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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.
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