A friend and former soldier of mine sent this over Facebook and it gave me a bit of a trip in the way-back machine. Albert N. Brown, 105, a retired Army major who lived to be the oldest survivor of the 1942 Bataan Death March in the Philippines and was believed to be among the oldest surviving Americans to have fought in World War II, died Aug. 14 at a nursing home in Nashville, Ill. An Iowa dentist and Army reserve officer, Dr. Brown was dispatched to the Philippines as a member of the dental corps in late 1941. He spent the majority of his service overseas as a Japanese prisoner of war. The wounds he suffered during confinement were so severe that physicians told him after the war that he would not live past age 50. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese planes began bombing American bases in the Philippines. A ground invasion followed. Isolated, the U.S. troops defended against the assault without any promise of reinforcements or resupply of ammunition or rations. Dr. Brown said in interviews that after food became scarce, they ate snakes, crickets and worms, “and finally our horses and mules.” The Americans and thousands of Filipinos fighting in the jungles suffered from dysentery, malaria and dengue fever. Weakened by disease and exhausted of supplies, the Allied forces were taken prisoner by the Japanese in April 1942. My step mother told me once that her father was one of the soldiers that survived the Bataan Death march, and she told me that was the reason that he never ate another orange, because that was all they had to eat as they were being marched as a POWs to some of their final resting places. Other than that one little piece of information, he never talked about it, and if you read about it and do any research about what happened, you find out why in a hurry. During the six-day ordeal, the prisoners trudged through 100-degree heat. They were denied food and water. Those who lagged behind or stumbled were often executed on the spot. Dr. Brown said he was bayoneted for not keeping pace. He watched as one American fell to his hands and knees and was beheaded by a Japanese soldier with a samurai sword. He said he saw three Americans dig their own graves before they were shot in the holes and buried. Asked how he survived, Dr. Brown said: “When you saw somebody’s head being chopped off, it stirred up the juices and kept you going.” More than 10,000 prisoners were slain during the march. For those who survived, the vicious treatment continued. I don't know about everyone else, but I can't even reach far enough back into my brain to get to a place that would help me fathom what this experience must have been like. It is no wonder that men like this drove America to be as great as she was after WWII. They had what I call, the "value of perspective" from experiences like this. Rest in Peace Major Brown. You have earned it.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/2lswOtoY8YE/oldest-bataan-death-march-survivor-passes.html
Posted
Aug 17 2011, 03:28 AM
by
BLACKFIVE