Posted on 04/09/2007 6:08:07 PM PDT by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL
Sixty-five years ago, William Onufry threw his rifle into the sea and marched 65 miles to the tip of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
After four months of fighting a relentless Japanese attack, Onufry and the remaining 12,000 American troops on the island were ordered to surrender on April 9, 1942. Hunger had weakened the men, and many were sick with dysentery or malaria. But the Japanese ordered them to march. Those who stepped out of line to find food or water were beaten. Stragglers were shot.
The Bataan Death March claimed the lives of at least 600 Americans and 5,000 to 10,000 Filipinos; some historians estimate the numbers are even higher. For Onufry, then 18, it was the beginning of 3½ years as a prisoner of war.
"You should be dead, but you just keep going," said Onufry, who now lives in the North Country town of Freedom. "Another day, and you're still alive."
Onufry, now 84, is one of the few remaining "Battling Bastards of Bataan." He says good luck kept him alive. But skills he learned as a Boy Scout also helped: He staved off thirst by sucking on his uniform buttons and made clothes from scraps of tents.
As a prisoner, it was too painful for Onufry to think about the United States, hot showers or a full meal. But he also refused to allow the brutality happening around him to become real in his mind. He lived his life in minutes, thinking only of surviving to the next one. Each rice bowl laden with worms was another meal to keep him alive; each stone loaded onto a train car was another task finished.
"Most of this was a fairy tale," he said. "I didn't believe people could do something like that to other people."
'Get up! Get up!'
Onufry joined the Army Air Corps 5th Air Force in 1940, following his older brother, Edwin, a bombardier. As a staff sergeant and a chief engineer with the 17th Pursuit Squadron, Onufry repaired and maintained planes. He left for the Philippines that September, he said.
Onufry was stationed at Nichols Field near Manila, and he thought he had a pretty good gig. Work began at 8 a.m. and usually finished by 1 p.m. because of the heat. That left plenty of time for him to raise hell with his buddies.
On Dec. 8, 1941, Onufry remembers someone shaking him in bed, saying, "Get up! Get up! The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor!"
That afternoon, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on American air bases in the Philippines. Bombs tore through planes and hangars; by the time the attack ended, only 15 of 40 planes remained at Nichols Field, Onufry said.
Despite the damage, Onufry said the men of his squadron were sure they'd prevail.
"Who would've thought a little island place like Japan would attack the United States of America?" he said. "We thought we were the biggest, bravest country in the world."
But the Japanese continued to bomb the island. Just before Christmas, 27,000 Japanese troops landed.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered the Allied troops to fall back to Bataan. Onufry and the others left in a hurry, leaving behind much of their food and supplies.
On Bataan, food rations were cut in half, and medicine was scarce. Some men became so sick with malaria that they passed out from fevers. Others died.
They supplemented their diets with whatever they could gather in the jungle. Some men ate an Army cavalry horse that Onufry used to ride. He didn't eat any, he said.
Onufry's squadron was given a new task on Bataan: Patrol the beaches and shoot at Japanese barges trying to land.
"We lost all of our airplanes, so we picked up rifles," he said.
Rumors were rampant among the troops, and many believed that more soldiers, equipment and food were on the way. After a lull in fighting, the Japanese attacked with renewed force. On April 9, 1942, Onufry's commander told the squadron to destroy any equipment and weapons and meet at Mariveles, a city at the tip of the peninsula. The American general had surrendered.
"We were completely in the dark. We knew nothing about it," Onufry said. The men were scared, wondering what was going to happen next.
'It was too late'
Thousands of Americans and Filipinos waited a whole day and night at Mariveles before the Japanese came. It is estimated that 66,000 Filipino soldiers were also at Bataan.
Onufry had never seen a Japanese soldier. When the first soldier came into view, Onufry heard screaming from the jungle. A Filipino ran out from the trees, his face bloodied, Onufry said. The Japanese soldier fired, killing the man.
"It was too late then," Onufry said. "All we had to do was march."
Many of the men had already finished the water in their canteens, and the Japanese gave no food or water. They grouped the soldiers into packs of hundreds or 1,000 and ordered them to march east toward Manila Bay. The Japanese sometimes drove by the marching men in trucks and swung their rifles or bayoneted someone randomly, laughing as he fell.
"I tried to stay out of their way the best I could," Onufry said.
Some Filipino civilians tossed rice wrapped in banana leaves to the soldiers or left buckets of water near the road. The Japanese killed any Filipino caught giving food and any prisoner caught taking it. They kicked over the water buckets, Onufry said.
Once the men reached the coast, they marched north toward Camp O'Donnell. One man from Onufry's squadron was sick and had trouble walking. Onufry would rouse him at the start of the day and help him walk. After at least a week of marching, the man gave up and stopped.
"I said, 'You know what will happen,' " Onufry said. "He said, 'I don't care. I just can't go any further.' "
Onufry tried to carry the man, and as he struggled, a Japanese soldier bayoneted him in the back of the thigh, ordering him to move on. The cut was several inches long, but Onufry could still walk. He'd gone about 300 feet when he heard a rifle fire several times. Onufry no longer remembers the man's name.
'Might as well die somewhere else'
Onufry thinks it took him between 10 and 14 days to make the 65-mile walk to San Fernando. There, the men were loaded 100 at a time into boxed train cars. The ride took about five hours, Onufry said, and men screamed and gasped for air in the hot cars. When they arrived at Camp O'Donnell, Onufry helped unload the dead bodies.
The camp was crowded with men fighting for food and water. Some stood in lines for hours to draw water from a spigot. If a prisoner tried to escape, the Japanese ordered nine men to dig their own graves, then shot them, Onufry said. Few prisoners tried to leave.
Onufry decided to work for the Japanese at Clark Air Force Base, which was just south of the camp.
"I said, 'If I stay in this place here, I'm going to die. I might as well die somewhere else.' "
Japanese bombs had destroyed much of the base, but the enlisted men's barracks still stood and had running water and a bathing area. Onufry moved bombs and 55-gallon gasoline drums. He later worked in the kitchen, feeding 5,000 Japanese soldiers. The prisoners were fed only rice, but the Japanese ate hogs and chickens they took from the Filipinos.
When he came down with malaria, Onufry passed out and couldn't work for several days. He feared he would be returned to Camp O'Donnell. Another prisoner bartered with some Filipinos for eggs. He mixed the eggs with rice and fed Onufry for several days until he regained some strength. Then he worked alongside Onufry, carrying the heavy end of the bomb.
The man died before they left the camp.
'It depends onwhere you are'
In 1944, the Japanese transferred prisoners by ship to Japan and other locations. They packed Onufry and 1,000 other prisoners into the dark hold at the bottom of a ship, where they deprived the men of food and water for most of the trip.
The U.S. Navy fired on some of the ships, not knowing prisoners were on board. One ship sank, killing nearly 1,800 prisoners.
Onufry said riding on a "hell ship" was worse than the march. Men went crazy from thirst and killed each other.
"They'd go so far as to drink blood," he said.
Onufry used a blanket and a rope to make a hammock that he hung from boards on the sides of the ship. It kept him out of the fights. He sucked on the buttons of his uniform to keep saliva flowing and help with the thirst. The trip took weeks and when they reached Japan, Onufry had no buttons left. He helped unload the dead.
"I was one of the few who had a little strength to do it," he said.
Onufry was held at a camp on the main island of Honshu, but he was far from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where Americans dropped atomic bombs on Aug. 6 and 9 in 1945.
Onufry said he understands why some feel Americans should never have used nuclear weapons. But he remembers fighting off feelings of hopelessness in the camps.
"It depends on where you are," he said.
One morning, the Japanese commander told the prisoners there was no work that day. After three days without work, the commander announced that the war was over and the Americans would soon retrieve the prisoners. They opened the gate and told the men they could go out and walk around.
Onufry and a prisoner who spoke Japanese walked out and headed for the railway station. They decided to go to Tokyo, where they thought they could see the Americans coming in.
The men had nothing but their tattered clothes made from tents. They told the conductor that they didn't need a ticket. He didn't stop them. The train was crowded, and two Japanese offered their seats to Onufry and his companion.
When they reached Tokyo, they saw two American paratroopers leaving the railway station. Onufry and the other prisoner didn't recognize them at first because they wore modern uniforms - the pants were green instead of khaki-colored, and they had lots of pockets down the leg. Even the helmets looked different.
The prisoners startled the soldiers, jumping on them and hugging them. The paratroopers flagged down a car and took the men to a nearby hotel. There, they fed Onufry and his friend C-rations, packaged Army food that included crackers and canned meat.
"They were delicious," he said.
'Quite a relief'
When Onufry returned to his hometown of Ipswich, Mass., in October 1945, town officials removed the gold star next to his name on the honor roll board. His mother and the rest of the town had thought he was dead.
Onufry finished his tour of service as a technical sergeant, then took up a career in automobile sales. He married a girl from his old neighborhood, Lorraine, and had three children who all work as educators in New Hampshire.
Onufry didn't talk about his captivity until about 25 years ago, when his children started to ask him about it. He figured no one would believe the cruelty he witnessed and experienced as a prisoner of war.
About 10 years ago, Lorraine Onufry asked her husband to travel to Japan, a place he swore he'd never return to. He relented, and one morning, as he walked alone on the streets of Kyoto, he realized he didn't want to hold on to hate for the Japanese any longer.
"I said, 'These weren't the ones I had my problems with - they're too young,' " he said. "This was enough to let me go. It released a lot of tension inside."
Onufry returned to Bataan in 2002. He and other survivors reunited and rode a bus along the route they'd walked 60 years earlier. Roads and homes have replaced much of the jungle, and he had trouble distinguishing one part of the path from the next.
Onufry still has dreams that he's been recaptured.
"I used to say, 'Hell, I'll never make this again,' " he said. "Then I'd wake up. It was quite a relief."
------ End of article
Please help me to honor these men.
My thanks go out to all who served.
My 16 yr old niece will be reading this article as part of Aunt Goodnesswin’s Summer Re-education Camp this year...thanks for posting.
There was one old man I recall, when I was living near Kissimmee. He would walk the lakefront of Lake Toho, by the marina and the fish camp.
I would nod at him, as he passed by the slip where my boat was tied up.
Then one morning, I saw him wearing a T-shirt as he walked.
It said, “Death March Survivor”.
I saluted. He returned it.
“Summer Re-education Camp” — I love it! Lol!
A cousin of my husband’s survived the march but he died on one of the hellships in late ‘44. Where can anyone begin to imagine the horrors these men endured?
I guess I’m the only one who glanced at the title and thought this was about Batman...
A History of the Salinas National Guard Company 1895-1995 (many of these soldiers were at Bataan).
Bataan Memorial Dedicated (pdf file; long but good).
A lot of people could learn from this man, in many ways.
日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
Two of my uncles, who came from a large family, couldn’t find work. They traveled to the west coast from their small town of Luster Montana. Even today Luster has less than 100 people.
Unable to find work because Uncle Bill had a low draft number, they enlisted together. This was prior to Pearl Harbor.
They were sent to Corregidor, were separated soon after Pearl Harbor, with Bill sent to Bataan.
Bataan surrendered on March 9 (1942? someone please correct me if I have the year wrong).
It was months before Uncle Walter found out that Bill had been sent on the Death March. Walter later said he never cried as hard as the day he found out that Bill didn’t survive.
Even though he suffered his entire life from the dysentery he suffered over there, Uncle Walter lived many more years, raised a family of 6 fine men, and died in 2005.
Brave men who offered their all. I’m glad they’re still making them.
Thanks for posting this. And thank you Gurnie Richard and Pappy Dugas of Vinton, Louisiana, for your sacrifices on this march.
As a green reporter for a small weekly newspaper in Vinton, Louisiana, one of the first feature articles I published was an interview with a survivor of Bataan, Pappy Dugas.
It was in the early 1980s when published, and Pappy had never told his story (except in small parts when pressed). I talked him into telling his story to me to make sure Gurnie Richard, who saved Pappy’s life on the march (drug him with Dugas’s arm tied to his belt)received the recognition he so deserved. Gurnie and two other young men from Vinton died in Bataan, one in the boats hit by the U.S. planes. Of those four Vinton boys, only Pappy came home.
If you drive down I-10, right before you cross the Sabine River is the tiny town of Vinton, heading west from Louisiana to Texas. And just before crossing the Sabine, you can look to your left, and, from the interstate, you can see the statue honoring those four. It has an engraving of a soldier dragging another, is seen from the front of the local VFW post.
The fundraising drive to build the monument began the day after the article was published, and it was built two years later, unveiled during a ceremony attended by several state dignitaries.
To this day, that is the most moving story I have ever written. The day it went to press I took copies of the story to Gurnie Richard’s twin brother, who still lived in Vinton.
Those four young men, who all left their homes for the first time and ended up at Bataan, were among America’s best. God bless them.
Some related threads:
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Bataan Death March - Feb 20th, 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/847596/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Los Banos Raid - 1945 - Feb. 23rd, 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/849795/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General Jonathan Wainwright - Apr 19th, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1120263/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Japanese Hell Ships - May 2nd, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1128135/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Japanese Attack on the Philippines (12/10/1941) - Jul. 29th, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1180700/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The 200th Coast Artillery (AA)- (12/8/1941) - May 26th, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1142329/posts
Right year, wrong month. April 9, 1942.
Bill Zumar was an orphan boy who lived with my family in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. My Dad was his football and basketball coach in Comanche, Oklahoma. He joined the army in 1940 and was sent to the Philipines. He was captured on Bataan and endured the Death March. He was sent to Japan on a Hell Ship and worked in a coal mine near Nagasaki where the 2nd atomic bomb was dropped. He came home and married his wife, Dorothy, from Duncan, OK and later lived near Marble Falls, Texas where he died about 10 years ago. Lester Tenney has written a book “My Hitch in Hell” about his experiences which were identical with Bill Zumar’s. I have spoken with Lester who lives in California and who has kept files on the prisoners in his camp. He looked and found Bill’s name in the files. Bill has two sons that I have tried to find without success. I have located a nephew in Dallas. I miss Bill. He is my hero!
FReepmail me. I have access to some databases.
Tell me how to contact you. Thanks!
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