Blood Brothers | Page 2

that would not heal. I knew that within another 6 to 8 months, we would all be dead, and there would be no record of it. There was no paper to keep any record of events.
Within a few weeks, I was able to obtain a" nickel school notebook. In it, I drew many sketches, depicting the lifestyle in prison camp.
Of course, I had to be secretive. There was a penalty for keeping records in camp; if I'd been caught, I would have been beheaded.
By the time we were being processed for transfer to Old Bilibid Prison in late October 1944, I had made some 110 sketches. I rolled them up and placed them in a Mason jar. I buried the jar at the east end of building No. 12, planning to come back after the war and dig it up.
...
When the war was over, I was flown from Mukden, Manchuria to Kunming, China and on to Manila, P.I., where I was housed in a tent at Reple Depot # 29 south of the city. The next day I was flown in a Piper Cub back to Cabanatuan to look for my drawings, landing at an airfield we had built as prisoner-labor. A battalion of Engineers furnished a bulldozer.
The camp buildings were all gone. I figured out where building # 12 had been. We dug for hours and found nothing.
As fate would have it, one year after I returned to Active Duty at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., I located my 110 sketches at the Pentagon. MacArthur's Sixth Army Rangers had retrieved the buried drawings when they liberated Camp #1 in late January 1945.
All of my sketches had been carefully numbered, and marked on the back "Unidentified Artist." I had been officially declared an artist.
INTRODUCTION

In Japanese prisoner of war camps, all prisoners were divided into groups of ten, called "blood brothers."
If anyone of the ten "blood brothers" made any attempt to escape, the other nine would be punished "Sevelery!"
Typical punishments:
Tie the blood brothers to fence posts and require each passing Japanese soldier to slap and kick them.
More severe punishment required recruits to use the bound brothers for bayonet practice.
The most severe punishment required an officer to unsheathe his samurai sword and behead the "brothers."
My ten blood brothers, all Medical Officers of the Regular Army, were:
Lt. Col. William Draper North
Major James Bahrenberg
Wilbur Berry
Wesley Bertz*
Eugene Jacobs
Emmert Lentz
Steven Sitter
Clarence Strand *
Clarence White*
Captain Robert Lewis
The blood brothers with the asterisk (*) were killed or died on "Hell Ships" enroute to Japan.
The other brothers survived the rigors of Bataan, the "Death March" Japanese prison camps, labor details, the "farm," and "Hell Ships" to return to the United States. Since the war, all have died, except the author, who is anxious to tell his story before the first reunion of the "brothers."
STAFF Camp John Hay Baguio, Mountain Province, P.I.
Lt. Col. John P Horan, Commanding Officer
Capt. Hubert (Sandy) Ketchum (Cav. Adjutant)
Major Henderson Allen, (Q.M.C.) Supply
Major James Blanning (Cav.)
Major Ronald McDonald, Company A
Captain Ralph Rumbold, Company B
Captain Francis Fellows, Post Exchange Officer
Captain Everett Warner, Provost Officer
Captain Parker Calvert,
Captain Eugene C. Jacobs, Post Surgeon and Hospital Commander
Captain Ruby Bradley, A.N.C., Chief Nurse
Lieut. Beatrice Chambers, A.N.C.
Lieut. Clifford Simenson, Enlisted Men's Dormitories
Lieut. Harold Everman, Signal Officer
Lieut. Cowan,
Lieut. Evans,
Sgt. R.M. Trent
Sgt. Bennet
Sgt. King
Sgt. Hayes
Sgt. Beck
Sgt. Farmer
Sgt. Sibert
Sgt. Adkins
Regret that I can not remember the names of some 200 others on duty at Camp John Hay; they were all very dedicated personnel.

Chapter I
BOMBS FALL ON CAMP JOHN HAY, REST AND RECREATION CENTER IN THE PHILIPPINES
The phone next to my bed was ringing with a great deal of determination. Half-asleep, I raised the receiver:
"WE ARE AT WAR WITH JAPAN! PEARL HARBOR IS BEING BOMBED! REPORT TO HEADQUARTERS AT ONCE!" It was 0500 hours, December 8th, 1941.
Hawaiian time, it was 1030 hours, December 7th. The bombing was still going on, lasting from 0755 to 1050 hours.
Greatly surprised and quite groggy, I tried to collect my thoughts while getting into my freshly starched uniform, Medical Corps, U.S. Army: "Knocking out the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor could clear the way for Japan to conquer the Philippine Islands, without any outside interference. Of all the Pacific territories of the United States, the Japanese most wanted the Philippines. General MacArthur, as well as the Japanese, believed that the Philippine Islands were the 'Key to the Orient'; Japan would have to take the Philippines before attempting to conquer any other countries in Southeast Asia. Some Navy admirals had recently remarked that the 'Pacific Fleet belongs in San Diego!' If the Japanese should sink one ship in Pearl Harbor (the so-called Mouse Trap), they could bottle up the entire fleet. Now, with the Pacific Fleet crippled, there could be no rescue attempt. For several years we had been aware that in the event of an invasion, all our defending