Evening star., 1945-11-02

come back ano
Gen. WainwriEht. Brig. Gen
Lewis Beebc and I had taken a few
books with us from the library ol
the University Club in Manila. They
were handed around like rare treas.
ares, read and re-read, even com.
mitted to memory. One that espe-
cially stands out in my mind was
Kenneth Roberts "Oliver Wiswell,
which did more to take me out o1
myself than any other book read
am sure, as one officer said, thai
we would have read the telephone
book from cover to cover if one hao
been available.
The ignominy of being made to dc
manual labor was still before us
But the hours of just sitting ano
waiting, for God knows what, palleo
on many of us. Brig. Gen. William
E. Brougher, one of the truly great
combat soldiers of Bataan, obtained
some seeds and planted tomatoes
sweet potatoes and watermelons, and
daily we inspected them as their
first sprouts showed timidly above
the sun-baked ground.
Made to Write Essays.
One day in July, 1912, we were
told that each of us must write
an essay, the subjects of which were
assigned to us. I drew America s
Prewar Policy in the Pacific" sat
down and wrote at great length on
what / believed, and still believe
was our appalling error in not being
militarily prepared for any emer-
gency in that part of the world. The
Jap "schoolmaster" was sternly
silent about my essay in further
discussions of our scholastic work
The Jap officer in charge of our
camp seldom visited us. He left
most of the camps supervision to q
sergeant who delighted in ordering
us around. The sergeant usually
posted himself near the only exit
Of our barbed-wire inclosure.
The wire was the height of Jap
precaution. Few of us at Tarlac
were in condition to stand the rigors
of escape, for we could not have run
or walked far from the camp, nor
could we have existed very long in
the mountains even if we had been
able to put distance between the
camp and ourselves.
But we all dreamed of escaping. as
cooped men will do. And one day
the opportunity all but faced some
of the young enlisted men in the
camp.
On that day in question we were
to get some meat. The meat ar
rived in the shape of a starved but
still rather frisky Philippine cow.
The creature could not have weighed
$50 pounds. We helped the Cow
tenderly out of the truck which
brought 1t to our inclosure, but it
suddenly broke away from us and
began running around the prison
yard.
Cow Gets Away.
The hungry Americans, including
myself, gave chase. But the cow
was in much better physical shape
than any of us. 1t darted this way
and that and then ran straight out
the open gate of the inclosure.
BY this time the senior officers
and many of the juniors were COM
pletely winded. But half a dozen
enlisted men pursued the COW right
through the gate, passing right be-
fore the noses of the heavily armed
Jap guard.
1t is. possible they could have
kept going. But in the stress of
the moment their overwhelming
craving for meat was greater than
their craving for liberty. They
chased the cow up a neighboring
hill, where it turned and bolted
back for the camp. The cow led
the men right through the gate
again, and in their gnawing hunger
some of she men did not even know
they had been out of bounds.
1t would have been a ludicrous
performance at any other time, but
now 1t was very serious, especially
when&the cow continued easily to
evade our starving men in the prison
inclosure.
Sergeant Lassoes Cow.
A sergeant from the COW country
named Greenleaf, finally solved the
dilemma. He borrowed length of
rope from suspicious Jap guard,
fashioned a lasso, stole up to within
l5 feet of the cow and roped 1t
neatly. An engineer, who had been
a butcher in civilian life, moved in
with his borrowed knife, slaughtered
the critter and cut it up. He wasted
nothing.
When 1t was cut and dressed, the
Jap sergeant stepped in and took
one-third of 1.-THE best parts-and
gave this meat to the Jap guards.
Then he turned savagely on the en-
listed men who had pursued the COW
out Of the prison confines and
vehemently bawled them out.
All of us suffered at Tarlac from
tilc HleIitdl ndnQlcap OF knowing
that If we did come down with any
thing worse than cold our chances
of being treated properly were next
to nil.
For shortly after our arrival there
one OF my best ordnance men, Col.
Edwin F. Barry, came down with a
streptococcus infection of the throat,
and despite our pleas that he be
rushed to a hospital he was casually
treated in camp by a Jap medical
officer. Col. Barry died of the infec-
ton at 10:40 pm. on June II. We
buried him, with permission, in the
Tarlac Cemetery about a half mile
northwest of the camp, and again I
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