“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.”

“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…

“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…

“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…

“It was one of those Philippine scout training camps. We were stationed there until we were given a permanent assignment. Of course, that assignment never came, but our quarters were there on the post at McKinley.”

“It was the regular twelve weeks infantry training that all military personnel are required to take when they enter the service. It included all types of calisthenics, all kinds of weapons training, all descriptions on all types of guns, and…

“His mother and father passed away by the time he was eleven years old. So, he was raised by his grandfather. He had two brothers. He was the oldest of the three. Grew up during the Great Depression down in the rural south, and they were farmers.…