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Bataan Death March Survivor
Webmaster note: Although this is a tale of
one of the most gruesome and barbaric events in WWII, we are honored
to share this story with you. For anyone reading this page who
is not familiar with the Death March on Bataan, I urge you to read
all of this and to remember it, for it speaks volumes of what can
happen when liberty is taken for granted. We are indebted to
the editor and contributor of this passage, Chip Dodson.
Like many stores from wars, this one is an
important treasure that needs to be preserved. If you know a
Veteran, please ask them to tell you about their experiences, and
let them know how it important it is to save their experiences so we
can always be reminded that Freedom Is Not Free!
A Condensed Biography of James F. Drake
Name: James F. Drake
Date Entered Service: 4 August 1937
Unit at the outbreak of WWII: 27th Bombardment Group (Light)
Campaigns: Philippine Defense, Bataan Peninsula
Captured: 9 April 1942
Decorations: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, American Defense Medal,
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, Philippine Defense Medal, POW Medal, World
War II Victory Medal
Special Honors: 20 October 2000, Inducted into the Alabama Military Hall of
Honor, June 2002, Commissioned an Honorary Colonel in the 3rd Brigade,
Alabama State Defense Force
Life Memberships: American Ex-Prisoners of War, (Past President of the
Mobile Chapter), American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Military Order
of the Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 49, American Legion Post
88, Disabled American Veterans
Date; 1983: James F. Drake received the devastating news; his left leg will be amputated below the knee. This was the belated effect of the wounds received in a beating inflicted by a brutal Japanese guard more than forty years earlier. That day, in 1942, is forever fixed in his memory. But it seemed like only yesterday....
Born James Franklin Drake, on 30 October 1919, in Collinsville, Alabama, he was the oldest of four children. His family moved to Batesville, Mississippi when he was a young child. Growing up in North Mississippi was anything but easy in the 1920s and 30s. He could hardly imagine how the hardships of rural life would steel his character for what awaited him in a far away land.
James enlisted in the Army in August 1937 and was sent to the Panama Canal Zone for Basic Training. He volunteered for the Army Air Corps and was posted to a Pursuit Squadron based there in the Canal Zone. He remembers writing his mother to say, "I only have to work eight hours a day and even have weekends off"! This was quite a change from his "before dawn to after dusk" chores on the farm. He adjusted well to the regimen of Army life and enjoyed his work.
After two years in Panama, Drake returned to the States and was sent to Barksdale Field, Louisiana. In 1941, he volunteered for transfer to the newly formed 27th Bombardment Group (L), then being moved to Savannah, Georgia. The 27th was training with the new twin engine A-20 attack aircraft, but instead was switched to A-24's, the Army dive-bomber version of the venerable Navy SBD.
As war clouds gathered, the 27th was slated to ship overseas. Drake recalls the Group spending more than a week disassembling aircraft and loading them and all other equipment on rail cars. The trip across country took another two weeks, finally arriving at Angel Island in San Francisco. The Group, minus their aircraft, boarded the SS President Coolidge on 2 November, bound for Luzon, Philippine Islands. The planes were to arrive after the troops had settled in to their new assignment. Drake and the 27th Bomb Group sailed into Manila Harbor on Thanksgiving Day, 20 November 1941.
After processing, they bivouacked at Fort William McKinley, just outside Manila. James, by then a sergeant, and the enlisted men, occupied their time with "make-work" assignments, calisthenics, card playing, and writing letters, while waiting for their planes to arrive. Little did they know, their aircraft would never arrive.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 8 December, Philippine time. No one could believe the Japanese could be so stupid as to attack the United States. But they soon found out what a formidable foe the enemy could be.
The first bombs fell on Clark and Nichols Fields later that same day, and James vividly remembers seeing the formations of bombers flying over as he looked up from the slit trench. They were at war! Without aircraft, the 27th Bomb Group became "flying infantry" and was issued weapons and ammunition. Drake was given a Browning Automatic Rifle and all the ammo he could carry. He had never trained on a BAR but he would soon get plenty of
O-J-T.
Drake's outfit, now designated the 27th Provisional Infantry Battalion, was moved to the Bataan Peninsula where they engaged the enemy. Many of his friends and acquaintances were killed in the heavy fighting. As months went by, all hope of relief was lost. Ammunition and supplies grew short and many were forced to forage for food. They ate horses, water buffaloes and even monkeys. On one foray, Drake and a friend were alerted to the sound of
Japanese voices coming toward them. Taking cover, the two Americans were able to fight off the small patrol, and make it back to their own lines. This was only one of many actions in which Drake distinguished himself before the Islands were surrendered to the Japanese.
Drake was taken captive on 9 April 1942, near the town of Mariveles, at the extreme southern end of the Bataan Peninsula. Uncertain of what lay ahead, he and hundreds of others were herded into a field and told to sit. They were given no food or water. They were moved again and again and the group grew larger. At some point, Drake was singled out by an interpreter and asked if he could drive an automobile. He was then assigned as driver for a Japanese Officer. He remembers the car as "a brand new Ford staff car".
The officer would sit in the back seat and slap Drake on the shoulder and point in the direction he wanted to go. James would stay in the car whenever the officer was engaged in his duties and slept in the car at night. He was guarded at all times. He was fed and given water occasionally. His driving assignment ended as unexpectedly as it began, and Drake found himself again among the thousands of prisoners on the Bataan Death March.
The men were force-marched ninety miles north toward a large holding camp. They were already weak from short rations before their ordeal began, and it only got worse. Some were suffering from dysentery. They were given little or no water or food for days at a time. Stragglers were not tolerated and most were shot or bayoneted. Drake recalls anyone who fell was not allowed to get up. The unfortunate man was killed and thrown to the side of the
road. At one juncture, Drake clearly remembers a large Japanese soldier standing at the side of the road. As the ranks passed by, he would indiscriminately throw a punch at the nearest prisoner. Several men were knocked down as the big brute laughed loudly. Drake said he was lucky not to be on that outside row as he passed the attacker. Some prisoners would break ranks and try to drink water from a ditch or puddle, only to be beaten with a rifle butt or stabbed. This deterred most from any attempt to quench their thirst.
After interminable days of being herded along like animals, Drake's assemblage of comrades arrived at Camp O'Donnell. This was only the first of five different camps Drake would occupy over the next forty-one months of captivity, starvation, mistreatment and torture. He spent time in Cabanatuan, the largest camp in the Philippines. During his ordeal, he would contract beriberi, and temporarily loose his eyesight. Drake would be beaten on many occasions, and for little or no reason. If a guard did not think he was working fast enough, or maybe just for spite, a beating would occur. Once, while at Nichols Field, Drake was very sick with a high fever.
He was not allowed to stay behind, and so was sent to carry water for the work detail. A particularly sadistic guard decided Drake was too slow in carrying out his duty and began beating him unmercifully. Drake was beaten unconscious. He suffered several broken ribs and was bleeding badly. Left lying in the sun all day, his friends thought he was dead. At the end of the day, two men were told to bring the body back to camp, and only then did they realize James was still alive. He was unable to work and his condition worsened. A truck was summoned to transport Drake to Bilibid, where dying prisoners were sometimes taken. Two guards took him by his wrists and ankles and tossed him up to the bed of the truck, Drake said, "like a sack of potatoes". The long bumpy ride ended inside the gate of Bilibid Prison, where the guards then unloaded him by pulling him off the back of the truck by his ankles. Drake hit the asphalt so hard he bled through the nose and ears. Miraculously, he recovered, and was sent back to a different work camp.
On another occasion, a guard attacked Drake with a pick handle. While down on the ground, the guard took another swing at him, which Drake dodged, almost! The heavy club struck a glancing blow on the outside of Drake's left calf, knocking a large flap of skin loose, nearly to the bone. Drake went back to work bleeding badly. Without stitches or medical attention the large wound became infected. The pain was severe and the odor was awful.
As time passed, the flap of skin rotted off and flies would gather on the wound. All the while, Drake was required to continue working. A friend told Drake to tear a piece of his shirt tail off and cover the wound to keep the flies away. James thought that was a good idea and did so. That was a mistake. A guard called an interpreter over to ask Drake about the "bandage". Drake tried to explain, but to no avail. The interpreter asked, "who gave permission to tear the shirt", and accused Drake of "willfully destroying the property of the Japanese Government"! The interpreter warned, "You will now suffer the consequences of your actions"! Drake was tied to a post in the middle of camp, and flogged with what he described as a "bullwhip with an eighteen inch cracker". Every lick cut the flesh on his back, and "the blood just flew". After an unbearable time, Drake mercifully passed out. Drake says he cannot understand why he did not die from gangrene, unless it was the maggots that continued to infest his leg. That injury, however, would be the cause of many years of trouble, culminating with the loss of his leg in 1983.
In late August 1944, Drake was loaded into the "Hell Ship" Noto Maru for transfer to the Home Islands. More than a thousand prisoners were "packed like sardines" in the hold with no room to sit or lay down. The days were stiflingly hot, and the nights were not much better. Of course, sanitary conditions were nonexistent. When a man died, others were forced to take the corpse topside and throw it overboard. Drake also remembers hearing the explosions when one of the ships in his convoy was torpedoed and sunk. He knew if their ship was hit, they had no chance of survival. After a harrowing trip they arrived in Japan and were put aboard a train. The windows were kept covered at all times. They traveled several days and finally arrived at a slave labor camp named Hanawa at the northern end of Honshu. The prisoners worked in a copper mine. Conditions were not much better than before, but the prisoners were given warm clothing due to the cooler climate. The work was extremely hard, twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and many died from the strain. Despair was rampant and some just gave up and died. Drake had always prayed for strength to endure and survive. He prayed even more fervently now. He knew, after enduring the winter of 1944, that he probably would not survive another one.
Drake had lost track of time, but he knew summer would be over soon. Then one day the guards did not come for them. They did not have to go to work, and everyone wondered why. Then an interpreter told them that the war was over. The guards left and many thought it was a trick. Others ventured out of the compound and into the Japanese areas. They brought back food and other supplies. Then, Allied aircraft appeared overhead, and some dropped messages telling the prisoners that the war was over and to stay put until they could be liberated. When the American authorities arrived, Drake said he thanked God he had made it. He was extremely weak, and two medical personnel came with a stretcher to carry him to the train just outside the camp. Drake refused the stretcher. He told his rescuers, "those civilians you see there, they watched me walk into this camp. I won't give them the satisfaction of watching me be carried out of here. I want to walk out". And with much difficulty and a lot of fortitude, he did just that! He defied his tormentors and walked out!
Drake was taken by train to Yokohama and received his first medical treatment in nearly four years. He distinctly remembers a nurse asking him about what he had been through. She told him not to worry because when he and the others got home, the Government promised to give each of them a new Ford automobile. He was given a new uniform and put aboard a Navy cruiser for the trip home. Drake arrived in Seattle Washington in October 1945, home at last. However, he spent nearly two years in the hospital recovering from the disease and deprivation of the past four years.
James Drake endured incomprehensible horror and mistreatment at the hands of his barbaric captors, things no human being should have survived. It is hard to believe men could treat other men that way, but they did. Asked how he managed to survive, James credits his strong faith in God. "I just knew the Good Lord wouldn't let me down. I prayed everyday for strength, and I was rewarded." And does he hate the Japanese because of his mistreatment? "No, I don't hate the Japanese people, they didn't do anything to me. As for some of those guards, well, I don't hate them either. You can't love God and keep hate in your heart. You have to let it go to have real peace."
Needless to say, these and countless other recollections not related here, are etched indelibly in his memory, and James Franklin Drake will never forget them, as long as he lives. And now, neither will we.
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Reminiscences, as told to Chip Dobson.
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