>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Welcome to the Veterans
History Project Pavilion
on this historic weekend, as we
join with the Smithsonian Center
for Folklife and Cultural
Heritage and the American Battle
of Monuments Commission
in honoring our nation's
World War Two veterans.
It's something that's
long overdue.
The Veterans History
Project, which is part
of the American Folklife Center
at the Library of Congress,
preserves the wartime
memories of veterans and those
who served in support of them.
The project was created
in October of 2000
through the unanimous
support of the Congress.
They wanted to honor our
nation's war veterans
for their service and to collect
their stories and experiences.
So this program is
not only nationwide.
It's a world history and
documentation effort that relies
on volunteers, rather than
professional world historians,
in collecting these
artifacts and their stories.
So this weekend, you will
see roving around volunteers
with purple shirts
or purple hats.
I see somebody down
here right now.
I want you, please,
if you have a chance,
to just tell a little
bit of your story just
for ten minutes, five minutes.
We want your story.
Everyone has a story to tell,
and we want to get as many
of those stories this
weekend as we possibly can.
You'll also notice
here in the pavilion
that we're gladly
accepting memoirs, letters,
photos for inclusion in this
ever-growing collection,
and your precious wartime
materials will be preserved
for many generations to come
in the Library of Congress
at the American Folklife Center.
So far, believe it or not, we've
collected over 80,000 items
from over 16,000 individual
veterans in what has become one
of the largest national
repositories
of first-hand war experiences
ever collected in this country.
For those of you who would like
to share your story online,
we have computer stations
over here near the entrance
to the pavilion, where you can
enter your wartime memories just
by typing it into
the computer station,
and volunteers are
standing by to assist you
in this special opportunity.
You can also contribute
memories from your home computer
when you get home by
accessing www.loc/vets.
Don't worry if you
didn't write that down
or you didn't get it right
now, and you're not going
to remember, because I
would never remember it.
We have brochures
back on the back table
that will give you more than
you will ever want to know
about the Veterans
History Project,
but especially it will
give you that place to go
on the internet to
tell your story.
We'd like to remind
you that the work
of the Veterans History
Project is a full-time activity,
and it continues well
after this weekend,
so we're collecting stories
from veterans from five wars.
World War One, World
War Two, Korea, Vietnam,
and the Persian Gulf Wars.
The project includes all
participants, men and women,
civilian and military, and it
documents the contributions
of civilian volunteers, support
staff, and war industry workers,
as well as the experiences
of military personnel
from all ranks and all
branches of the service.
From the Air Force, the Army,
the Marine Corp, and the Navy,
as well as the U.S. Coast
Guard and the Merchant Marines.
So we invite you to join
us in collecting stories
and getting others involved.
Our website includes much more
information on how you can join
into this effort,
and you'll learn
about the thousand partner
organizations around the country
that are helping us with
this tremendous effort.
So thank you again for joining
us on this historic occasion,
and a special thanks
to all the veterans
for your service
in this country.
I want to applaud them.
[applause].
And now it gives me great
pleasure to introduce
to you Tom Swope and Commander
Everett Alvarez, who are going
to be moderating and leading
this panel on POWs who are going
to tell their unique story.
Please give them a hand.
[applause].
>> First I'd like Everett
to say a few words,
and then we'll get to the panel.
>> Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure to be here,
and it's a pleasure to listen
to some real interesting
stories.
So without delay, we would
like to get into the experience
of the individuals up here.
We have, on my left, Richard
Francies, who was a POW
in the Philippines, in Japan.
Marty-- to the others, Jimmie
Kanaya, and also Marty Higgins
on the end down there.
>> In case you missed it, I'm
Tom Swope, and I am a volunteer
with the Veterans
History Project,
and I'm actually not affiliated
with any particular
organization, except my wife.
She helps me underwrite
this project.
I'm trying to embarrass her.
I'd like the-- they've
already been introduced,
so I'd like the panel
members to describe the day
that they were captured, and
we'll start here with Jimmie.
>> I'm going to read-- is it on?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, okay.
I'm Jim Kanaya from
Gig Harbor, Washington.
I was Army Medical Service
Corp. Actually, at that time,
I was an army administrative
officer.
Just received my
commission, overseas.
And I served in Italian campaign
and in the southern
France campaign.
>> I was with the 36th
Division, and December 9th,
they gave up on my company,
and we were still fighting
December 10th, and it turned
out that Charlie Company, who
was supposed to back us up,
went to the wrong city
and said we weren't there.
I had been wounded, we were
out of ammunition,
but I can say this.
When I walked out with
my hands up is one
of the worst experiences
I ever had in my life.
>> Would you like to go
ahead and describe the day
that you were captured,
tell more about that?
>> The day I was captured.
Kind of a long story,
but as a medic,
we relied upon the
Geneva Convention
to protect us most of the time.
We evacuate casualties from
one battalion to another.
In other words, I was
assisting another battalion.
I didn't have to, but
I volunteered again.
You're not supposed to
volunteer, but I did.
We had about six litter
cases and we had three
or four walking wounded.
Carried the Red Cross flag
in front as a truce to let us
through the German lines.
The Germans were infiltrating
between the two units.
And lo and behold, we had German
prisoners helping us carry the
wounded over the mountains.
Well, if we had German
prisoners,
we had to have armed infantry
guards, and that's a no-no,
and I had no say so about
it, but I let it go anyway,
because it was not my
direct responsibility.
So lo and behold, sure
enough, right in the middle
of our return back to our
lines, we ran into a company--
not a company, an
oversized platoon of Germans,
commanded by a German officer.
And they stopped us, and
we tried to let us through,
but of course they says no.
They got a prize, because they
had a couple of lieutenants
and the sergeants, and about
five or six enlisted men,
and about, what, eight
or ten wounded men.
So they had a big discussion
and all of a sudden,
the German guards came around
and started taking the
rifles away from our guards,
and there was a big tug
of war for the rifle.
Who's going to get the rifle?
Needless to say, the
Germans outnumbered us,
and that was the
end of our freedom,
and we became a captive
from that point on.
>> And as Everett mentioned,
Richard Francies was
in the Philippines, so he
can describe the day he was
taken prisoner.
We should mention that
it was made very clear
to him a few months
after Pearl Harbor
that there would
be no help arriving
for you in the Philippines.
>> Yes. Well, my day,
first day of surrender,
was out in the mountains
above-- up in--
above Mariveles on
the Bataan peninsula,
and we knew that surrender was
only a few short hours away.
And sure enough, the next
morning, we were told
that we had surrendered and
walked down the zigzag road
to Mariveles and joined
in with larger groups.
Don't join in with any small
groups or anything like that.
Join in with larger groups,
and it should be all right.
So we started down the zigzag
path, and we all had 45s.
Some of us had rifles, but we--
what we did was we took our 45s
and our rifles, and
broke them down.
That means take everything
out of what you can take out,
and throw it away, so we
broke it down into pieces,
and I threw the pieces
in the jungle.
And we went down to
Mariveles, and we joined
up with a large group, and
we sat there for three days
with no food and no water.
What water we had
in our canteens,
but we didn't get any food.
And they started to march us
out of there in groups of, oh,
anywhere from 700 to 1,000, and
we started on a death march,
and we didn't know it was
a death march at that time,
but it turned out real quickly
that it was going
to be a death march.
That was our first day.
>> Very good.
You had something, Everett?
>> No, I think that tells it.
There's-- Marty has some
very good stories also,
with regard to marches.
>> I have to back up
a little bit on this.
I knew nothing about POW
camps, and the Germans wanted
to send me to a hospital.
I wanted to stay with my men.
I ended up headed for
an officer's camp.
They got [inaudible] camps.
Well, after about three
days of sleeping in sheds,
two SS officers picked the
[inaudible] officers up
and drove us to a
Bavarian hotel.
They wined and dined us, and
Jack Crown was the first one
that was called out of the
room, and as he passed me,
he said, "Heinrich Himmler."
He whispered.
So I had heard about Himmler,
and I walk into the room,
and he was blessed-- dressed in
a black tunic, rimless glasses.
He looked like a
perfect businessman.
The German general who was
doing the interrogation,
I'm pretty sure McKinler
could understand English,
but pretended he didn't.
He was so damn mad at us.
We had killed so many--
we were in buildings,
and the Germans didn't
know where we were.
We would come [inaudible]
shooting fish in a barrel,
and we didn't have
one man killed.
We had very few casualties,
and it was an
under strength company.
He thought we were regiment.
And anyway, they never
asked any security,
to breech any security, but
they asked us things like,
how did I like Roosevelt,
which I didn't at the time,
but I said, "He's a great man."
And they-- I was very arrogant,
and the German general,
he was more arrogant.
And anyway, the last thing
the German general said to me,
"You are lucky you
will get back alive."
And I looked him in
the eyes, and said,
"I would not have minded
dying for my country."
On the way back to the room,
I said, that was stupid.
You don't say things like
that to a hatchet man.
And the SS troops-- I don't know
how long I should go with this,
but the SS troop picked us up
to take us back to the barn
where we were staying, and
in the back of this truck,
there was some rations.
And I said, "Fellas, there's
some cheese back here.
Should I take it?"
and everybody agreed, so
I put it in my pocket.
And about 20 minutes later,
after the SS troops dropped
us off and shook hands,
they're back, screaming
like hell.
So I reached in my pocket
and gave them the cheese,
and they hit me, not too badly,
then they kept screaming.
We didn't what the
hell was happening.
Well, Jack Crown,
without checking with us,
had taken three or four items,
and they beat the
hell up out of him.
And the thing that bothered
me is they said that's an act
against the third rank.
You may be shot.
I lived on that until
we had the [inaudible].
That's my story.
[applause]
>> Now those of you who know
your World War Two history,
we're skipping around a little
bit, and I wanted to make sure
that we had time
to tell this story.
Jimmie has a fascinating story
about a thing called the
Hammel Brigade [phonetic].
>> The Hammel Brigade.
If any of you read the book by
General Patton after the war,
he made a statement in the
book, the last chapter,
that the only mistake he
ever made in the whole war,
discounting the fact that
he slapped a poor solider
in Sicily, he said the
only mistake he made was
that he did not follow up the
Hammel Brigade, which is a raid
to liberate our camp
in Hammelburg
of all the American
officers that were captured
in North Africa into the Bulge.
And he stated that he did not
indicate that his son-in-law was
in that camp, that the
raid was supposed to be
to liberate the officers
in the camp,
like MacArthur liberated the
prison camp in the Philippines,
at that point, but he wanted
to outshine MacArthur.
But the real story was his
son-in-law, John K. Waters,
lieutenant colonel,
captured in North Africa,
was our camp executive officer.
Colonel Paul Good was the camp
commander, the senior officer,
and there were about
1100 officers there
when we got there from Poland.
Our group of 1400
officers left Poland.
We ended up in Hammelburg
with about 440 officers,
and we joined over 1,000
officers that are already there
from the previous campaigns
in the western front.
So when the taskforce of
company of armor and infantry
and a company of tanks
reinforced by recon cavalry
and some 105 artillery on tanks,
when they reached our camp,
they punched the line
through the German front
and traveled 55 miles
through enemy territory
to reach our camp.
Can you imagine that?
Small taskforce of some
450 men reached our camp.
Took them almost
all day to reach us.
They had to fight their way here
and there, and along the way,
they knocked down telegraph
lines so they wouldn't be able
to communicate as to which
way the taskforce was headed,
and this really, I might say,
disrupted the German defenses,
because this action by this
taskforce created a [inaudible]
in the rear area.
And of course, when they got to
our camp, General Patton felt
that there were only about
400 of us there from Poland.
He didn't count on the fact
that over 1,000 officers were
captured during the Bulge.
And we scrambled
on to the tanks,
and whatever we could carry
with us, and we took off.
Of course, by that time, all
the escape routes are blocked.
Every late tank that tried to
break through got knocked down,
and we were down to about
half of the strength,
and there were only about
maybe, out of the 1400 officers,
I would say less than 50 of us
remained with this taskforce,
trying to escape
back to our lines.
But it was a futile attempt.
We were completed surrounded.
We couldn't get out.
We were going around in circles,
and I know exactly
where we were.
So me and two other lieutenants
decided, oh, what the heck,
let's go back to camp, and
most of us did go back to camp.
And on our way back to
camp, about halfway there,
we heard tanks rumbling up,
and they just completely
annihilated the remnants
of this taskforce.
Now I really feel that these men
probably deserved more credit
than any other action
in the war.
To be able to break
through, and I understand
that General Patton promised
the taskforce commander,
Ab Baum was the name of
the captain, captain,
commander of this taskforce, a
medal of honor, if he made it.
And his book says,
"That's a bunch of bull."
He knew that it was going
to be a tough fight,
but he made every effort,
and I think he deserved
a lot of credit.
He did get the DSC, the
Distinguished Service Cross,
the next highest award, and that
raid is something that's not
well known, because Patton
was not really authorized
to do that.
That raid went into
another army sector,
and his army was
diverted going northeast,
and the seventh army was
next to Patton's army,
and this taskforce went
into the seventh army area,
under another general's command.
So that was a violation right
there, and it was a failure
from the very beginning,
as we see it now.
At that point, we were elated.
We're going to be
liberated, and what a feeling.
These guys went 55 miles
in front of their lines,
through the German countryside,
and tried to rescue us,
and I give that brave [phonetic]
group a lot of credit.
>> I've heard the story from
the couple of-- [applause].
I've heard the story of the
Hammelburg raid from a couple
of World War Two veterans, and
it's really an interesting story
about Patton that I don't
think was in the movie.
All right, Francies, go ahead.
>> Richard has some
interesting stories.
Richard, you were
in Camp O'Donnell.
You spent some time there.
What were the conditions like,
and how about a story
about that?
>> And actually, I don't
think we talked a lot
about the death march,
if you'd want
to talk a little bit before
you do Camp O'Donnell.
>> Hello. Well, I'll
start out with the rest
of the death march here.
But as I mentioned
before, the death march
out of Bataan was one
of the greatest atrocities
of World War Two.
Now of the 10,000
Americans that were in Bataan
and who made the 70-mile
death march, there are less
than 200 of us alive today.
That's pretty sad.
For the group of
2,000, roughly 2,000,
made the death march had
very little or no food to eat
for 11 days and very
little water to drink.
It wasn't due to
the lack of water.
The thing is, there were
artesian wells all along the
roadside there, and
they could have stopped
and had gotten water, but
the Japs would let us do it.
If one or two men had run to
the well to get the water, why,
they were usually
shot or bayoneted,
and after that happened
a couple of times, why,
somebody got together, and there
was 100 of 200 of us would run
for water, and they
wouldn't randomly shoot.
They thing is, they would just
get around behind us push us
with their bayonets
back into line,
but maybe somebody
would get some water.
So-- and then most of us
had malaria at that time,
and we were really in a
weakened physical condition.
If we fell to the ground
or passed out from fever,
and we weren't able to stand up,
the Jap guards would
either bayonet or shoot us.
So the-- well--
>> At one point-- sorry.
At one point, you did get--
>> Oh. [laughter].
So then we just--
the malaria, why,
I started feeling real wizzy
[phonetic] at one time,
and I knew I was going to
either pass out or fall,
and I knew what the consequences
were, but I managed to sneak
out of the death march
through some bushes
onto some land, the other side.
It was pretty well hidden,
and I sat down on the ground
or on a log, and
shortly after that,
a man or somebody rapped me on
the shoulder, and I looked up,
and it was a Filipino
[inaudible] Filipino man,
and I started to speak to him,
and he didn't speak English.
So I made a motion that
mosquito and mosquito bite,
and he understood
that, and he said wait.
So he took off, and a few
minutes later, he came back
with a Japanese corpsman, a
Japanese medical corpsman.
And I, oh boy, here it is now.
And I did the same thing
for the Japanese corpsman.
I pointed, a mosquito bite,
and he got out his syringe
and put something in it,
and I, oh boy, here he goes.
He wanted me to give
myself an injection,
and I said no, you do it.
I wouldn't know how to
give myself an injection.
So he gave me an injection,
and a short time after that,
I did start to feel better,
and he had me stand up.
And he said, okay, made
motions to get back
in the line, get
back in the line.
So we got-- I said, well, I
made comments to them to--
you or both of us go out there,
because the guard would probably
shoot me if I came back.
And so he went back, and
the guard did see the two
of us come back there, and he
came running down, and jabber,
jabber, jabber, jabber, jabber,
and the two of them talked,
and the guard kept shaking
his head and shaking his head,
and finally they just mentioned
for me get back in the line,
so I got back in the line.
And the guard went his way,
and the corpsman went his way.
But by golly, it probably
came close to saving my life.
That's one of the two
things that helped me
out from the Japanese.
But then we--
>> Well, as Everett mentioned,
you got to Camp O'Donnell.
There's a grueling train
ride that's in there,
and I don't know if we'll
have time to talk about that,
but eventually, his oral history
will be up on the website.
You should definitely
listen to it.
But go ahead.
When you got to Camp O'Donnell,
the camp commander read
you a welcome speech.
>> Oh, yes.
We had a welcome speech,
and my first recollection
was standing here
at the entrance camp after
the train ride, and well,
the Japanese camp commander was
giving us his welcome speech.
The gist of his speech,
through an interpreter,
was that his only interest
in Americans were those
who were dead and the
number that had died.
Also, that we were his captives
and would be treated as such.
"Japan is now establishing
the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Americans are soft and cowards.
President Roosevelt and
General MacArthur will be hanged
as war criminals when Emperor
Hirohito rules the United States
from the White House in
Washington, D.C. You are enemies
of the Japanese empire,
and we will fight you
for a hundred years.
You are not honorable
prisoners of war.
You are captives.
Forget you have names.
Forget you have parents,
wives, and children.
Your loved ones no longer care
for you and have forgotten you,
just as Roosevelt and your
generals have forgotten you.
Anyone trying to
escape will be shot."
That was our welcome
speech, and he was right.
Treatment was so bad that while
we were in Camp O'Donnell,
the first few weeks or so, 1600
more Americans out of the 10,000
that started on the
death march passed away.
>> Everett?
Did you have something Everett?
You were at Camp
O'Donnell for a short while,
and then you were sent out
on a communications detail.
>> Oh, okay.
Yeah, I was in Camp
O'Donnell for a short time,
and they were send-- the
Japanese were sending details
out to work on roads,
on bridges, and cleaning
up this and cleaning up that.
And our single officers
told us not to go
out on any details unless
we absolutely had to,
because one of these days,
they were going to call
for an electronic detail.
And sure enough, they did
call for 15 men, and I was one
of the 15, being a specialist in
transmitter and receiver repair,
why I was one of the
15, and they took us
down to Fort McKinley, and we
started to repair the equipment.
And the thing is, now, repairing
equipment to, A, the enemy,
is a no-no, but the things is
we sabotaged more equipment
than we repaired.
And I don't know whether
they ever caught on or not,
but there were some boxes with
brand-new receivers in them
that arrived from San Francisco
that we're going to be using,
and they wanted those fixed.
We said, "They're bad.
They're being sent back to San
Francisco, because we can't--
we haven't got the
parts to fix them here."
Oh, okay. Tear them apart,
and use it for spare parts.
Brand-new receivers.
So it did work out.
The receiver did work out, and
then after the detail was over--
oh, one other thing we did.
When we had the receivers
upside down on a working bench
and testing them with test
prods, read [phonetic] voltages,
resistances, we were listening
to KGEI San Francisco.
[laughter].
So we got all our
news from KGEI.
We knew what was going on.
But--
>> And also, the other part
of that story is the
Japanese guard came around
and said you had
to fix up a radio,
so he could listen
to the Tokyo station.
Marty and Jimmie, you
were also involved and,
I guess, some of described.
I'm not sure of the
particular march you were on,
but the death march in Europe.
Let's start with Marty.
Tell about the-- you were on
a march in January of '45.
>> If I may, I'd like
to switch subjects.
I'd like to-- I'd like
to switch subjects.
The forest march
was very unpleasant.
I would like to talk
about Frank Maxwell.
A lot of people don't know
that we had horse
cavalry in World War Two.
I had joined the horse
cavalry and moved
to New York to ride horses.
We're called up to active
duty in January of '41.
We were half-mechanized,
half-horse.
I ended up going to OCS in--
well, that's another story.
I was scheduled to go to OCS.
Every fourth class was horse.
And this friend of
mine, I thought,
bumped me from the
12th to the 13th.
Well, he ended up,
after we graduated,
going to the 1st
Cavalry Division.
I ended up going to the
10th Cavalry [inaudible]
and riding till March of '44.
But let me get back
to Frank Maxwell.
When I finally got to
the prisoner of war camp,
we were captured December 10th.
I know they took us through
Berlin's subway trains,
and people would give us the V
for victory, surreptitiously.
Well, when I got there
[inaudible] on New Year's Eve
or New Year's Day, really,
they were very careful
that the Germans didn't
plant people to spy on.
We had a radio, and they didn't
know where the hell it was.
Well, who's there
but Frank Maxwell?
We had met-- I got the
story a little backwards.
Anyway, Frank and I met in
Jersey City in November of '42.
He went back to the infantry to
get his orders, Fort Benning.
I went back to the
cavalry to get my orders,
and that's why I jumped
to the 10th Cavalry the next
time I saw Frank was [inaudible]
Oflag 64.
Two weeks after I was
there, he was repatriated
by the Swiss because of ulcers.
He gave me his extra long
johns, which came in very handy
on the forest march, and
he gave me his long socks.
But the most significant thing,
he was able to call my
wife and say I was alive.
All she had was MIA.
[applause].
>> And Jimmie, you can go ahead
and tell us about the march
that you talked about
before along the Baltic.
>> That march started when
the Russian offensive broke
through the German lines
in the winter of '44.
January 21st was the day
we had to evacuate camp
because of the artillery fire.
We could hear the
artillery moving,
and we knew that
something's going to happen.
We all stood out one morning at
7 o'clock, pack up, and move.
Minus 21 degrees cold, and we
had overcoats we were issued.
Nothing was U.S. Army.
It was all British, or
French, or Belgium overcoat,
and we looked like
a ragtag bunch
of refugees, but here we went.
Of course, I was still one
of the younger lieutenants,
and I was still in
pretty good shape,
but some of the older
men started to drop
out of the very first day.
Fourteen hundred of us started,
and after the second day,
only one thousand were left.
About 400 dropped out
the first two days.
And at that point, I was the
only one among a thousand
officers who was not a
Caucasian or a white officer.
And of course, did I stand out?
I don't know.
I had to put up with
it, whatever they had.
Any detail came along,
I was the last man.
I was always the last
man, the junior officer.
Along the march, at one
point, we were moving along,
parallel with about
5,000 Russian prisoners
of Germany, Russian prisoners.
I looked over there, and
they were all Orientals.
They were all looking at me.
They think that I should have
been over there on their side.
Did the Russian have an
old Oriental army division?
I don't know.
But later, I found out that
they were Mongols from Siberia
that Russians recruited
for their army,
and they were captured
by the Germans.
And they were a couple of
other incidences that came
up that they singled me out,
because I looked different,
and it kind of--
it made me wonder.
Sometimes it was advantageous,
because we're mushing along
with one French column, a
column of French soldiers off
to our left, and I was
on the far right side
of our column [inaudible] 500
to 1,000 troops, soldiers.
And this one French
soldier comes running
through our column,
right through our column,
and he pats my shoulder,
and puts a flask
of whiskey in my face.
He says, "Drink this,"
and he took a sip to prove
that it was [inaudible]
you know, it was pure,
and it was pure alcohol, and I
wasn't drinking in those days.
He put the cap back on, and
he ran back through our column
and back to his column.
Now why did he do that?
Why did he pick me out?
Did I look like I need a drink?
I don't know.
But we finally ended up at
Hammelburg, that I mentioned,
the Hammelburg Brigade,
and at that point,
at that time we hiked
pretty close to 400 miles.
Somebody says 385, 390.
We kept kilometer record.
I kept a diary, by the way.
And the diary I kept, I didn't
write it in clear English,
because I didn't--
if I was captured
or the Germans caught me, why,
they could probably
incriminate me
for telling false
lies or something.
But I-- all these years, I
try to read what I wrote,
and it's so cryptic that
now I can't even read it.
But these-- I'm going to have to
say one thing about the Germans.
The German guards tried to abide
by the Geneva Convention
the best way they could.
I think they did, anyway.
But they deprived us of food,
but they themselves
were deprived of food,
so I really didn't feel that
we were being mistreated
to that extent.
But lack of food
did take its toll.
A lot of our men
were losing weight,
and they were on the march.
It was cold.
The weather was-- the weather,
and the cold, and the lack
of food took its toll.
We lost over a thousand officers
on that march in our group,
and I'm sure most of them
made it back by way of either
by medical route or
by way of Russia,
the Russians overran
their position,
or some of them did
not make it back.
We saw officers lying on the
side of the road, frozen.
Their arms were hanging
up over the snow.
And were they our officers?
We don't know.
The Polish officer camp was next
to ours, and they were moved
out before we did, and they
were not in very good shape.
Our group was in pretty good
shape, but even then we lost
over a thousand officers,
and that, to me, we still--
our group that left
Poland, Oflag 64,
we have a reunion every couple
years, we're down to about 45,
50 officers that attend, and
we still kind of communicate
with each other, and we
probably will have one
of those last men clubs
one of these days,
and I hope to be the last man.
[applause]
>> Bob, the day of liberation
was a big day for everybody.
I know it was a big day when I
finally came back to the States
and liberated from the Vietnam.
But why don't we start,
Richard, with your story
about your day of liberation?
>> Wait a minute.
Our day of liberation,
let's go back here at--
we were up in Japan
at that time.
We were up in Hanawa.
We working as slave labor in a
copper mine in northern Japan,
and one day, we fell
out to go to work,
and the Japanese told us
that no work this morning,
we'll go up this afternoon.
Noon came, noon time came,
when we lined up to go to work,
and he said, "No, no work.
We're too busy with
other things.
We'll line out to go
to work tomorrow."
Tomorrow came, and we lined
up, and the Jap commander came
out there, and that was
unusual, and he told us
that the war was over.
And that was on August--
I think August 14th, 1945,
and put us in charge of
our own senior officers,
who immediately asked for
some cans of yellow paints
and paint brushes,
and some of the fellas
out of our detail went up on a
roof of the building we were in
and painted "Hanawa, 550
POWs," and they knew that one
of these days an observation
plane would be flying over.
And sure enough, one did,
but we didn't see it.
All we did was hear it.
And the next day, when the six
U.S. Navy torpedo planes came up
and dropped a message
to us saying
that when the observation plane
had been over the day before,
and they developed
the negatives,
that they saw some
writing, and they saw,
when they got it large enough,
they saw "Hanawa 550 POWs,"
and they came back
to investigate.
And they said they couldn't
drop us anything at this time,
but they'd already
radioed ci-fan [phonetic],
and our supplies would
be up the next day.
Food, clothes, medicine,
would be up the next day.
And sure enough, the next
day the B29s arrived.
They were huge, and they started
dropping out all these things
to us on parachutes, and one
of the medicines they
dropped was penicillin.
Well, our doctors didn't know
what it was, so they went
up on a roof again and
painted penicillin and a bunch
of question marks, and a
couple of days later, we had--
our doctors in the drop
had a book on penicillin,
so that worked out real well.
>> Very good.
There was also-- there was
issued a kill-them-all order,
basically.
They had planned to execute all
the prisoners in the Pacific,
and I'm going to read
just a tiny bit from this.
The method.
"Whether the POWs are destroyed
individually or in groups,
or however it is done, with
mass bombing, poisonous smoke,
poisonous drowning,
decapitation, or what,
dispose of them as the
situation dictates.
In any case, it is the aim not
to allow the escape
of a single POW."
That order actually had been
written in January of '44,
and it had been issued,
and Richard was scheduled
to be executed.
His camp was scheduled to
be exterminated at the end
of August, and he was
librated two weeks before that.
The other gentlemen
here should tell us
about the day of liberation.
First let's start with Jimmie.
>> The day of liberation?
>> Yes.
>> The day of liberation.
Actually, I don't think we were
really liberated in that sense.
The U.S. Army and particularly
the 45th Division, as I recall,
the armored unit of
that division broke
through our front gate,
and that was a mistake,
because when they broke
through that gate,
about 20 to 30,000
Russian prisoners took off,
and they raided the town,
and then they came back
with all the loot,
you might say,
and they were having a
ball, and getting drunk,
and eating pigs, and
horses, and cows.
They were making
up for lost time.
So we had to put the
camp back in order again.
U.S. personnel are on one
side, and the Russians were
on the other side, and
we had free movement,
but we had to stay close,
because we did not know
when we would be
completely moved from camp.
It took over a week
after that tank broke
through our front gate before
we were finally moved out.
And so that day of liberation is
sort of a lingering liberation,
and I recall-- I was a medic,
so all of the medical facilities
for our camp in [inaudible]
was handled by the Siberians.
The Siberian medical people
handled all the Allied
prisoners' medical problem, and
me being a medic, they thought
that I could help
them, so I was working
with the Siberian doctors
and corpsmen in handling,
taking care of U.S.
prisoners' problems.
And so after the liberation,
the Siberians themselves
went berserk
and brought all the loot back
in the town of [inaudible],
which was devastated,
and they would invite me
to all their parties.
Big barbecues.
And boy, and I had diarrhea,
and I was sick and had fever,
and I ate, and I
vomited, and I ate.
[laughter].
It was a mess, but I didn't want
to lose any more
weight than I could.
I had already lost
about 40 pounds.
And then of course, after we
were put on aircraft, C47,
to fly from Newberg to Le
Havre, Camp Lucky Strike.
I got so sick that that floor
of that aircraft was full
of you know what, and I--
that's the last time
that I really got sick.
I think I realized then
don't eat before you fly.
>> And Marty, go ahead and tell
us about the day of liberation.
>> Well, the day of
liberation happened
to eventually be my son's
birthday, April 22nd.
The interesting thing is the
Russians liberated our camp
in Luckenwalde [phonetic],
Germany.
The combat people were fabulous.
They treated us well.
We got along with them.
And then the political
[inaudible] came up,
and they said no Americans
can leave here [inaudible]
with their whatever.
And I ended up [inaudible].
Since Truman had agreed with
Stalin to stop our troops
at the old river,
but they were sending
up empty two-and-a-half
ton trucks,
and the Russians
wouldn't let us leave.
So I put on a British
uniform and a French beret,
and with about four others,
took off to the French compound,
and we were the only
ones on the truck.
The interesting thing is when
we got to Camp Lucky Strike,
they fed us a steak,
mash potatoes,
string beans, the works.
We all threw up.
>> You know, we have about two
minutes left, but very quickly,
another fellow who was supposed
to be here this afternoon
also was a POW in Germany
in World War Two, was
Ansil Bigonotti [phonetic].
Ansil was going to
read some things here,
tell a little bit
about his story.
Our time is almost up,
but I just wanted to say
that his story was how he ran
into one of his best friends
from his hometown, which
was Kensington, Connecticut,
and he ran into the
best-- his best friend,
who wound up to be a
POW in the same camp,
and when they saw each other,
you know, one of them--
they saw each other,
and they yelled out,
"Va Douche [phonetic]."
And the other guy said, "Ansil,"
so that was a major shock.
I mean, think of the odds.
Well, the reason I
wanted to say this is
that Mr. Bigonotti had told us
that this fellow, the Douche,
his name is Victor Bacaro
[phonetic], was supposed
to be here and be
in the audience.
And did he come?
We don't know, but if he is--
>> I don't think so.
>> -- would you please--
he probably didn't do it,
but that was a good story also.
Thank you.
>> Yeah, and we wish Biggy
[assumed spelling] the best.
Corbin Willis.
Is Corbin Willis
in the audience?
Over there?
Corbin, we wanted to mention you
because your story
has been submitted
to the Veterans History
Project, and if folks would
like to learn a little bit
about your experiences,
it's up on the web
for all to see,
but Corbin, thank you very much.
[applause].
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.