Jap’s Arrive at Hospital #2

During the night of April 3^rd, 1942, the author’s unit was on the OPLR (Outpost Line of Light Resistance) from the 17^th Squadron of the 27^th Bomb Group when it was surrounded by the Japanese. The patrol’s dozen men, close to starvation and exhausted from months of incessant bombing and strafing, ran south through the enemy in an attempt to reach the MLR. (Main Line of Resistance) “Scattered like quail,” it was now “every man for himself.” After fighting his way through the Japanese gantlet armed only with a Colt pistol, the author had nearly reached the safety of the MLR when he encountered one last Japanese Infantryman intent on finishing him off with his bayonet. Out of ammo, a fierce duel then ensued. Nearly exhausted by that time, the author tripped and fell. With the overeager Samurai warrior wildly jabbing his bayonet, the author managed to roll to his feet and strike his opponent with his empty pistol, hard enough to crush his skull. During this epic battle for life, the author received three bayonet wounds. Reduced to crawling, he finally reached the part of the MLR manned by the 91^st Squadron, 27^th Bomb. From there he was taken by ambulance (a huge Prime Mover Dump truck from the Benguet Gold Mines) to Hospital #2. The following passages about his experiences in the Hospital are from the book now being written. Imagine a Mess Sergeant charging sick and wounded patients for their food! This is how the author handled the problem.

AT BATAAN’S HOSPITAL #2

Recognizing my need for someone with muscle to back me up while I recovered my strength, I asked another patient nicknamed Blackbeard to be my partner. Sticking out a big paw, he said, “Never thought Ah’d pal up with a Damn Yankee but reckon Ah kin make an exception fer y’all.” From him, that was high praise. Despite his slowness of speech and manner and other civilized niceties, my gut feeling was he’d be a good ally. Wounded early in the Bataan campaign, he was taken to Hospital #2 for treatment. Then the Hospital’s over-worked staff lost his paperwork and he kept mum, content to remain far away from the frontlines. Besides a false limp, he had another ace up his sleeve, a bar of strong, GI laundry soap. Whenever a high fever was needed to keep him in the hospital, Blackie put his prized bar of soap in a sock and tied it under his arm. In minutes, his fever would soar and he would remain a patient. Not only street smart, he was a born conniver and, like myself, conveniently ruthless when necessary. Though his cavalier attitude about combat duty did trouble me, his inborn ingenuity made him a good partner during those tough times and the fact he was strong as a bull was another asset I came to appreciate. So, when we heard that our ward’s lecherous Mess Sergeant had jacked up his food prices again, I announced, “Partner, reckon it’s time for us to take care of the food gouging.” Grinning, he drawled, “Y’er tha boss, Yank. Let’s do it.”

Checking on the most recent food prices, we found they’d been jacked up again, far beyond our modest means. Looking around at the other starving patients who had little or no money, I went into a rip-roaring rage. The smirking food servers casually shrugged me off, saying, “Pal, if you don’t like it, tough shit. Go see the Mess Sergeant. He’s the Boss.” Storming out, Blackie and I headed for his private tent where we had to threaten the SOB to make him to come out. With his piggy face set in a cast of indifference, he just laughed when I braced him about gouging the most helpless patients. Then he sneered, “Asshole, put your complaints where the sun don’t shine,” adding with disdain showing like a badge of honor, “Those sucker-friends of yours can starve to death for all I care.” Reasoning with him was hopeless so we returned to our bunks, intent on drawing up a plan to end the gouging. The final plan was very simple: “Waylay the fat bastard outside his tent early next morning and scare some good, old, common sense into his fat head.”

Pre-dawn the next day we were lurking in the shadow of the mess sergeant’s tent when he came out, rubbing his eyes in the dim light. Blackie waited until the bastard had unlimbered his whangdoodle and begun to pee before knocking him to the ground with a sturdy club. Though my wounds had made it difficult for me to move quickly, all pain was forgotten now as I straddled his fat body. Rolling him over on his back, I grabbed a handful of hair and then twisted his head to one side in order to better reach his jugular with my razor-sharp mess-kit knife. Sliding the back of my blade smoothly over his fat neck, his eyes bulged as he noisily gulped for air like a fish out of water. Then, bending close, I hissed: “Your obscene food prices have been canceled.” Making his first, and last, mistake, he cursed me and demeaned Blackie’s mother. But, when he spit at me, I turned serious, drawing the razor-edge of my knife lightly across his throat, enough to start his blood to flowing. As the stink of his urine polluted the sweet morning air, I then smashed my fist hard into his Adam’s Apple. As his face turned pewter gray, I gritted, “You stinking bastard, if you ever gouge another penniless GI who begs you for food, like MacArthur, we will return.” Leaning ever closer, I hissed, “You lard-assed, son-of-a-bitch, don’t Then we enjoyed a hearty breakfast. Don't make us come back. Ever! If you do, I’ll carve you up like a Christmas Turkey. Do you understand?” Blubbering like a baby now, he whimpered, “Yes, yes, I hear you. But, please, don’t hurt me.” His craven reaction proved another of my Dad’s truisms, “Scratch a bully and you’ll find a coward hiding underneath!” Allowing the former king of the messhall to stagger to his feet, we ambled down to the river to wash off his stink.

Future historians will probably wonder how Blackie and I could rough up a Mess Sergeant and not end up in the Brig. No doubt they’ll debate endlessly about how we could go to such extremes to correct a non-com’s evil ways, always asking, “Why didn’t the M.P.s or some other authority put a stop to those misdeeds? Why weren’t such miscreants arrested and thrown in jail?” Well, dear readers who weren’t at Hospital #2 in 1942, the answer is easy. Authority, discipline, jails, brigs and M.P.s no longer existed. Indeed, it was a rare officer who dared to raise his voice against the chaos on Bataan in April of 1942. At best, such an officer would have been ignored. At the worst, look up the word “frag.” With Bataan in total turmoil, Mob Rule reigned as the strongest survived and the weaker died. Saluting was non-existent along with most other discipline, a state of affairs that existed on Bataan for some time. In Hospital #2 where one’s best chance for survival rested in his own hands, it was at its most extreme. I’ll have more to say on this matter later.

With our bellies temporarily full, life assumed a more pleasant aura. I can attest that a full stomach translates into happiness for a starving man! During our Robin Hood expedition, Blackbeard had proven to be a gutsy partner whose ideas meshed nicely with mine. He had suffered great hardships and known little kindness growing up so I believed his prime virtue as my partner would be his loyalty. Stretching out on my bunk, I began to plan for our survival in the coming months. Dad had often said, “Joe, only by deep thinking do troubled men prevail. If you find yourself in a bad situation, do your best to avoid panic, the #1 enemy of constructive thinking.” Then another of his axioms popped into mind, “Never think you are perfect, son. Remember, most men snap under extreme pressure. Of ten men in trouble, nine will flop around like chickens with their heads cut off.” Pondering Dad’s truisms, I was deep in thought on how to handle the tough times ahead when a company of Japanese Infantry in full battle gear suddenly burst into our ward. Their broad, flat faces, slit eyes and mouths set in stark lines like an idol’s mask gave stern notice we’d receive no mercy from these trained killers. Still wearing their battle helmets replete with twigs and leaves, they charged through our ward, looting their way from patient to patient. Waving rifles with bayonets mounted, they never ceased a maniacal screaming. Whenever a frightened GI was too slow in giving up a ring, watch or toothbrush, the frenzied Japs beat him to a pulp or, too often, eviscerated him there on his cot. Anyone who was there that day and says he wasn’t scared shitless is a liar or an imbecile.

Though many patients in my ward were bedridden, the Japs beat them anyway with their gun butts and fists. In Japanese eyes, their “crime” was not being able to understand the heathen’s gibberish. Then the bastards began a more thorough search where the least hesitancy in giving up a ring or other keepsake brought on a beating even when the person lay helpless in bed. As the little tyrants swaggered through the hospital wards, operating tents and elsewhere, looting, maiming and intimidating, their body stench would have gagged a hyena. That horde of latter-day Kubla Khans had BO and a breath so foul, I’m sure their slobbering mouths had never known a toothbrush nor their bodies soap and water. As they actually stole all our toothbrushes, they were probably the first they’d ever seen. Ignoring every rule of human sanitation, they treated the hospital grounds as their personal latrine. When nature called, those barbarian runts urinated or crapped whenever and wherever the urge struck. Now we POWs had to watch where we walked for their feces littered the grounds. Those dwarf, sub-humans, highly lauded by the rest of the world for cleanliness, shit by their campfires and slept in the midst of garbage and filth of their own making. “A clean race? Bull Shit!”

Since most beatings arose from our inability to understand their orders, learning their language became my top priority. Then, one day, pondering how to avoid a beating before it happened, I found the answer there in front of me, plain as a turd on a marble floor. Observing the Oriental’s morbid reaction to sickness and how they covered their faces around sick patients, I thought, “Why not fake a bad cold or the flu? It’s worth a try, Ol’ Hoss.” To test my idea, I tore a corner off my filthy sheet for a hanky and sat down to await a Jap. Snuffling a bit, I carelessly waved my hanky at the first one who came by. Wow! He took off like a scalded cat, fear and disgust on his face. When another one showed up, I hit a home run by going into a false spasm of coughing. When I paused for breath, damned if he didn’t speak to me in perfect English, saying, “What a bad cough, soldier.” His tone was kindly so I decided to ask him how to explain in Japanese that I had TB. Still at a distance, he smiled sympathetically and said, “Soldier, when I lived in America, I was treated well. I will help you. Try saying, ‘Watashi wa hai kekkaku ga arimasu.’ ” I wrote the words down phonetically and he helped me with the proper pronunciation. That lucky ruse would serve me well for the rest of my days as a POW. Though I never saw him again, I’ve always remembered that kind soldier as one of the few decent Japs at Hospital #2. I also recall thinking, “Shut up, Joe. No more chatting or you might start to like him. That would just get in the way if it’s necessary to kill him later on.” My cynicism was showing!

Whenever Blackbeard brought me the latest news, it was usually complaints about the miserable Jap Major now in charge of #2, a pip-squeak tyrant named Hisashi Sekiguchi. Our American doctors had despised him from the day he arrived as he’d quickly made it clear he hated all Americans. When Dr. Jack Schwartz, chief of surgery, asked for more food for the weakest patients, Sekiguchi refused, saying “Your own army reduced your rations, why should I give you any more?” But our worst concern was about his failure to control his barbarian soldiers who continued to roam the hospital like bands of bandits, assaulting, defiling and looting at will. Imagine, with their commanding officer a medical doctor! Rethinking Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, I decided: “These ignorant savages did not evolve from Apes. No way! It has to be the other way around!” Then, trying to be reasonable, I added a note of optimism to my equation: “As there’s always an exception to every rule, some decent people may possibly exist among these monsters.” Between evading Jap bruisers and looters with my new TB ruse, I would review the tumultuous events of the past few days. From that, arose a new mantra: “I did NOT surrender, they captured me while in a coma, big deal!” Then I’d think about running their gauntlet and total up the score: 23 known Jap KIAs to zip with General Brereton’s .45. That was ignoring the dozens more I killed with their own grenades and bayonets. With those stats, I figured the Japs didn’t have much to brag about. Then I’d go back to my original mantra and chant: “As long as I’m a captive of the Japanese Empire, my prime purpose in life is to sabotage them personally and their war effort to the very best of my ability.” In this, I would be supremely successful.

If you want to be notified when this book is published, please contact the author at:

J.D. Merrit


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