A few captives raised small gardens growing vegetables for their own use. As they ripened, the produce had to be carefully watched to prevent theft. Some captives trapped stray dogs, some ate lizards, grasshoppers and even earthworms.
With food from every available source, the daily diet rarely reached one thousand calories. Fat and salt were almost never available.
Slow Starvation: Starvation, the scourge of the Orient for centuries, devastated the captives held by the Japanese; it was not a starvation bred of poverty, but starvation bred of brutality, sadism and neglect. Murder would have been more humane; execution more legal. A slow, tortured death, however, was more in keeping with the desire of the Japanese to make the "Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor pay dearly for having challenged 'Dai Nippon."
We were hearing so much about the "Death March" and "Camp O'Donnell,"
I have decided to include several paragraphs on each:
Bataan "Death March": The "Death March" began April 9th, when the
Japanese General Homma demanded that General King surrender his 80,000
Fil-American forces on Bataan "Unconditionally."
Since Gen. Homma's prizes, Corregidor and the Philippine Islands, still lay before him, he had no time to worry about the captured Fil-American forces. His shock troops, tanks, trucks, cars, cavalry, artillery, and infantry occupied the only highway from Bataan to the central plain. They were getting into position (on the grounds of Hospitals I and II) to shell and bomb Corregidor into submission. "Why the dirty bastards! They're using us as shields to fire on Corregidor."
At the same time, Japanese guards between Marivales and Limay were rounding up the 80,000 hungry, sick, confused, and exhausted captives to march them north on the same highway in groups of one hundred in columns of four.
Guards were continually barking orders: "Get on the highway!
Hully! Hully! Hully! Kura! Stop! Get off the load! Speedo! Sona bitch! Kura! Get on the highway! Stop!" They used their weapons to enforce their directives.
The "March" began at Marivales, proceeded "on foot" for about sixty miles, then by box car for some twenty miles and finally another ten miles "by foot" to Camp O'Donnell. "It was hot, hot, hot and dusty! There was no food; there was no water!" Most captives did not have canteens. Those who attempted to fill their canteens in the ditches besides the road were frequently bayoneted; anyone who couldn't keep up was slapped, clubbed or