All Stories: 590
Stories
Higher Education and Pastoring
“He went to Mercer University in Macon, to their school of theology. Went through in twelve consecutive quarters. He did four years’ work in three years and became a minister, and then pastored in small rural churches from that point forward.”
Reenlistment
“I reenlisted and served three more years in the Air Force after the war was over.”
“I was stationed at Robins Air Force Base in Macon. From 1946 to 1949. I was placed in personnel. Base personnel and regular squadron duties.”
Liberation
“I weighed 135 pounds when I was captured, and when I was released from prison I weighed 87 pounds. Just a bag of bones covered with skin.”
Slave Labor
“If you were not in the mines, you would take and unload coal off the ships onto railroad cars. We would work every morning about 4:00 am and you did not know where you were going to be, whether in the mine or on the ship or where. Then the next day…
The Journey to Japan
"We were stacked in the hull of the ship. We were just stood up in there with no bathroom facilities, no nothing. A little food once a day, if you were fortunate enough to get some food, if not, you waited until the next day. We were packed in…
Camp O'Donnell
“Then I was [on] a train there— a hundred men to a box car. The doors all closed and when were arrived 3 or 4 days later, twenty-five or 30 men in each box car had died. Upon arriving at the camp in 1942, we were told by the Japanese that we were…
San Fernando
“I arrived in San Fernando, a sugar cane factory, or where a factory was, and kept in a barbed wire encampment for 3 or 4 days.”
The Bataan Death March
“Our rings and watches and any gold that we had was taken by [the Japanese]. We were lined in columns of four and started marching up the one little narrow paved trail toward San Fernando. We didn’t know where we were going, but every time we met a…
The Battle of Bataan
“Beginning Christmas Day, 1941, we were put on a boat and taken across the bay to Bataan. We advanced as far up the peninsula as possible, marching until we met the Japanese, 75 or 80 miles up the Bataan Peninsula. That is where we drew a line…
Voice of America
“We listened to the ‘Voice of America’ from the time the war started until we surrendered on April 8, 1942. Each night we had a fifteen-minute news broadcast through the ‘Voice of America’ which was broadcast out of San Francisco or Los Angles. We…