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Roy Edgar Hays
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“Captured on Corregidor” By Roy Edgar Hays
The Japanese wanted the island of Corregidor in the Philippines.
“D” Company, a few 4th Marines and other soldiers were
there to keep them from taking it. I
was from “D” company and on Hooker Point manning a 30-caliber machine gun.
Hooker point is a cliff at one end of the island of Corregidor and
is shaped like a Scorpion’s tail. The
point itself was about 25 to 30 feet wide on top, 75 feet or so from the flat
top down to the water and about one-half mile long.
My machine gun emplacement was dug down into the side of a hill
facing the sea. From there we
could see any Japanese trying to take the point.
The Japanese bombed and shelled Corregidor from about any direction and
at any given time.
Me and another guy were going up to chow one day when the bombing
started. We got up there
someplace and a shell came in close enough for the concussion to knock us
down. We lost our meal that time
because the chow truck turned back. Shells
came from every direction. The
night they landed you could see them coming across the water in barges. Our sergeant came down and told us not to start firing.
He said to wait until he said it was ok to fire.
We waited for him to come back and tell us to shoot but he never came
back. Me and Bonnie finally
thought they were close enough and we opened up.
When we started shooting, Tommy and the B.A.R. boys opened up, too.
In the morning there were 8 empty barges and the Japanese planes were
flying so close you could almost see their eyeballs. We never shot at the
planes because we were afraid of the bombs.
Lt. Lawrence was in charge. He thought we should line up and start
marching to the road to see what we could see. When we started around the curve on the road, along came a
bunch of Jap soldiers. We all
stopped then, and they stopped too. They
motioned us to come on up to them. We
stopped and they took all our rifles, bayonets, any metal that could be
dangerous. They took us on around
the gravel road until it got pretty dark, then they told us to stop.
We would spend the night there. They
made us line up at arm’s length. We
lay down on the gravel for the night. When I got up to take a leak during the
night, a Jap guard walked up, stuck a bayonet in my gut and said something in
Japanese. I thought that was the end of it. He finally let me go.
The next morning they took us on around to what they called the 92nd
garage where all the captured POWs were taken.
While we were there, some of the boys and I had made a little shade for
ourselves with some sticks and anything we could cover it with to get out of
the broiling sun.
One day when we were trying to get out of the sun, the Lt. Came
around and told us all not to tell who was out on the point because the
Japanese were looking for those boys and intended to kill them.
Not one ever talked.
I don’t know how many days or weeks we spent there.
About a week after I was at 92nd garage we all contracted
dysentery and many died of it. The
Japs sent us on scavenger details to get medicine or anything they could use.
When we left there, they marched us to the railroad and put us on
cattle cars and took us to Manila for the night, then on to Cabanatuan.
I spent 2 years plus on Cabanatuan, then I got sent out on
airfield detail. I got sick and had to come back. We only had rice to eat.
We were sent out on farm details to plant sweet potatoes.
As the vines got new leaves, they were picked to make soup.
From there groups went on airfield detail where airfields were being
built out of rice paddies for the Japs to land on. The Japanese built several
of these.
After 2 years plus on Cabanatuan, I was on a detail they sent to
Japan to mine coal. They put us
on the Mati Mati Maru. It took about 60 days to get to Japan.
One man died before we got there and they slid him off in the ocean.
We were stacked down in the hold like cattle.
There was no room to move; we couldn’t go topside – we used a
bucket for the bathroom. We got
half a canteen cup of water each day and it had to stretch for bathing,
drinking, brushing teeth etc. We
got two half cups of boiled rice every day to eat.
We were put to work in the coal mine when we got to Japan.
We wore nothing but a G-string in the mines.
We were always wet as the water dripped constantly from the ceiling
onto us and we had to stand in it to work.
We had to carry kabokes (little logs) which were used to prop up the
ceilings of the mines.
I had lost many pounds and by this time only weighed about 90
pounds. These logs rested on the bones of our shoulders when we carried them.
Sometimes the “logs” didn’t hold and they fell on us.
We picked and shoveled coal but running the jackhammer to drill into
the face of the coal was the worst job for men as skinny and under nourished
as we were.
I nearly lost my right arm because of an infection in the thumb.
It started out as a little white bump on the thumb which kept getting more and
more infected. It got about 3 times normal size. I showed it to “Boon Tai
Joe” (Korean soldier-boss). There was a red streak up my arm. When I showed
it to him, he said “rest” in Korean.
When he got to where he could take off, he took me topside and the Japs
took a razor blade and slit it open and the pus flew.
I was taken back down and didn’t have to work the rest of the day.
They took me to sick call and I had off a couple of days.
I went back to work and it got worse, so they cut it open again.
It was still swollen so they put in a drain tube. I still had to work.
The last time they did it, it got worse and they just slit it open
clear to the nail and let all the pus out.
It healed flat and the nerve sticks out under my nail to this day.
I had malaria, 11 different positive smears for malaria while I
was in prison camp and in the Philippines. I had Beri Beri, tropical ulcers on
the back, Pellagra, Dengue Fever and yellow jaundice.
The Americans started bombing the Japan mainland about the end of
the war. They bombed our barracks
once and it burned the hospital down. No one was killed, everyone got out.
When the Atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, we were across the bay
from it. We could see the smoke
from the bomb but we didn’t know what it was then.
On morning when we got up, there were no Jap guards around anywhere. So
we did as we pleased. Two buddies
and I went to the town of Omuta and when we found a chicken or rabbit we took
it. That night we “quan'd” us up a good meal.
One day we went out and saw a truck with two Japanese in it. One
of the buddies, Steve Malone, said we ought to take it over and drive around
and see things; so we took it
over. I got on the back of the
truck and the other boys got in the front seat.
I got to checking the things on the truck bed and one of the items was
a keg of beer. That night when we
got back to camp we had a fine beer party.
Finally the Americans flew over with big cargo planes dropping food to
us in 50 gallon drums attached to parachutes.
One boy was killed by one of the drums of food.
The drum mangled his leg and he bled to death before they could
get it stopped.
When the war was over, an American reporter came in from Northern
camp and told us some boys were going to town and catch a train that was going
to the airfield that the Americans had established on southern Kyushu.
Two buddies and me decided not to wait and be liberated. We decided to
go down to town and catch the train and we did.
When we got to the town we got off but didn’t know which way to go.
An American truck with soldiers on it came by.
They got out and they looked like giants to us as we were skin and
bones. They took us back to the airfield.
They told us to clean up and they’d give us clean clothes and feed
us. After me and a buddy got
cleaned up, we explored around and found a storage shed with food in it. We
found a can of condensed milk and a bottle of Maple syrup and went behind the
shed and drank it and got sick. We
threw it all back up but we still showed up for chow!
The next morning they flew all 13 of us to Okinawa. They fed us
real good there again, then flew us to the Philippines the next day. They
started processing us then to see if we were able to fly back to the States;
paid us a little money. We
splurged on cigarettes, beer and more eats.
As we got fit and able, they put us on a list to fly back to the
States. In the meantime a ship
came through with combat troops on it, so they put us on it and sent us to
Seattle, Washington. We had more
liberty, more pay and then they sent us to the Great Lakes by train to be
processed.
We got a 30-day furlough and I headed for Mt. Vernon, Illinois, my
hometown. I got as far as
Centralia (about 30 miles north of Mt. Vernon) by train and then took a taxi
to Mt. Vernon. I went to my
sister Faye’s house because I didn’t know where the rest of my family
lived at that point. Then sis and
her husband Gene took me over to mother’s house. We all went out to the farm
where dad lived and spent the rest of the night.
The next day we went back to Faye’s.
While I was home of furlough I bought a 1946 four door Ford –
the one in the picture of Vera and me on our wedding day. I met Vera while I was on furlough. We were both in the Blue Goose Café. She thought I was good
looking in my Marine uniform and I thought she was rich because she had on a
fur coat. We started going out
then. After the furlough was over, I drove my new Ford on up to the Great
Lakes. While I was at the Great Lakes I called Vera and proposed. I bought her
rings at the PX while I was still up there.
They made me Sergeant then and wanted me to re-enlist. They said
they would give me so much money to re-enlist, but I told them I didn’t want
anymore to do with it. I got
discharged March 15, 1946, and went home. *********************** This TRIBUTE was submitted by Annette Morgan, daughter - Dec 18th 2005 - email : fukuoka_gabby@yahoo.com
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