<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So Bill, let me just sort of summarize a little bit. So now, you've been on the Death March...

BB: We're on the march, about halfway.

TI: Yeah, and I wanted to ask, I guess the question to ask was, the brutality of the Japanese guards, and you were just going to start talking about that.

BB: There were different personalities in all guards, all army people. Same way with American army or any other army. And there were some of these guys that would let you get away with murder; you could do anything. Like me running to get water, they wouldn't pay any attention to me. The next guard to come along would shoot the next couple of guys that ran to get water, or bayonet 'em. Their fancy was to behead somebody, and I've seen quite a few fellows beheaded.

TI: And they would, would it be sort of because they were going for water, or would it just be indiscriminate, they would just randomly do that?

BB: If somebody was weak and was hesitating walking, and he was falling behind, one of the guards would walk up and prod him a bit, and if he kept on doing it they'd prod him, they'd give him two or three chances to get in line. Then they'd get tired of the whole thing and the guy would pull a saber out and wham, that's the end of that and you don't have to worry about him anymore.

TI: And so when you saw things like this, what were you thinking?

BB: Who's next? [Laughs]

TI: And while you're in line, are you talking with the others?

BB: Yeah.

TI: And what are you talking about?

BB: Oh, mostly wondering where we're going to end up, and what was going to happen to us. Now, we only had, on the whole march, we only had about three stops 'til we got to San Fernando.

TI: And how long is this march? When you say three stops, how far did you have to go?

BB: We were in about a week 'til we got to Balanga.

TI: So it was only three stops in a week? So you're just, are you marching during the night also?

BB: Yeah, all night long. In fact, that was the best time to march because it was cool. And, see, they changed guards all the time, they were, some of them were riding bicycles, some of them were walking, once in a while some of 'em would be on a truck, all depended on which unit was marching us, I suppose. And most of these, the Japanese soldier hated to march POWs. You know, we're the bottom of the barrel, really, because first place, the Japanese army hated anybody that surrendered. You're not supposed to surrender, you're supposed to die fighting. That's their theory, that's their belief at the time. So we were just more or less gun fodder, they could do anything they wanted with us, and they did. One of the fellows, Sid Lang and I, we had, our units had a lot of brothers in 'em. We had brothers and twins and whatnot, had father and son. So we had two brothers, the older brother was a tech, well, he was a naster sergeant, Alan Lang , and then Sid Lang was his brother, younger brother. Well, Sid and I had gone to school together, we were good friends. And as his older brother couldn't walk, we ended up carrying him. Put his arms around each one of our shoulders, and in between us, and we were helping him walk in the March. Well, finally a truck pulls up and says, "Oh, we want the ailing to get on the truck and we're going to take 'em to a hospital." So we put Allen Lang on this truck along with other POWs. They went up the road and off to the side, and they beheaded all of 'em.

TI: And they went ahead so that you would march by and see that?

BB: No, we never saw it, but later on we found, the Filipinos after the war showed us the graves and whatnot. We knew that they'd been, we'd always wondered what had happened to them, 'cause they didn't end up in prison camp, so we really didn't know. But that whole group was beheaded; there were about, probably about ten or fifteen fellows in that truck.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.