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THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH
"THEY"...a story in verse of the Death March of Bataan during World War II This story was lived by Jesse Knowles and written in April, 1943, while he and several hundred other Americans were Prisoners-of-War of the Japanese in Mukden, Manchuria. During the march from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando, 55 miles away, 76,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war were bound, beaten, or killed by their Japanese captors. Some were bayoneted when they fell from exhaustion. Some were forced to dig their own graves and were buried alive. Only 56,000 prisoners reached camp alive. Thousands of them later died from malnutrition and disease. In August, 1945, the Russian Army liberated the prison camp in Mukden and the first Americans they saw were at the Harbor of Darien, Manchuria, when the U.S. Navy loaded the prisoners aboard a ship for the long-awaited trip home....to the U.S.A. Strange things were done under the tropic sun By the men in Khaki twill Those tropic nights have seen some sights That would make your heart stand still Those mountain trails could spin some tales That no man would ever like But the worst of all was after the fall When we started on that hike T'was the 7th of December in '41 When they hit Hawaii as the day begun T'was a Sunday morning and all was calm When out of nowhere there came the bombs It didn't last long but the damage was done America was at war with the rising sun Now over in the Philippines we heard the news And it shook every man clean down to his shoes It seemed like a dream to begin But soon every soldier was a fighting man Each branch was ready to do its part Artillery, infantry, Nichols and Clark And then they came on that Monday noon They hit Clark field like a typhoon That Monday night the moon was clear They razed Nichols from front to rear As the days went by more bombers came And soon only a few P-40's remained Then the orders came and said retreat That no man would be seen on the city streets So across the bay we moved at night Away from Manila and out of sight Deep into the jungles of Bataan Where 15,000 were to make a stand Here we fought as a soldier should As the days went by we spilled our blood Tho' the rumors came and went by night That convoy never came in sight April 7th was a fatal day When the word went around that we couldn't stay That the front line was due to fall So the troops moved back one and all The very next day the surrender came Then we were men without a name You may think here's Where the story ends But actually here's where it begins Tho' we fought and didn't see victory The story of that march will go down in history We marched along in columns of four Living and seeing the horrors of war And when a man fell along the way A cold bayonet would make him pay For those four months he fought on bataan Then they'd kill him 'cause he couldn't stand The tropic sun would sweat us dry For the pumps were few that we passed by But on we marched to a place unknown A place to rest and a place to call home Home not that you might know But home to man that suffered a blow Then to O'Donnell Camp en masse Some never back thru' those gates to pass In Nipa huts we lived like beast Bad rice and camotes were called a feast Our minds went back to days gone by When our throats were never dry Of our wives, our mothers, and friends Of our by-gone days and our many sins And about four thousand passed away And how many more no man can say For no tomb stone marks the spot Where thirty to fifty were buried in lot Piled together as a rubbish heap The remains of men Who were forced to retreat Now I want to state and my words are straight And I bet you think they're true That if you gotta die it's better to try And take them with you too It's they that took us that fatal day It's they that made us pay and pay It's they that counted us morn and night It's they that again we wanted to fight It's they that made us as we are But it's not they that'll win this war For the men in khaki will come some day And take us back to the U.S.A.
© 1997 Keith Leger This page hosted by
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