Army as Captain Infantry.

From this date until April 9, 1941, my career would see the following assignments:

April 16 - 30, 1941 - Fort Monroe, Virginia. From May 1 - October 28, 1941 with the 47th Infantry, 9th Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I would then spend the next three months as Company Commander, Company F, 47th Infantry.

On November 1, 1941, I sailed from San Francisco, California for duty with the Philippine Department, Manila, Philippine Islands, stopping in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 6, before continuing on. After arriving on November 20th, I served with the Motor Transport Services in Manila until January 1, 1942. In January, I was transferred to the Motor Transport Services in Bataan and served in that capacity until April 9th, 1942. It would be the last day of freedom I would know for the next several years.

I was taken prisoner on Bataan on April 10, 1942. For the next fourteen days, from April 10 through April 23rd, thousands of men would eventually participate in what has become known as the 'Bataan Death March' I as one of them. From April 23 to October 17, I was held as a prisoner of war at Camp O'Donnell. For the next twenty-six months following, I would also serve as a prisoner of war at Cabanatuan and Bilibid Prison in the Philippine Islands.

On the early morning of December 13, 1944, I was hastily boarded onto a Japanese ship Oryoku Maru, leaving from Pier 7, for Japan. On December 15, the ship would be bombed and sunk at Subik Bay. Those who survived would eventually re-embark on December 27th aboard the freighter Enoura Maru in San Fernando, La Union, P.I. On January 9, 1945, we were once again bombed in the area of Takao, Formosa, this time sustaining severe damage. For four days we waited until we were transferred to another freighter which finally arrived at Moji, Kyushu, Japan on January 30, 1945.

Upon arrival, we were transferred by train to the prisoner of war camp No. 1, Fukuoka, Japan. From there, we were shipped by Japanese ferry from Fukuoka to Fusan, Korea, April 26, 1945. On April 27, 1945, we would arrive at the prisoner of war camp in Jinsen, Korea.

On September 8, 1945 we were liberated by American Occupation Forces and returned to Manila by Army transport on September 17, 1945. At the 29th Replacement Center, Liberated Personnel Camp, Alangbang, Risel, P.I. I was kept from September 17 through the 24th. During this time, I was promoted to Major AUS.

From September 24 – October 16, 1945 we would be moved by Army transport to the USA, arriving in San Francisco. I would stay at the Letterman General Hospital from October 16 - 20, then be transferred to Moore General Hospital by hospital train, staying there from October 20 - 24th.

From November 1, 1945 – January 30, 1946, I would be on ninety day temporary duty leave at home, returning the Moore General Hospital on January 30, 1946. Subsequent hospitalizations were ultimately followed by my discharge from the service and I returned to my profession.

Chapter One – To The Philippines

I lived through the Death March of Bataan, and survived a total of three and a half years in Japanese prison camps. The experiences of those years are a revealing commentary of the tragic era of war from 1941 to 1945 and carry awesome forebodings of the period five years later when the peace of the world would again be disturbed and the world’s very existence threatened.

There seems no better way to tell a story than to begin at its beginning and take it along from day to day. That is the kind of story that is told here - an odyssey of an American prisoner of war.

At the age of eight, I was entered into the Masonic Home in Richmond, Virginia, my mother having died in 1909 when I was four years old, and my father four years later. Following graduation from the elementary schools there, I graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1926 with a degree in Dairy Husbandry and a commission as a Second Lieutenant, Infantry Reserve, U.S.A.

Working in my profession, I also stayed in the reserves and was among the first called to service in 1941, being inducted on April 16, 1941, at Fort Monroe, Virginia, with the rank of Captain. There the odyssey began in earnest.

Then I entered the Army on active duty, naturally the first official procedure was that of a physical examination. This took place at the Fort Monroe Station Hospital in April 1941. Here I got my first but not final knowledge of how regulations may be twisted to suit the occasion.

Back in 1936, the War Department had written me an official letter stating that if my weight, then 171 pounds, was not reduced, I would be rejected from the Officers Reserve Corps. I now weighed 185 pounds and was highly acceptable. Further than that, I was endowed with so called flat-feet at birth, which would have disqualified me for the peacetime officer (no doubt because flat feet slip off a polished deck top easier than high arches), yet they were good enough for the marching infantry. Then, to top it all, the officer examining my eyes completely overlooked the fact that the right eyelid had a ptosis, or paralysis, and poor vision - so bad in fact, that it was next to impossible to shoot a rifle accurately. The examining officer, colonel in the medical corps, corrected these conditions rapidly with a neat rubber stamp – ‘WAIVER RECOMMENDED’. Two weeks later – I was in.

I was ordered to the 9th Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., May 1, 1941. Maj. General Jacob Devers, later to become a top ranking general in Europe, was division commander. Lt. Col. Alexander Patch, who later, as Lt. General, commanded the steady, plugging and hard hitting Seventh Army, as the regimental commander of the 47th Infantry Regiment.

My first assignment was on the staff of the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Division, Fort Bragg, under Lt. Col. Farlow Burt, an excellent and understanding officer. Nearly two months later, I was made company commander of Company F, 47th Infantry Regiment. The new assignment was a difficult one. I found myself with a company whose supply room was several hundred dollars short of government property. Through the earnest efforts of 1st Lt. Vincent Pazzetti, the condition was satisfactorily corrected. Much of our time was spent on field problems, hikes and maneuvers, and my memory of the stay at Fort Bragg was one of work and more work. It was tough but not unpleasant. The men were well trained and always cooperative. Much credit for this is given to our First Sgt., Olin Tucker, and the junior officers of the company.

Just prior to going on the First Army Maneuvers in the Carolinas, September 25th, 1941, I was replaced as company commander by 1st Lt. W.R. Chance and was assigned as Regimental Claims and Damage Officer with the Service Company, 47th Infantry, in order that I might be unencumbered when ordered to overseas duty on October 17, 1941.

When the Army order for my transfer to the Philippine Department came through on October 17, I immediately went to Washington, D.C., to try to have it revoked. My reason for this action was that I had earlier, in July 1941, applied to transfer to the Quartermaster Corps and assignment at Camp Lee, Va., where a suitable vacancy existed. My efforts were unsuccessful at the time, and I received letters and telegrams reiterating the inability of the War Department to revoke the orders for foreign duty, yet ironically, on November 4, 1941, four days after I sailed from San Francisco for the Philippines, the War Department did issue an order transferring me from Fort Bragg to Camp Lee, Va.

The trip to Manila by way of Honolulu was uneventful, except for having to tolerate a complete ship blackout from Honolulu over. Our ship, the President liner USS President Coolidge joined the Army transport, another President liner renamed the Hugh L. Scott, at Honolulu and was convoyed to Manila by the cruiser Louisville. The food was excellent with a splendid choice of menu. I mailed home a set of menus from the Coolidge, which is now an irreplaceable souvenir. Our cabin accommodations were first class in every particular, with congenial cabin mates, Captain Michael Sult, of Lakeview, Oregon, and Lt. Donald Amend, of Wichita, Kansas, both of whom died while being held as prisoners of the Japanese. The trip to Manila was a highlight of my four years stay overseas.

We landed at Pier 7 on November 20, 1941. The Philippine Scout Band from Fort McKinley was down to greet us with melodies of current and martial tunes, but the scarcity of white women was very noticeable. Later I learned that the War and Navy Departments had ordered all families and dependents of military personnel sent home in May of 1941. As our small group of seven officers who had come from Fort Bragg, N.C., prepared to leave the ship, I heard a loud voice call from the dock to the man on the ship Hello, suckers. I often thought of the incident. Of the seven of us who had come from Fort Bragg: Captain George Mussey, Philadelphia, Pa, Captain Milton Kramer, 1st Lt. Robert Weil, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1st Lt. Joe Gallagher, Philadelphia, Pa., 1st Lt. Eugene Smith, Augusta, Ga., 1st Lt. Dickerson and I, I was the only survivor to return to the United States.

Under disembarkation from the President Coolidge, all of the unassigned officers except those of the Coast Artillery branch were taken to Ft. McKinley on the outskirts of Manila where we remained until assigned. Here I met 1st Lt. Eugene Horney, from Greensboro, N.C., Capt. Jordan, a brother of company commander of Co. F, 47th Infantry, who I replaced on June 26, 1941, Capt. Paul E. Moore, of Bunker Hill, Indiana, and others. I also learned the 1st Lt. Harry Kuykendall, from Greensboro, had been at Ft. McKinley, but was then at Baguio, P.I.

It was very pleasant at Ft. McKinley, although the dry season was coming on, and the weather was noticeably hot to a newcomer from the United States. We were left to ourselves and found time to enjoy our new environment, little realizing that our days of comparative leisure and freedom were to end shortly. Together with friends, I made several trips into Manila for sightseeing and picture-taking. I visited many souvenir and curio shops and was delighted with the novelty and strange items of native and oriental production. At one shop in the Intramuros (walled city), a very old part of the city which dated back to the Spanish occupation of the 16th century, I found some beautiful silk pajamas and slippers which were purchased and sent to my wife and daughters. Later, I purchased other souvenirs which were mailed but never reached home.

Several places visited impressed me considerably. One of these was a very old St. Augustine Catholic church, where Lt. Gallagher and I spent an afternoon. The building had a complete stone ceiling, fine black and white marble floor, old hand-carved mahogany benches and a beautiful alter. Arranged along the sides of the main auditorium were naves or niches, each with its patron saint, lovely artificial flowers and figurines. At the rear of the church was a recumbent figure of Christ in a glass case, life-size and amazingly life-like.

The Filipino caretaker, sensing our appreciation and interest, unlocked a large room and showed us many church possessions, which were not usually shown to visitors. Among those were very large wardrobes and chests of drawers made of beautiful mahogany brought from Mexico to the Philippines several hundreds of years before. In the wide, heavy drawers were vestments of exquisite beauty and priceless in value. We were amazed at the delicate loveliness of the silken embroidery, and the weight caused by using gold and silver thread.

Here too, we were shown the figure of the patron of the church. Her sweetness of features and realistic coloring were almost human, and one could easily realize how a people, indoctrinated from early childhood, could come to regard such a figure as being real. In another section we were shown the carriages and vehicles (all hand drawn) which were used on religious holidays and fiestas to bear the figures, altars and candelabra measuring approximately three by four and four feet high, was a real masterpiece of the silversmith’s art. Its three hundred or more years of usage were not reflected in its beautiful unmarred silver finish. As we left these rooms, we felt that we had been reliving the past years with the makers of the treasures who so painstakingly had done their work that coming generations might see and admire them.

In another part of the church was a large corridor filled with oil paintings. These were badly in need of cleaning, yet under the dust and smudge of years, one could see the works of masters as they depicted many scenes of the Spanish occupation of the islands. The caretaker explained that the square marble plaques on the walls and floor were memorials to loved ones placed there by their families and in many cases contained bones of the deceased.

As we were leaving, I turned for one more look at the beautiful alter with its picture of Christ on the cross, little realizing that upon my return to Manila, nearly four years later, all of this would be gone.

One afternoon Lt. Robert Weil and I went to the large produce market on Ascarraga Street, where we saw mountains of bananas and coconuts. In the fish market section, we were surprised to find live fish swimming in small tile tanks. The customer selected his fish and the dealer, usually a woman, dipped it out in a small net. There were live crabs, shrimp, lobsters and a gelatin-like preparation made from a small, almost transparent shrimp. While here, we took several pictures, some of carts full of bananas, some with Chinese Cascos in the esteros on which the people worked and lived, the small children being tied to the boat with a short piece of rope to prevent their falling overboard. I also took a picture of an open truck with fresh meat and swarming with flies, to send back to some of my friends in our hometown health department.

From the produce market, we crossed the street to the well-known Yanco Market, where the hundreds of small operators had their stalls crowded with embroider dresses, shoes, native tsinelas, hats, woven straw products, hardware, objects of art, china and pottery, furniture, and every imaginable article one could imagine.

We next visited a large tobacco factory, the La Insular Co., and had our first taste of native cigars and cigarettes. We found their produce somewhat different from ‘stateside’ tobacco, yet to my taste the Filipino product was better, particularly the long brown cigarettes which we later learned to call long brown dobies. These sold for 98 cents a carton of twenty-five packs, each pack containing 30 cigarettes, about twice as long as an American product, and a real value for the smoker.

One unforgettable sight in Manila is the calesa, often referred to as the poor man’s taxi. It is a small covered two-wheel carriage, usually elaborately decorated, drawn by the toughest little pony in the world. These ponies are slightly larger than a Shetland pony, wiry and fine-haired, and are all colors. Their drivers keep them in perpetual trot by constantly flicking them under the belly with a leaden tipped whip. Several times I took snapshots of these calesas as they all began their efforts to be the first away when traffic lights changed. It reminded me of the chariot races in the old-time movie Quo Vadis.

Besides the calesas, there are many other types of pony-drawn vehicles: the carromata, a combination package and passenger cart; the carratela, a package and freight cart; the carreton, a carabac-drawn heavy wooden cart, springless, with heavy iron tired wooden wheels; and the dokar, a station-wagon-like vehicle drawn by either one or two pairs of ponies. The combination of these creates a considerable nuisance in downtown Manila. The smell of manure is always present, and when the wind blows, large clouds of powdered manure and street dust plague the pedestrian. Because of the fact that the calesas have furnished cheap transportation for the Filipino working classes and also because many of them are owned by the wealthier classes and local politicians who rent them on a daily basis to the cocheros, it is impossible to remove them from the streets by local legislation. It is hoped that, in the rebuilding of a new Manila, the planners will prohibit the operation of these vehicles in the better parts of the city.

Besides pony calesas, there are auto calesas, small automobiles such as the Austin, Bantam, Crosley and other makes, with small bus-like bodies attached. Even considering the small stature of the Filipino, it is amusing to see the auto calesa unload 12 to 15 passengers where it would appear 2 would be a load.

In the evenings, we would visit such places as the Army and Navy clubs, the Jai Lai Fronton, Metro ballroom, and the world’s largest ballroom at Santa Anna, not to mention other so-called nightspots which flourished in the not-too-puritanical Manila. Whiskies, liqueurs, rum, gin and wines were considerably less expensive than in the States, but beer was more expensive except the locally made San Miguel beer, which was palatable.

Out of Fort McKinley, we were busy having Khaki uniforms made, purchasing supplies and securing equipment preparatory to be assigned to our respective units. General Wainwright, and later General Parker, spoke to our group, giving us an insight into what we might expect in our new assignments.

Fort McKinley was a lovely spot, with its regulation golf course, riding paths, tennis courts and a nice club overlooking the Laguna de Bay (Lake of the Bay). I hoped, unsuccessfully, that there would be no war and that it might be my privilege to be stationed here for the stay in the Philippines. Little did I realize that, within six weeks, the Japanese would occupy the post, and my golf clubs, which had been left at the clubhouse, would be used by their officers as swagger sticks and persuaders on the Americans.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Lt. Fullerton, George Selden and I went on a trip South of Manila in George’s Ford roadster. On our way, we passed the Catholic church at Las Pinas with its famous Bamboo Pipe Organ. Then there was the old church at Paranaque with the trees growing out of its bell tower high above the ground. We saw our first salt flats, made of white tile on to which the sea water from Manila bay was admitted, then dammed and allowed to evaporate. The salt residue, clean white crystal, was scrapped off the tiles and bagged for sale. The highway was repaved in places and all-hand-labor method was compared to our machinery method of construction. Where we usually covered new concrete with burlap or canvas which we kept water soaked, the Filipinos made small mud dikes on the fresh concrete and filled each little square with water. It resembled a large gray waffle.

At Los Banos, we enjoyed a hot bath in one of the native houses. The large bathing pools, about the size of an average room, were shoulder deep and supplied with a constant stream of hot water flowing from nearby underground volcanoes. We had our choice of various temperatures, and, after a leisurely soaking, followed by a cooling drink of sweetened ice coconut, we were surprised to find that the charge was only centavos, or ten cents each.

From Los Banos, we drove a few kilometers to the Philippine Agricultural College. Its beautiful campus, with a white stone entrance, white stucco buildings, statuary, lovely tropical flowers and shrubbery on a carpet-like lawn of luxuriant green grass, was charming beyond words. Having been a dairyman at home before entering the Army, I naturally gravitated to the dairy department. Here, I was surprised and delighted to see the progress made in developing milking strains of native cattle by crossing Holsteins and imported Indian cattle. We were treated to bottles of fresh, cold carabao milk, produced and processed under the most satisfactory sanitary conditions. I found the flavor to be sweet, clean and somewhat nutlike, to my mind as good, and perhaps a little better than our own Jersey milk at home. This taste test convinced me that carabao milk, properly produced, could be equal to any milk produced in the States, although this is contrary to what local American civilians had told me previously. However, upon further questioning, I learned that their experience with carabao milk was not under as favorable conditions as my own.

While we were taking snapshots of a small carabao calf being fed from a bottle, one of the attendants released its mother from a stanchion, and she charged around the building to her offspring. When I saw this massive figure in the camera’s lens, I quickly yelled to Lt. Fullerton and ran into the dairy barn. My action created quite a laugh among the Filipinos and Lt. Fullerton. Upon questioning, he stopped long enough to tell me that he had just finished giving the Filipinos a story of my ability as a dairyman, and I had spoiled the illusion by running from a cow. So I laughingly told the Filipinos that a docile milk cow was one thing, but an angry carabao mother was another, and until I got to know the strange creatures better, I’d always try to keep a respectful distance between us.

On our way back to Los Banos, we stopped and took more snapshots of a native market, a large hog with its typical Filipino broken back and belly touching the ground, and of a cockfight. We stayed at the cockfight long enough to see several cockfights, then moved on, not being well impressed with the sanguinary sport.

Back at Los Banos, we went to a native fiesta or religious fair and festival commemorating a church holiday. Here we took snapshots and tried our skill at the shooting gallery. One of these snapshots was brought home by my friend, Harry Hodges, with whom I later left them with before leaving Manila for Bataan. Unfortunately, it was the only snapshot of hundreds taken in the Philippines that was saved. We purchased an armful of groceries at a local Chinese-operated tienda and had our dinner prepared and served at the town’s only hotel. After dinner, we sat on the porch and watched the town band lead the parade of church relics, candelabra and patron saint figure through the streets. It was an impressive sight.

While sitting on the porch just before the parade, I looked up from our conversation and saw a lonely American trudging down the middle of the street, tousled, shaggy hair, well-worn dirty shirt and trousers and rough shoes. He was carrying in his arms a small baby and holding a child by the other hand. Behind him shuffled a wrinkled, slovenly dressed Filipino woman, his wife, and