News-Info-Alerts

Re: Bataan, 50 Years Later

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 09, 2002

"Survivor reluctant to talk about Bataan

By: JOHN CRAIG, Staff Writer April 08, 2002


Roslyn’s “Pete” Johnson laughs at a friend’s joke last week as he looks at the medals he earned in the U.S. Army. Johnson walked the infamous Bataan Death March. (Photo by John Craig)ROSLYN - His smile temporarily disappears when he's asked about World War II. He's told friends repeatedly he'll never tell the whole story, but over the years he's mentioned an incident or two.

His reluctance to talk about his wartime service is understandable: he survived the Bataan Death March.

Sherman Arnold "Pete" Johnson, now 83, had been in the U.S. Army for about a year and had been stationed in the Philippines for a couple of months when Corregidor fell and he became a prisoner of war on April 9, 1942.

Johnson was among the 76,000 Allied prisoners of war and one of the 12,000 American service personnel forced to march 60 miles under a blazing sun, tropical heat and oppressive humidity from the island of Luzon's Bataan Peninsula to a prisoner-of-war camp. It was a march of atrocity.

Five thousand Americans died during the march, during which the Japanese did not feed their prisoners or give them water.

He remembers the only chance captives had during the march to drink was to try and grab a mouthful of water from roadside artesian wells. Those who tried it were either stabbed or shot by the Japanese.

Occasionally, Filipinos would try to toss them an egg and he remembers some Filipinos were killed for throwing eggs to the Americans.

As the march progressed, the numbers of soldiers dying from malnutrition and exhaustion increased.

Johnson survived the march, only to be returned to Bataan to help clean up wreckage and to help build an airfield.

He was eventually transferred to a POW camp in Japan. During the voyage from the Philippines to Japan, so many prisoners were crowded into the same cargo hold with Johnson that the POWs to take turns sleeping because there wasn't enough room for them to lay down.

Once in Japan, he mined coal 1,800 feet below the surface for about 10 hours-a-day and subsisted on a daily bowl of rice. He remembers the winters in Japan as similar to those in South Dakota and that the Japanese didn't heat his barracks.

The depth at which he was working underground warmed him up during the winter.

Johnson remembers his biggest fear was getting shot. If one prisoner tried to escape, the Japanese lined up the other prisoners and shot 10 of them.

When he was liberated in September 1945, Johnson weighed 86 pounds. He had spent 42 months as a prisoner of war in several prison camps including those at Cabanatuan, Bilibid, San Fernando, O'Donnell and Fukuka.

Corporal Johnson was awarded the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, with one star; the Philippine Defense Medal, with one Star; the American Defense Ribbon, with one star; the Presidential Unit Citation, with two clusters and the Good Conduct Medal, with clasp.

Baatan, Corregidor Memorial: http://www.terracom.net/~vfwpost/Bataan.html

American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor: http://harrisonheritage.com/adbc/

Ghost of Bataan: http://www.ghostofbataan.com/

©Watertown Public Opinion 2002 "