- Into Soprano Ellen McCormick.

If we knew what was in store for us, we would've fought to the last man.

I would've rather died, you know, as a, as a soldier rather than die of dysentery or berry berry or, or a beating or a bayoneting via Japanese.

You know, I'm, I'm talking about bayoneting, where I didn't, wasn't able to, to defend myself.

- The opening of World War II produced the largest American surrender on a battlefield in its history.

Those soldiers and sailors told by their leaders to submit to the Japanese slipped into an obscure pocket of the record of those years in the turmoil of a global war.

They were virtually forgotten at its end.

They returned to America quietly, carrying with them secrets not easily revealed.

In 1941, Japan moved to gain control over the nations of Eastern Asia.

In anticipation of Japanese aggression, America and its allies had begun to build up ground and air forces in the Western Pacific.

Key to allied strategy was the security of the Philippine Islands.

The Philippines were to have received supplies and reinforcements from the American Pacific fleet based in Hawaii.

But on December 7th, 1941, Japanese planes destroyed that fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Soon after they bombed most of the American Air Force as it sat on the ground near Manila.

On December 10th, Japanese forces invaded Lausanne, the largest island of the Philippines.

They met the limited resistance of 100,000 Filipino troops, mostly untrained, and 23,000 American troops.

Well-trained, but poorly equipped under General Douglas MacArthur.

And with only the weaponry food and supplies already on hand, the Allied forces held out against the Japanese hunger and disease into the spring of 1942.

Their defense was considered to be among the most heroic efforts of World War ii, but it was futile.

In March, American leadership seemed to concede the loss of the Philippines, and General MacArthur was moved to more important duties in Australia.

American and Filipino troops surrendered the Baton peninsula of Luan in April, 1942, and gave up the defense of Corredor Island.

In May, some 88,000 troops were taken captive by the Japanese destined to sit out the rest of the war in a brutal imprisonment of those Americans that returned to the United States at war's end.

And those Filipinos who gained American citizenship and came with them, 4,500 are still alive.

This is the story of five of them, a story that for each has still not ended.

- There was no hope for us in the Philippines after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

None whatsoever.

We, - Norman Matthews was born in rural Suffolk, Virginia in 1916.

He and his brother Edward, both joined the Army Air Corps in June, 1941.

But there were no usable airplanes on the Philippines.

After the initial Japanese attack, Americans and Filipinos were left to defend baton with guns mostly left over from World War I. The lack of food led to the onset of disease.

- January the first, I believe.

We went on two meals a day, and by the, by April, most of us had lost 20 or 25 pounds, and most of the men were sick.

I know my brother had malaria, and which I guess 25% of our group had malaria, and they just couldn't function.

- We try to be optimistic, but every day, as we became weaker and we saw, we saw no medicine coming in, the food was getting lower.

They thought first, - Harold Finer was born in New York City in 1918.

He joined the Army in 1940 to use the skills he had gained from his father as an electrician.

But there was soon little left for him to do, except to fight for survival.

- You can't survive without food.

This is, this is when we really started to, and no word from home.

We couldn't get any, any messages.

And the Japanese were coming over and throwing propaganda leafless at us, you know, showing us beautiful nude women and, and saying, here, don't you miss these warm women?

And, and think of your family's back home and your loved ones.

You know?

And of course, we laughed at most of that stuff.

- Our morale was real high.

And we heard rumors that Americans were coming and the supplies are coming.

That's, that's a rumor.

And I think they went to build up on morale, say, but we still haven't lost fate, you know, and hope that - Jim Downey was born of an American father and Filipino mother at what became Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in 1915 as a boy, he dreamed about coming to America one day.

He and his brother Robert, joined the Filipino Scouts, the elite branch of the Filipino Defense forces.

In 1939.

The Scouts were among the most determined defenders of baton in the battle with the Japanese.

- Even they were sick and starving.

You know, they still go out there and the front line, you know, and engaged the enemies there.

And there's a lot of times that some of the Philippine scouts will actually engaged the Japanese hand, hand combat.

You - Lived with the rumors, really?

So we always lived with the hope that help was on the way.

Help was on the way.

- Eugene Rogers was born in Milroy, Indiana in 1917 as the defensive Batan and Gregor Faltered.

He was a pharmacist mate behind the battle lines starting then.

And throughout his captivity, he did not have a chance to stop working at what he had been trained to do.

- We were so busy in the Naval Hospital taking care of casualties, really.

We didn't hardly have time for anything.

We would keep up with the rumors, how the war's going and help is on the way.

Believe me, there was no truth to none of it.

The main thing was - The feeling of loss that came with the word to surrender and seeing that flag come down.

- Bill Wells was born in Swanee, Massachusetts in 1914.

He grew up wanting to be a sailor.

He joined the Navy long before the war began.

In 1932, known as Gunnar Wells, he shot down 10 enemy planes in the battle for the Philippines.

As Gregor fell, he found himself watching events through another small island in Manila Bay.

- We only, we saw it from island to island.

I guess we were about a mile off when we saw the flag come down.

And then the jet lag went up.

And I say, that's the feeling that's hard to describe.

- On April 3rd, 1942, Japanese forces began their final assault on the American physicians.

On the Batan Peninsula.

American and Filipino soldiers were sick and hungry.

There was no quinine left to fight.

Malaria rations were limited to a few ounces of rice and meat.

Each day on April 9th, general Edward King, commander of the Baton forces met with the Japanese and surrendered.

He was told by Colonel Moama that the Japanese were not barbarians, and the surrendered troops would be treated.

Well, that was not to be the case.

An estimated 12,000 American and 60,000 Filipino troops were taken into captivity.

They were rounded up by the Japanese and concentrated in staging areas to prepare for evacuation to prison camps.

It was at this first non-combat meeting between victors and the vanquished that the Japanese began to show the contempt for defeated soldiers, taught them by the sintel ultra nationalism under which they fought.

Soldiers in their view were met either to succeed in battle or to die, not to surrender.

But that contempt was played out by a cruelty beyond reason.

- Some Japanese officer gave a Japanese soldier in order, and he, and he just walked out, and he grabbed the man here, and he grabbed the man.

They grabbed an American and a Filipino.

They took him out to the middle of the field, and we were all standing around and they beheaded him.

Could have been me.

It could have been the man next to me.

They went to a man about five men from me, and grabbed him and took this poor bugger out and beheaded him.

And we knew they meant business.

- They being at a, being at a American and laugh.

And they, they'd slap him around, hit him with a end of a rifle butt.

And that affected everybody.

I mean, you, you fall into lying real quick.

When you see this happen to a person that, you know, you don't give them any argument at all.

If anybody argues, if anybody argued with the Japanese at that time, he is dead.

In one minute.

- The journey that Norman Matthews, Harold Finer and Jim Downey were about to take, became known as the Vuitton death march.

It was to proceed by foot from the Southern Luanne Peninsula to appoint inland, then by train and foot to Camp O'Donnell.

It was a distance of just 60 miles, but for some of those who took it, it went on for 15 days.

Many were already sick, injured, and malnourished.

And many would fall along the way beneath the tropical sun with spare food.

And little water.

Water was available along the route of the march.

But the price of drinking, it was often death by bayonet.

- Batan has lots and lots of artesian wells, and they wouldn't let us get any water.

And they took away mo most of our canteens.

And if a man, a lot of men would go er and wild for water and go to get a drink at the, at the artesian wells.

And if the Japanese were merciful, they shot 'em.

But most of 'em were baying at it right in the back.

'cause they were drinking water.

- Well, my brother just couldn't, couldn't make it.

We were carrying him half the way.

And in the, when I was on Battan fighting, I'd got hold of some iodine pules, I guess, you know exactly what I mean.

And that's the way I got my water for he, for my brother and myself.

On this march, I just dipped my canteen down into any kind of water that what I could find and puts my dine in it.

And that kept us, I'm quite sure, from catching diseases like everybody else had.

- I think the third day we stop at this place, you know, they have a big warehouse and it's fenced in, you know, with iron, iron Gate and that.

They put us in that night and they gave us some rice.

Eh, that was their first meal.

That was the third day.

And the fourth day was the same, same thing.

If everybody drops out, you know, they just shoot you there or obey nature, you see.

And I saw one guy that got burned, you know, over here in his, below his knee.

And I saw him crawling.

You know, he had pad on his knees and then on his hand.

And he was crawling.

You know, I saw that guy on, on prison camp the fifth day.

I dunno how he made it.

I, I don't know.

- One thing that I do remember, and sometimes I dream about it, there was one part of March, the Japanese were bringing their equipment down on Batan to attack Urdo.

And some of one Americans had got killed or deadhead a shot.

And he was lying in this old, dusty road.

Dust was at least six or seven inches thick.

It was dry season.

And these tank treads tanks had continually run over this American.

And you could see each tread in his body, you know?

And finally, they, so many tanks came along and just chewed him up.

It was, there was nothing there.

- They hurted us into this warehouse.

And I never saw anything like that in my life.

The feces were just piled as high as your ankles all over the place.

They had cleared out the dead, and the, the living had moved on out.

But it was a place where they could confine us.

And they pushed us into this building.

Or there was just no way you could sit down or lay down or anything like that.

They, I saw many men just collapse and die.

They were sick, you know?

And they would just die.

And this here will always remain in my mind, this warehouse with this filth.

I had never, never had experienced anything like that in my life.

- What did you have to do to keep standing up?

What did you personally have to do?

I don't know.

I just, - Just perseverance a will, a will to live.

That's all.

I just hadn't thought about dying.

Not, not on my own anyway.

I wasn't about to die.

You give up dying.

Never.

No.

Had no thought of giving up - With the Japanese victory in the Philippines came the subjugation of the Philippine people, Americans and Filipinos had fought together to save the island nation.

And now in defeat the Filipino people along the route of the march tried to help as best they could.

The Japanese would not allow it.

- They won't let you grab anything.

You know, that civilians are thrown at you.

And sometimes, you know, they, the Filipinos that were trying to help, sometimes they'll get shot or sometimes they get ated, you know, and there are times, you know, when even little children that would come along, you know, walk along the side carrying something, you know?

And if the Japanese are not looking, you know, they would throw something.

- I got into a shady area and I heard this commotion going on, and I heard a woman screaming.

I turned around and peeked through the bushes and, you know, a lot of heavy foliage in, in the jungle like area.

And there were three Japanese attacking a young Filipino woman that in itself would've been bad enough.

But she had a baby at her breast, an infant, maybe three months old or so, and a two or a two and a half year old baby at her side.

The children were screaming.

She was screaming.

They had her up against the tree and were raping her.

And we witnessed this 'cause we were helpless to help the poor woman.

You know, after they finished with the woman, they took a bayonet and cut her breast off.

Why?

I don't know what happened to her.

I don't know.

I don't imagine she fared too well.

They didn't hurt the children.

Now, this was just a arrest stop, so to speak.

Then we went on.

But that, I never, never could get that out of my head.

Things that happened to me, I could get out of my head.

But what happened to that poor woman?

I never could, never, never can forget that - The death march ended at Camp O'Donnell.

Those who could were allowed to carry the dead and the sick along the last stretch of the march in canvas slings.

In the meantime, American and Filipino forces kept up the final resistance against the Japanese on Coor Island in Manila Bay.

They lasted until May.

On May 7th General, Jonathan Wainwright and his staff met with Lieutenant General Majaro Hoa and surrendered the defeated soldiers on Coor and the surrounding islands were rounded up and taken to a prison camp at Cabana Twin on the mainland.

As the captive settled into life at O'Donnell Cabana, twin Vied prison in Manila, among other prison camps throughout the islands, they became missing inaction or presumed dead back home in America.

And they began three and a half years of hunger, death, and torture.

What food, medicine and comfort they found they had to find mostly on their own.

- If it moved, we, we, we got it and ate it.

We ate snake anytime.

If we'd got around a dog and anyone pat us looked like they were patting that dog, they weren't.

They were just feeling, see if there was enough meat on his ribs to eat him.

We got snake.

We ate that.

I've seen, seen guys eat rats.

That's where I drew the line.

I said, I would die before I would eat a rat.

- Sometimes, you know, they'd be thinking about closing their eyes like that.

They'd be thinking about what they're gonna do.

You know, when they get liberated, you know, or back to the states and all the food, you know, they're always thinking about food.

You know, all the time, all in prison camps, eh, all of a sudden somebody would burp.

You know, - The lack of essential medicines led to unnecessary deaths and suffering in billed prison.

Pharmacist, Eugene Rogers kept trying to do what it was his job to do, but was most often frustrated and sometimes punished for doing it.

- I remember the time, one time I was tied up at, at the guard shack for a whole day.

I didn't gimme anything to eat or drink because I had given the patient a day's quinine.

He was being transferred to Japan.

I knew he needed it.

He wouldn't have any medicine in route.

Well, the Japanese said I was wasteful with the medicine.

They tied me up.

And it wasn't until that evening, about nine o'clock, they decided to turned me loose, told me to go back, go to bed, and never do that again.

Or I think it's gonna kill me.

And that was my job, was taking care of people medical.

I couldn't understand it.

I tried to explain it to 'em, but you can't.

- Doctors and pharmacists, mates medics did a terrific job with what they had, but the hands were just tied.

They just didn't have it.

And I guess it was harder on them to see a man die when they knew how little it would take to keep 'em alive.

- Well, somebody tapped me in the back.

I haven't seen this guy for a long time.

And he said, what's the matter with you?

I said, I don't know.

I probably not gonna last, you know, a couple days, three days, you know?

I said, what's the matter?

And he said, I said, I've been going to Latrina, but 20 times a day out of 24, you know, sometimes I had to crawl.

You know, I'm so weak.

This guy here gave me two tablets.

And he said, take one now and then take one tonight before you go to sleep.

See?

And I was looking at this tablet and I said, where'd you get this?

He said, nevermind.

I said, I have some source supply or something like that, you know?

But around camp, you know, there's no medicine.

Japanese would confiscate everything.

They said something about black market going on, you know, inside, inside the camp.

But none that I heard, you know, anything like that.

And I was looking at the establish, you know, when I looked back and there's nobody there.

See, then I started to tremble.

You know, my hair was just, you know, goose pimples, you know, I had goose pimples, you know?

And, and I, from then I started to pray.

And, you know, but sometimes, you know, when at night, you know, when I go to latrine, you know, I, I would pray and I'll, I'll call all kinds of saints, you know, and I'd beginning to doubt.

And I said, I don't think that there's, there's God, you know, there's no God, I don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what I was saying.

You know?

So I guess I never lost faith.

And then when I took those tablets, the, in about three days, I got cured.

You know?

So I guess that, that's when I believe that this, this is Christ.

You know, - Jim Downey was saved by medicine, but like others who had tried to help, less fortunate brothers to survive, he had to let go of his brother, Robert.

- So my brother got real, real sick.

And the guys in charge, the barracks said that, I'm afraid I have to separate you two and I have to send your brother to another infirmary.

You know, that's where, that's the last compound.

You know, you'll never get out of there.

- Of course, at that time, a month prior to that, we were getting rice and soup in these, in this, in combined wine.

But he just couldn't eat it.

He wouldn't eat it.

He, my brother just gave up, like other people.

And I couldn't get to him.

I couldn't talk to him.

I guess he wanted to die.

I guess a thousand of them did.

They just wanted to get the pain over with.

- And we thought that for a little while, you know, if I go with him, you know, I said, that might both of us are gonna die.

You know?

So I thought maybe I said, why can't I stay behind?

And then you go first, eh.

And that was a very hard decision for me to, to tell him, you know, because we were so close together.

And so he said, okay.

And not long before that, you know, and I heard that he died.

See?

And I blamed myself for that.

See, I should have gone with him.

- He and I were real close.

He was a couple of years old.

And I, - We take the burial detail in the morning.

You'd have 35 or 40 to take out and bury by the time you get back from that detail.

They're 15 or 20 laid out to ready to go out in the afternoon.

That was when days were the grima - Did me 80 of 'em a day, you know, that many were dying.

And we'd take 'em and put 'em on.

We used old shutters off windows as stretches.

And we'd, one would get to the man's head and one of his feet to pick 'em up and put 'em on the stretcher.

And if they were decomposed enough, the skin would slip off in your hands.

And, and of course the smell was terrible.

And we would take these guys down and just throw 'em in a big hole.

I mean, they didn't bury the people side by side.

Just throw 'em in a big hole about as big as this room.

Sometimes you'd have to hold them down.

So they'd float in this water, water, the water table's high over there, and the water would come up in this big grave and you'd have to hold 'em down while other guys put dirt on them.

- The Japanese were signatories to the Geneva Red Cross Convention of 29, which outlined the humane and fair treatment of prisoners of war.

Japanese propaganda film reflected adherence to the spirit of the convention.

In fact, many prisoners were told by Camp Commanders that they would be considered to be captives a lesser status than prisoner of war, and would do as they were told, or be punished.

- Sometimes they would have the men strip off down to the waist.

And when the guards would come in off duty, they'd have their cigarette butts.

They'd just put 'em out on 'em, I guess.

And you'd be burns all over 'em.

And I think if there's anything you could think of, I believe they tried it.

- They brought us in, put us in, put us in, lined us up, and put us on our knees and put a stick behind your knees.

And you had to sit sitting down on them.

They kept us that way for about 26 hours.

And every 30 minutes or so, they'd make it change the position of the stick.

After about 30, 30 minutes, it's getting numb.

So they'd go ahead and change it.

And then they walking around doing the thing.

If they didn't think you were sitting down hard enough on it, it, they'd jump up on your thighs.

- Sometime they tie your thumb like that in the back and pull you up till you're almost touching the, on the ground like that.

And sometimes they tie you up.

They put a bamboo, you know, and tie you up, you know, until your, your cro you know, on a cross position for a long time.

And sometimes, you know, people, you know, would tie you on, on a steak outside.

And they put some kind of a sweet in there, you know, so the ants, you know, would go in there and try to eat you up.

And, you know, - There were very, very few men that su successfully escaped from cabana, toan prison camp.

When they, when they did escape, they would, and they would re caught, they would behead them and hang their heads up on, on poles for all of us to see.

They - Would take and tie them to a pole right at the entrance gate where everyone could see it and torch them for anywhere from four to four hours to days.

And then they usually, when they get done, they took 'em away.

And we either heard the shots or they didn't come back.

And the Jeff laid around and tell you that they cut their heads off.

- And then they decided on a 10 man system, they put us in squads, death, squads of 10 men.

If one man escaped, nine were executed, the other nine were executed.

If, if, if two escaped, eight were executed and so forth.

And I would witnessed one particular thing where I was, we were all marched up to the top of the hill.

These men were forced to dig their own graves.

And the, the remaining escapees, you know, the, the remaining members of the squad, they were forced to dig their Dr their graves.

And the, the Japanese shot them.

And then something I had never seen before.

The, a Japanese officer took a pistol and went behind each one of them and fired a shot into their ear, you know, behind the ear.

And to just make sure that they didn't suffer, so to speak.

You know, that's the first time I had ever seen them show any sort of, any, any kindness whatsoever.

And that was a kind act in a sense.

You - Know, one time we had two people escape.

They got back to the American troops in Japan and baton.

But in the meantime, the two people that escaped the Japanese couldn't believe it.

They could get away from, 'cause they had such a heavy guard on us.

But anyway, they did stink down.

They went down through the toilet stool, really, that's the way they got out.

But they lined the rest of us up in camp, and we had to count off one to 10.

And my number was number seven.

That's my lucky number.

And, but the, every 10th man had to step forward, do a right face and march across the street.

He dug his grave, they gave him a cigarette, they shot him and had another detail to cover 'em up.

- Late in 1942, the Japanese began moving some of their captives into forced labor, mainly in the factories and minds of Japan and Manchuria.

These movements continued throughout the war and involved crowding hundreds of men in the small cargo holds of Japanese merchant ships.

For those who survived these journeys in the tropical heat, bill Wells and Eugene Rogers, among them, the ships came to be known as the hell ships.

- They put us in the ships in Manila.

When he got in the hole, they put the hatch boards on the top of the hatch, left one opening, just enough for a man to get out.

And then they took the cables from the ship and put them over that, those hatches cinched them up with the wind lists.

So you knew you're in the tropics and they'd shut off all air getting down to you.

But you knew that if anything happened, there was no way that you, you were gonna get 400 men out.

That one little opening.

And after a while, it didn't matter.

But the, the heat in there was indescribable.

- Just thought how hot it is, you know?

And I just, you don't know.

You don't think about the future.

You just think about right now, it's so hot.

I don't know if I can, I just want water so bad.

I can taste it.

And I, I, you don't think about nothing else except that really, I don't think you think about the future at all, or the past or nothing.

You're just kind of temporarily insane, I think, really?

- Were you temporarily insane?

- Well, I, maybe on the border, because I, I kind of kept thinking, well, I, I know when I was trying to get my wrist, I was saying, gee, I couldn't figure out why they was getting my wrist.

And then I saw right next to me, another guy was sucking the blood out of another guy and he was squirting all over everything.

'cause the blood was pumping out.

And I thought, gee, I'm not gonna have that.

And I was doing like this.

So, so they couldn't get me.

And I thought they might slash my arms, - That was the worst time that the guys would get in there.

And they, they panicked and there was just no way that you could calm it down again.

There was a little water that guys would lick the condensation off the side of the ship.

They actually tried to suck blood from some of the other guys.

That, that, that, that was one of the things that it, well, it was the roughest time of all.

As bad as the times were on the food.

I never saw a man try to kill for food.

But they did try to kill in, in hold of those ships for water.

Just quite a few of 'em drank their own urine, knowing that in 30 minutes they were gonna be dead.

- By 1944, the prisoners were scattered to all corners of the wartime Japanese empire.

From the tropical jungles of Southeast Asia to the frozen lands of Manchuria.

Some lived under better conditions than others.

It is estimated that of the 26,000 American POWs captured by the Japanese and the Pacific War, 11,000 died during captivity.

The skeletons of some were found at war's end.

Those that survived did so by luck and by will.

And with a sense of humor.

For a time in Cabana Twin, the prisoners addressed their guards with the names of a few select American movie stars.

- The name was only good.

And until somebody told 'em what it was, we had Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, every Disney character they had, well, they'd go around tell everybody, me, Mickey Mouse, me, Mickey Mouse.

That was fine.

Until the Japs decided to show us a, a movie.

I think one of the few they ever showed.

And it happened to be a Disney firm film a lot of us get to, was living hell beat out of us the next day.

- And combined to one, when knew when we got in prison camp, they told us that every time we saw a Japanese, we had to bow, you know, and say keoki, that's attention in Japanese keoki.

And so we made a little joke out of this, the Americans, and we'd see these Japanese marching down the company street, and we'd all stand up and bow, and if you stay snake shut, it sounds like kki.

And we'd say, snake shut.

Everybody would buy one.

The Japanese would grin and s look back at us.

I thought that was funny.

- Still do.

When you get down, you've got to have a reason to, to live, live for the love of your country, the hate of the Japanese.

It's a, - It's a hate that goes, goes through you when you talk about mental attitude, whether you're gonna give up or get well.

And we had lots of people who had no reason to die, who just gave up, threw in the sponge, says, I've had it.

This is too rough.

I can't stand no more.

I can't take anymore.

- I was pretty sick and I couldn't make the bathroom.

Well, we only had slit trenches from the toilets, you know, latrines, I should call 'em.

And I was trying to make it one day.

And I soiled myself.

And some major came up to me and he says, soldier, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

You're not acting like a, like a soldier.

Now get out there and clean yourself up and act like a soldier.

And he brought me around.

I cussed him from one end of the camp to the other.

But he brought me around.

He, he made me think.

And I never, never let myself ever get in that position again.

I got in, I was sicker at different times, but I never n never ever thought of giving up or ever let myself go again.

Look up, - You don't know how you survive yet again, you've got that desire again.

The bastards ain't going to get me.

You go right back to your love and hate.

- You know, the rumors are so strong.

Help is on the way.

Help is on the way.

So we figured like, well, today we're going to do this and maybe tomorrow, the next day we're gonna see planes up there.

We're gonna get help and we'll just hold on another day or two.

And you live that way for, I was a prisoner three years and nine months.

And I don't know why.

I didn't have sense enough to say, well, I'm never gonna make this.

But I never did give up.

'cause I said, I'm gonna keep on helping these people as long as I can - Sometimes, you know?

And I said, it's probably fate and the love of country.

And I guess that's what really came me going, fing God and that American flag, - Even though you had never been to America.

- Yeah, because I don't know.

'cause since I always wanted to come to the United States, you know, when I was, even when I was young, see?

And I kept telling myself, you know, I mean, someday, you know, - Late in 1944, the Japanese began losing the Pacific War.

In January, 1945, general MacArthur's forces regained luan.

In February, prisoners at Kiwan and Biab prison in Manila were liberated.

But those imprisoned in the farther reaches of the Japanese territories remained generally unaware of the closing battles of the war.

Fighting came to a quick end with the advent of the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima.

On August 6th, - Of course, they dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki.

And when they dropped that one day, the Japanese scared them so bad, the war's over war's over.

And the next day, the sun didn't come up.

- It was shortly after that.

We get up one morning, the gates were open and there were no Japs.

So, well, this is it.

- They took off, man.

They, they were scared to death.

And I don't blame them.

And as far as I know, no Americans killed in, in my prison camp.

No Americans killed any Japanese.

You know, we, we certainly, and if I'd run across some that had beaten me, I'd, hell, I'd have killed them.

No, no question about it.

But I didn't have, didn't see 'em.

And you just can't go around shooting innocent people.

- Elation, the belief.

We knew this was gonna happen.

Here it is.

What do we do about it?

- Reporters rush out to relay the news to an anxious world and touch off celebrations throughout the country.

Washington is jubilant.

And in Chicago, more than a million sing and dance in the streets.

In the biggest celebration the windy city has ever seen joy is unconfined.

- I now invite the representatives of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government and the Japanese Imperial general headquarters to sign the instrument of surrender.

At the places indicated - At infamous Mori Prison camp, many other relied prisoners are freed here.

And at other camps, nearly 10,000 prisoners were held captive, but not registered with the Red Cross, nor allowed to be visited by neutral representative.

Former jailers, bow to the departing prisoners.

A long, bitter period of is over.

Victory for them means home.

Again.

- I remember the small group that I was in, they put us on a truck and they took us down to the coast right there.

It wasn't too far off, but the Smith as a destroyer Smith was there.

And that's where I got on a smith with, or maybe not 20 other people I guess, but there was some other big transports there.

It was taking a lot of the others.

But when I got on that Smith, there's one sailor he'd give me, he'd give me a pair of pants and he'd give me a hat, white hat.

And it just, it is just so good to see a American uniform.

- I thank good Lord that I made it back.

See?

And I was kinda sorry that my brother didn't make it.

And so I kept telling myself, you know, there must be a purpose.

You know, that, that I was the only one there that came back.

See early beside my brother.

Anyhow.

And it's a, it's a great feeling, you know, to have freedom.

You know, - When we did get to San Francisco, I remember coming under the Golden Gate Bridge and Dina Shore was in a big balloon over that.

And she was welcomed.

Every she, she just welcomed everybody home and is so good.

- More than 40 years later, it is understood that these young men who survived, seemed to regain their health and hurried home, actually suffered a trauma.

It assaulted their minds and spirits and in many cases, permanently damaged their bodies.

They have been described as a generation that grew up tough in the depression and the war, learning to do what had to be done to survive without complaint.

When they returned to America, they regained their bearings.

And most often, for reasons of their own went on with their lives in silence.

- I kept it secret for a long time.

See, and sometimes it's kind of hard to talk about it.

See, you know, and 'cause it's, it's very depressing sometimes, you know, to talk about it.

- When you live in, in human conditions for people over there four years, you, you become inhuman.

You have to, to survive.

I've always said that the good people died over there.

The good people that couldn't become inhuman, couldn't, couldn't change their attitude.

Like my brother and a number of others that couldn't degrade themselves enough to eat the slot that the Japanese fed us put up with the beatings.

And - I guess we felt like savages and we weren't really a whole lot above it.

And for instance, in my case, when I sat down to the table to eat with people, I had keep telling myself, no, you use a fork, you - Use a knife.

The headaches were my biggest problem.

My nerves were always, I have always was a, you know, it, very nervous, but not outwardly.

I don't show nervousness outwardly.

I keep it inside until I lose my temper.

Then, then, you know, it comes out.

But suffer the terrible nightmares.

And, but all in all, I, I think I have gained from the experience.

- It was something you kept inside.

I I I stayed in the Air Force and retired and, and it, it finally goes away and gets way in the back of your mind.

If it didn't, you'd tell, you'd go crazy.

- This is the most I've talked about since I have been liberated.

I haven't even talked this much to my family about this.

I don't, first I don't think I care about it.

I mean, they don't wanna hear about all these things and I don't care to go over 'em again.

I don't know.

I agreed to talk to you, really?

But I have never gone in this much detail in the last 45 years.

'cause there's nothing good tell - In my case, up until today, I have never told any of my children a quarter of what we've said today.

Why?

I don't know.

- But sometimes, you know, it really gives me the goose pimples, you know, to say something.

You know, what happened to me in prison camp, you know?

'cause the first thing that comes on my mind is my brother Robert.

You know, and we were separated, you know, when I should have just like I said, I should have gone, you know, with him, you know, and took care of him or maybe took care of me.

See, but that was a very depressing moment.

You know, - We can talk to each other.

And that gets it - Out.

Especially when you go to all this convention, you know, my buddies, you know, would tell you, oh man, I haven't seen you for a long time.

They say, what did you do?

And where were you assigned?

And, and all of that, you know?

And it, and they still talk about, you know, what happened to them, you know, even now.

And they said that they were tortured also.

And, and they see their buddies died and all that, you know, and they, they still talk about it.

'cause there's not very many of us left right now in my company.

I think there's only five of us that's left, that's still around.

A friend of mine just died last month.

- The end of the Pacific War was the beginning of a friendship and alliance between America and Japan.

The American occupation of a defeated Japan under general MacArthur was felt by the Japanese people to be humane and productive.

The survivors of Bhutan and Coor seemed to have a feeling about Japan that is reserved in practical.

Norman Matthews returned to Japan after the war to work for the Air Force.

And the Japanese truck that sits in his driveway, he says, is not an irony, just a good truck.

But in the last few years, he's been having bad dreams and he remembers a recurring dream of his captivity.

- But some of these guys said they drop about food all the time.

But, you know, I never did.

I drank about killing jabs, really?

You know, I just hated them so much.

Some of these fellas sitting in drank about eating a big breakfast, a big lunch.

But my favorite dream over there, the vows, the Americans came in and liberated us and they said, okay, you can do whatever you want to, to the Japanese.

And there was a couple of hundred guards there.

And I said, well, you gimme one fill, 50 caliber machine gun.

And I set it up on this parade ride and I'm gonna run all the Japanese around this perimeter.

And the last one that meets the, that comes a certain point.

I'm gonna kill them until I kill 'em all.

That was my favorite dream.

- I don't know if the tables were turned.

I know we wouldn't have been that treated in that way.

We couldn't have, we never had, - I didn't bring my kids up to, to hate the Japs.

If a Japanese family moved next door, I would accept them as neighbors.

If they had children and my grandchildren came to visit, I'd feel nothing.

I'd want them to go over and play with 'em.

I don't hate the Japanese today.

I hope that they're a different Ja than the ones we were associated with.

The Japanese race as a, as a race, I don't hate.

But if I ran into some of the ones that I was under the guards, I'd kill 'em.

- I, I never in a million years will I ever be able to understand the Japanese are a very artistic and talented people.

They're odd.

Is, is is beautiful.

And they'll make a ceremony over a cup of tea that is just unbelievable real.

What they'll, the, the elaborate ceremony they, they they will go through.

And yet how could people who are so artistic and so talented and have such a love for a natural beauty and manufactured beauty, if you want to call it that, be so cruel and sadistic and animals to men like us.

And how that I'll never understand - The full story of the American Defenders of Batana and Corredor is not well known.

The battles they fought at the beginning of the war have been the subject of a few action movies, history records that they slowed the Japanese advance in the Pacific against tremendous odds.

But it is recorded only in passing in modern history books.

The conditions of their imprisonment are barely noted, if at all.

But that imprisonment was the price they paid to save what they believed then and still believe about America.

- Now, my children know about Botanic Craig Atol and my children know of the sacrifice, not that their father made, but that the thousands of men, both living and dead, have made what we have contributed to trying to save the world from, from tyranny.

I would like to see a little peace in the history books a little larger piece.

And in some history books were never even mentioned.

- That's a really great feeling, you know, to be an American and back to good old USA did a flag right there.

I give my life to that anytime I can still hit the target 200 zero way bullseye.

See, steady is a rock.

So we're a judge.

Yeah.

I really love America.

So my children, same way.

- But I know one thing, I'm, I'm, I think I'm the luckiest person alive.

I can, people can, you know, get disturbed what's happening in the America today.

And I get up, I smile all the time.

My wife gets up and says, oh, it's raining today.

I says, hell, we're getting enough of it.

We're going to have a nice breakfast.

It doesn't take much to satisfy any of us.