November 6, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, after the fall of the Philippines, over 70,000 Americans and Filipinos were taken captive by Japanese forces on the Bataan Peninsula. The death rate of these POWs was well over 30 percent. By contrast, the allies' POWs endured a death rate of three percent. Here to tell his harrowing story of surviving Japanese military savagery is Dr. Lester Tenney, author of My Hitch In Hell. A special thanks to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans for allowing us to use this audio.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Most of us know that on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. However,
let's know that hours later, on December eighth, they also
(00:31):
invaded the Philippines, a US territory at the time. One
of those soldiers in the Philippines was the late doctor
Leicester Tenney. Here's doctor Tenny at the National World War
Two Museum in New Orleans telling his story. We'd like
to thank the museum for graciously allowing us to use
(00:51):
this audio. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And for me give us some information. The first tank
battle of World War Two was on December twenty third
at the city of agou Ago up at Lingayan Gulf.
General Wainwright asked for a company of tanks to meet
the Japanese. When we got up to our bivouac area,
(01:19):
our post ordinance brought us enough gasolene for five tanks,
and so five tanks went into battle instead of a
company of tanks. I know what I'm talking about. I
was in one of the five tanks. Let me tell
you them about tanks. For those of you who are
not familiar with tanks. You can put that tank out
(01:41):
of commission with one shell. One shell. All you have
to do is hit the track. Ben Morien was the
lieutenant in charge of our lead tank. The lead tank
was hit right away. Once it was hit in the turret.
The second shell hit a track, The tank went to
(02:02):
the right, ended up in a rice patty. The four
men in that tank were captured that day. The second
tank was hit. A sheell went through the tank and
took the bowgunner's head right off and went out the back.
Two tanks out of five put out a commission in
three minutes. Our tanks had to turn around and head
(02:25):
back towards Batan. I will say that Ben Moran made
the comment many minutes later that if he ever got
out of that thing alive, he was going to devote
his life to God. Ben Moran became a Jesuit priest.
So tanks in the Philippines was not too bright. We
ended up with the most unusual army. We had an
(02:45):
air force without airplanes, a navy without ships, and soldiers
without shoes. We had the old dough boy helmets. We
were using Springfield rifles manufactured in nineteen seventeen, ammunition manufactured
in nineteen fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. When we were firing
(03:07):
our guns, we were hoping that one out of every
four bullets would explode. That was the kind of war
we had to fight at that time. So it was
a disaster for us, really. And yet he told the
fighters Hombaton and Corregador that support was coming. It was
not coming. I have a note here from the War Department.
(03:30):
I think the end remark sort of tells the whole story.
The end remark was that the relief of the Philippines
will not be undertaken because it is impossible. Did you
hear that the War Department decided that it was impossible
to help us. Let me tell you what General MacArthur
had to say. This is an instruction to all commanders,
(03:55):
inform your troops that supplies and ammunition are on their way.
Airplanes are coming in foot soldiers will be here soon.
This man lied to us when he knew different, and
so we fought the best we could and corregular are
(04:16):
held out. That was a thorn in their side and
they had to solve that problem. The Japanese had a
flotilla of about thirty thousand troops, tanks, flamethrowers, everything on
their way to Australia. But the Japanese had to take
the flotilla, turn it around and come into Batan. They
(04:40):
came in on April third, the First Emperor's birthday, and
that's when the push started. And it was disaster. The
Japanese were absolutely stepping over their own dead bodies because
they had to move forward and forward and forward. Now,
(05:03):
ladies and gentlemen, think for a moment. We were on
a peninsula, three sides of water. Where were we going
to go? We had nothing left. By the eighth of April,
everybody on Baton was already down at the water's edge.
(05:25):
At the water's edge, and on April eighth, General Wainwright
on Corregador, General King on Baton received a message from
Douglas MacArthur. The message said, this garrison will not cup
it too late. If all else failed, you will charge
(05:48):
the enemy. General King said, I cannot do that. If
I do not surrender my forces tomorrow morning, Batan will
be known around the world as the first worst disaster
in the history of mankind. I can't do that to
(06:09):
my troops. I have to give some of them a
chance to live. And so General King gave instructions. On
the morning of April ninth, all forces on Batan are
to lay down their arms and surrender to the Japanese
soldiers and a sad day. Most people don't understand this.
(06:35):
Let me tell you the worst military defeat the United
States ever had on Baton. On April ninth, Baton, seventy
thousand people were forced to surrender. Seventy thousand people. And
yet when we talk about Baton, most people don't know
(06:56):
what we're talking about. I gave a program some years ago,
and one woman came up to me. At the very end,
she said, Oh, I'm so glad I came. She said,
when I heard it was going to be talking about
Baton twirling, I really wasn't interested at all Baton twirling.
That's what somebody knew about Baton.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
We'll continue with Lester Tenney's story here on Our American Stories.
This is Lee Jabib, host of our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss,
(07:40):
and your stories. Send us your story, small or large
to our email oas at Ouramerican Stories dot com. That's
oas at Ouramerican Stories dot com. We'd love to hear
them and put them on the air. Our audience loves
them too. And we returned to our American Stories and
(08:11):
with the late doctor Lester Tenney's story. Tenny is the
author of My Hitch in Hell, the Baton Death March.
When we last left off, Tenny was telling us about
the largest surrender of troops in US history to the Japanese.
Most of these men would be forced into the Death March,
to the first prison camp they'd be held in. Let's
(08:34):
return to the story. Here again is doctor Lester Tenney.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So the war ended for us on April ninth. You
have to understand that General King was doing things in
violation of the military code. He was not following orders
from his commander. His commander said, you will not capitulate,
(09:02):
you will charge the enemy. He capitulated. He did exactly
what you were not supposed to do. He could have
in court martial. Let me share with you. Every officer
was given a promotion, one rank promotion, every officer except
General King. You know. They asked me if I wanted
(09:26):
to have some pictures up on the screen. I have
a lot of pictures, but there's no way that a
picture could show you the anxiety, the frustration, the sadness
of what went on Baton. No pictures, and so I
didn't bring any for that reason. And so that's a
little bit of story leading up to the Baton death March.
(09:51):
I don't know why we call it a march. I
really don't. It wasn't march. These were twelve thousand sick
men that were forced by the Japanese to walk to
the first prison camp. It was called a death march,
not just because how many died, although out of the
(10:13):
twelve thousand Americans that were captured on Batan at the
end of the war, only seventeen hundred came home. Think
about that, twelve thousand to seventeen hundred. But that's not
why it was called the Baton death March. It was
called a Baton death March because of the way they died.
(10:35):
If you stopped, you died. If you had a malaria attack,
you died. If you just couldn't take another walk, another step,
you died. If you had a defuicate, you died. No food,
no water, but they gave us nothing we were called
lower than dogs. We were called cowards because we surrendered,
(10:58):
and that was part of the reason why we were
treated so poorly, because their philosophy was if you surrendered,
you were lower than a dog. Because they would not surrender.
They would rather die for the Emperor than to surrender.
My nose was broken on the death mark two or
three times. My teeth were all knocked out, thanks to
(11:18):
the Veterans administration. I have something to true now the Va.
Thank you, mister VA. I had my nose broken, my
teeth knocked out, my head s flid open. The fourth
day on the march, a Japanese officer was coming by
on horseback, swinging his Samuri sword, trying to see what
kind of heads he could cut off. He missed my neck,
(11:43):
but he slipped me down the back with his Samuri sword.
My friends they carried me. They brought up a medic
from the rear end who brought me up sewed me
up with needland thread. I don't know what he did,
but they would not let me fall down. So I
had my share of pain on the Death March. And
(12:04):
so now the March one hundred and six, one hundred
and seven degree hot no food, no water on the
side of the road. In the Philippines they have wallows.
The wallows fill up with water. The caribou, the water
buffal they bathe in that wallow. They do their duty
(12:27):
in that wallow. And we're marching and we're dying of thirst,
and we see that water. We run over spread the
scum and drink the water. Result a meebic dysentery in
the worst way. And so when we arrived in that
(12:48):
first camp O'Donnell, men started to die at two hundred
and fifty a day. They were dying from the effects
of the march. We had one artesian well, one artesian
well popping up water, you know, Donald on the parade ground,
(13:10):
I saw men die with a canteen in their hand,
waiting to get a drink of water. You know, I
do this program in Japan. These kids know absolutely nothing
about World War two zero. They don't know a thing
about World War two. And so when I go there,
(13:33):
I made a decision. I have to think of something.
What can I tell these young people about the Japanese soldiers.
Can I say they're all bad? They were all no good? Now,
I can't say that, Ladies and gentlemen, you might all
know right now I have learned to forgive. I have
(13:59):
forgiven the Japanese. Now you may think about that in
terms of what I'm doing. Remember I did it for me,
not for them. I became free. I became free. And
you have to be strong to be able to forgive.
It's only the weekends that can't forgive. The strong are
able to forgive. Let's get on with our life. And
(14:21):
so here we were at this particular time, having to
try to survive, and I said to myself, how can
I deal with these young people? And it came up
to me and I went to the Japanese people that
I knew, and I questioned them, and I talked with them,
and I came up with this answer. Now, challenge, don't
(14:44):
challenge me on it. This is my answer. Number one.
Most of the soldiers on Baton came from little villages
in Japan, and so they lived their little life in
their little community, and that was all. There was, anything
but what they spoke. No one looked like anything but
that they did, and that's how they lived their life. Now,
(15:07):
all of a sudden, they're on Batan. Their commanding officer says,
we've got to move these people to that first prison camp.
If they don't move, kill them. And the commanding officer
walks away and listen. Little Japanese private says, well, okay,
(15:27):
I'll do that, and so he sees this man fall
down and he says to the man in Japanese, hey, buddy,
get up and move on. The American says, I don't
know what you're talking about. I don't speak your language.
The Japanese says, did you hear me? Fella? You get
going there. I was told to make you go because
(15:48):
if you don't go, I have to kill you. And
I don't want to kill you, So get going. The
American sits there and says, I still don't understand you.
I just can't move. The little Japanese guard says, I
guess I have to kill bang and that's it. Is
that possible? Well, I don't know if it's possible. I
(16:08):
don't want to pretend that I do. I don't know.
I just know that when I was able to say
that to the Japanese students, to make them realize that
not everybody is bad, that there may be other reasons
for it. One thing I was able to do was
able to tell them all about Baton, all about the
(16:28):
horrors of war, about the POWR life. I never would
have been able to tell them that before I tell
the story that you hear today, what happened, how horrible
it was that the Japanese did this. And so if
you were able to survive the war, if you're able
to survive the Baton death Marge, if you're able to
(16:51):
survive that first time in the camp O'donnald, then they
put us aboard a ship and took it to Japan.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And we're listening to doctor Lester Tenney tell his story
of the Baton Death March. He was there, My goodness.
It starts with twelve thousand men and seventeen hundred come home.
But it was the way they died. Lester told that
audience at the World War Two Museum. And they were
treated so poorly because we surrendered, and the Japanese would
(17:28):
rather die than surrender, so they saw our soldiers as
less than human, like dogs. When we come back more
of the story of the Baton Death March with doctor
Lester Tenney here on our American stories, and we returned
(18:09):
to our American stories and with the late doctor Lester
Tenney story. Tenny is the author of My Hitch in Hell.
When we last left off, doctor Tenny was recounting his
experiences to an audience at the National World War Two
Museum in New Orleans about the Baton Deathmarch as a
pow in the Japanese occupied Philippines. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
The ships were called hell ships because the Japanese refused
to put markings on the ships. No Pow markings, no
red cross markings, just plain ships. And when the American
submarines saw these ships, they sunk them. Twenty six ships
were sunk by Americans. Ten thousand Americans died because the
(18:58):
Japanese refused to put marketing on the ships. I went
into the first ship that I went into with five
hundred of us in the whole of a ship. Thirty
two days later we arrived in Japan. But for those
thirty two days, when a man died in the hole
of that ship, we held a lottery to see who
(19:20):
was going to get his water or his rice. There's
no picture that could describe that, believe me, none. We
finally arrived, and now I'm telling you about my arrival.
Eighty six Japanese companies Mitsui, New Bounce Steel, al Kawasaki,
mat Mitsubushi. These are big companies. They bought POW's from
(19:46):
Japan and they put them to work. I was bought
by Mitsui. Five hundred of us became coal miners. I
shoveled coal twelve hours a day, every day for three years.
Oh yes, those were the days, all right. The first
(20:07):
day we went down in the coal mine. Now, these
are a bunch of Americans who had never been in
a coal mine in their life. And now we're going
down there, and we are weak. We hadn't eaten anything
now in months. So this first day down there, there
was twelve Americans and two Japanese in my little group.
You remember, I learned to speak Japanese. I learned to
(20:31):
speak Japanese after ten easy beatings, not ten easy lessons,
ten easy beatings. So now we're down there. Three Americans
were moving this big rock. I mean, they were a rue.
They were struggling moving this rock. And the two Japanese
are laughing, laughing, And I looked at him and I said, non, Deska,
(20:53):
what are you laughing about? And they said, h three Americans,
they're so big, they're so weak. I said yes, I
bet two Japanese could have done it. And he looks
at me and he says, nay, Chibond done. I said no.
(21:15):
He said yes, And so he grabbed a hold of
that rock and he's started to move that rock. I
swear he herniated himself. But he moved the rock in place,
and he stood up and I said to my friends,
let's give him a round of applauds, and we applauded him.
The next two hours, the two Japanese built the wall.
(21:37):
All we did is applaud them. We filled their muscles,
Oh my, oh, you're so strong, and they built the wall.
So we did have some fun kind of things like that.
If you got out of work, you got out of
work because you were sick or injured. If you were sick,
you got half rations. If you were hurt in the camp,
(21:59):
you got rations. If you were hurt in the coal mine,
you got full rations. So when a man broke an arm,
or broke a leg, or broke a hand, there was
always in the coal mine. Yes, we broke our own hand,
we broke our own foot. We would break a bone
just to get out of work for two or three days.
(22:20):
And if you couldn't break it yourself, you hired a breaker. Yeah,
with seventeen hundred men there, you could always find a
man to do something. And we did have a few
that were breakers, and they would know how to break
an arm or leg or a hand so that you
didn't have to lose it. So you had to pay
(22:42):
for it. What did you pay? You paid so many
rations of rice, or you paid cigarettes. The Japanese gave
us a pack of ten cigarettes once every three, four
or five, six, seven weeks. You never knew when. But
if you wanted an arm broken or a leg broken,
(23:03):
depending on what you wanted, the price would go up
based on how serious it was. My hand was only
five packs of cigarettes. A foot was seven parts of cigarettes.
Now my arm was ten packs of cigarettes, very very expensive. Now,
how are you going to get rice? Well, let me
tell you. With seventeen hundred men in our prison camp,
(23:26):
you know that there's always going to be one or
two that can't eat their food today, what do you
do with the food? With the food? Where did I
get the word food? The rice? You can't save rice
because rice gets sour, and if it gets sour, you
better not eat it. You're going to get sick. So
what do you do with your rice when you can't
(23:47):
eat it? You sell it? What do you sell it
for cigarettes? How many cigarettes can you get for a
raption of rice? Now, folks, I'm a retired professor of
finance from Arizona State University, and I want you to
know that I learned everything that was about finance in
prison camp. Yeah maybe you heard of this before. You
(24:11):
buy low and you sell high, and that's the whole
philosophy of what we did in prison camp with our cigarettes.
If I had a package of cigarettes, there's no way
I was going to smoke it. That cigarettes were worth food,
so I would hold the cigarettes back. Today cigarettes are issued,
I would have to pay one pack of cigarettes for
(24:34):
a bowl of rice. But if I could wait two weeks,
three weeks, three and a half weeks when the cigarettes
were being smoked supply and demand, then I could buy
a ration of rice for two cigarettes, sometimes even one cigarette,
(24:55):
not a pack, but one cigarette. And so if you're smart,
you buy low and you sell high. So you think
I'm joking, No, No, I'm very serious. I play the game.
But what if the guy goes bankrupt? What if he
owes too much and he can't pay off. Well, that
(25:17):
was a very common process. See he owes me an
action of rice on Thursday comes Thursday, I want my
ration of rice and he says, I can't give it
to you. I owed it to somebody else, and I said,
come on the back of the barn. You're not going
to do that to me. That's my food. So in
order to protect that man against people like myself that
(25:38):
would want to punch him, we developed a bankruptcy court. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you
the truth. We developed a bankruptcy court. It's the difference
between our bankruptcy court and what you know about bankruptcy
was this, the man had to pay every ration of rice.
(25:59):
But what we did was we had to protect the
man from being beaten. At number one, number two, we
had to make sure the man was able to eat
at least two rations of rice a day so that
he was able to go to work. Because he didn't
go to work, the Japanese were going to kill him.
So we developed a bankruptcy court, brought him in, found
(26:19):
out how many rations he owed, and then would set
up a program for him to pay one ration a
day until the whole thing was paid off, So we
had a lot of systems in prison camp.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And you've been listening to doctor Lester Tenney, and he's
the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Baton Death
Marchan what a story he's telling. To have lived through this,
And my goodness that Japanese not marking those ships. There
were no pow markings, no red cross markings, and so
many well, so many Americans needlessly died at the hands
(26:55):
of Americans or allies. And my goodness, then, all about
the intricacies of life in that prison, and life in
many prisons, by the way, work on this same basis
of scarcity supplying demand black markets. And when we come
back more of the story of doctor Lester Tenney, the
(27:17):
Baton Death March and its aftermath. Here on our American stories,
and we return to our American stories and the final
(27:40):
portion of the late doctor Lester Tenney's story. Doctor Tennant
is the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Baton
Death March. Let's return to the story that he told.
The National World War Two Museum in New Orleans one
of the finest places to take your family to visit
to learn more about World War two than anywhere else
(28:01):
in America. Let's return to doctor Tenney's story.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Of the Americans captured by the Germans, one point five
percent died as a prisoner of war. Of the Americans
captured by the Japanese, forty percent four zero died as
a prisoner of war. We always said, all the prisoners
(28:28):
said the same thing, The war is over when four
things happen. Number one, we don't have to go to work.
Number two, we get all the rice we want. Number three,
we ever get a red crossbox, a box from home.
Number four, we don't have to salute the Japanese guard
every time we see him. When those the four things happen,
(28:48):
the war's over it. My prison camp number seventeen was
exactly across the bay from Nagasaki, thirty miles across the water.
We heard the explosion, we saw the cloud rise. It
was right like it was in our backyard, so we knew.
We didn't know what it was, but we saw it.
(29:10):
I want you to know that a document was issued
by General Tojo in November of nineteen forty four. That's
said in essence. I won't read the whole document to you,
but it said that if Americans land on Japanese soil,
(29:30):
you are too disposed of all the prisoners. And then
it says the method. Whether they are destroyed individually or
in groups, no matter how they were destroyed by bombing,
poisonous gas, smoke, drowning, or decapitation, it's your responsibility to
(29:53):
try to leave no traces of the body. Now, that's
what we had. If the war did not end, then
every prisoner in Japan would have been executed. One hundred
and twenty thousand prisoners were in Japan. One hundred and
twenty thousand would have been killed instantly if that war
(30:16):
did not end, and if we had a land on
Japanese soil. So it's important that that we understand that. Anyhow,
on August fifteenth, we went to work in the coal mine.
One hour later we were brought back. Hey, what's going
on here. This has never happened before. At ten o'clock
(30:38):
in the morning, we were all put in the mess
hall and every man was given a Red crossbox. The
Red Cross sent the boxes to the prisoners, which we
never got. The Japanese got them. We did not get letters.
We got very little mail. I got one Christmas card
(30:58):
from my family which caused me to get one of
the most severe beatings I've ever had by the Japanese.
I got a Christmas card with a lot of names
and numbers on it, and the Japanese asked me, what
are these numbers mean? You're a spy? I didn't know
what's two twelve, one, forty three, six't eighteen? How do
you know what they're talking about? It took me almost
(31:21):
one hour of beatings to realize that my family got
all the people in the apartment building to sign their
name and what apartment they were in, and finally I
was able to convince the Japanese of what it was
and they accepted it. Let me tell you this Red crossbox.
There was a pack of cigarettes in there, a candy bar,
Hershey bar, can of sardines, some food, other kinds of food,
(31:45):
little good things that you wanted. That was what was
in the box. We got that ten o'clock that morning.
Then we went in for our meal, our our ration
of rice, and the POWs behind the rice bolts would
say to us, will you guys like a little more rice?
(32:06):
Are you kidding? Pile it on, buddy man. They piled
it on. All we wanted to eat, no work red
crossbox all we wanted to eat rice. Something's happening. The
hair just turned out like this. We just couldn't believe it.
(32:27):
Finding my buddy said to me, hey, Kenny, go out
and say hello to the guard without bowing. See what happens. Sure,
you're right, Sure he told me to go out. But
you do have to understand. After having so many beatings,
and by the way, in the coal mine, we were
(32:47):
beaten by the Japanese civilians if we didn't bow low enough,
didn't work hard enough, or didn't work fast enough, and
they would beat us. And they beat us with shovels, pickaxes,
and hammers. That's how we were beat down in the mine.
So another beating would not be too bad. And so
I went outside and I said to the Japanese guard
(33:08):
who was standing there with his rifle, and I walked
up to him and I said, kenichiwa, tell me dodge,
and he looked at me. Ten seconds, fifteen seconds. Finally
he stood at attention and he bowed to me, and
I knew the war was over. He bowed to me,
(33:35):
you know out. I was in the hospital for about
a year and I got out of the hospital and
I wrote a letter to the State Department, how do
I go about suing the Japanese companies for my wages
and what they owe me. The copy of the letter
(33:57):
I have here is dated September twentieth, nineteen forty six.
The response that I got from them from the State
Department was nothing more than a document that said that
the State Department is working to do something for us.
(34:18):
That was in nineteen forty six. I haven't seen anything either.
The first fifty years, we did not talk about anything.
We didn't say anything. No one knew that I was
(34:39):
the prisoner of war. No one my wife knew. I
never told anybody else. You see, most people think being
a prisoner of war, you wave a white flag and
you say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I surrender. I surrender.
Well that's not the way. It was not with us.
(35:00):
But we were not proud of being a prisoner. For
fifty years, we were not proud of being a prisoner.
Maybe the Japanese were right, we should have fought to
the end. Maybe the Japanese were right, we're cowards, and
so that's how we felt for fifty years. Fifty years
we felt that way. It's just been the good Lord
(35:20):
has been so kind to me that I'm able to
share the real story of what happened on Badon and curricular.
That's our story, folks, That's what we did, That's how
we put up with it. I have a poem that
I would like to read you, because it's hard, tells
my whole story. I was looking at my watch again.
(35:41):
We started at six, it's now seven point fifteen. Let
me share this with you. I may. I think it
tells my story. Anyhow, as I sit here thinking of
the men I left behind, I have to put in
writing what is running through my mind. I want the
world to know. So gather closely, friends, while I tell you. See,
(36:06):
when I die, I know I'll go to heaven because
I've done my hitch in hell. But there is just
one condition from my telling of this story. You see,
I am looking for no sympathy, and I am seeking
no glory. Though I've marched those many miles and survived
so many camps. Why, I've had malaria and dysentery, fevers,
(36:29):
aches and cramps. I've shoveled a million tons of coal.
I've cleaned a thousand miles of ground. A meaner places
side of hell is just waiting to be found. The
number of Japanese soldiers I've saluted is very hard to tell.
But I won't have to salute in heaven because I've
(36:52):
done my hitch in hell. When finally taps are sounded
and I lay aside life's cares, I'll do my last salute.
As I climb up those shining stairs. The angels will
all greet me, and harps will start to play. Why
I'll draw a minion rations and eat them all in
(37:15):
one day. It's then I'll hear Saint Peter tell me
with a yell, Hey, front and center, my dear soldier,
you've done your hitch in hell. Thank you very much,
thank you, thank.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You, thank you, front and center, my dear soldier. Indeed,
the late Leicester Tenney telling his story, his raw story,
his real story. We were not proud of being a prisoner,
he said. And folks, whatever you do, visit the National
(37:54):
World War Two Museum in New Orleans. Bring the family.
It's a beautiful town. I got married in that town.
Five times. I've been to that museum. That's a pilgrimage
for me and my family. It should be for you
and your family too. The story of doctor Lester Tenney.
Here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Most of us know that on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. However,
let's know that hours later, on December eighth, they also
(00:31):
invaded the Philippines, a US territory at the time. One
of those soldiers in the Philippines was the late doctor
Leicester Tenney. Here's doctor Tenny at the National World War
Two Museum in New Orleans telling his story. We'd like
to thank the museum for graciously allowing us to use
(00:51):
this audio. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And for me give us some information. The first tank
battle of World War Two was on December twenty third
at the city of agou Ago up at Lingayan Gulf.
General Wainwright asked for a company of tanks to meet
the Japanese. When we got up to our bivouac area,
(01:19):
our post ordinance brought us enough gasolene for five tanks,
and so five tanks went into battle instead of a
company of tanks. I know what I'm talking about. I
was in one of the five tanks. Let me tell
you them about tanks. For those of you who are
not familiar with tanks. You can put that tank out
(01:41):
of commission with one shell. One shell. All you have
to do is hit the track. Ben Morien was the
lieutenant in charge of our lead tank. The lead tank
was hit right away. Once it was hit in the turret.
The second shell hit a track, The tank went to
(02:02):
the right, ended up in a rice patty. The four
men in that tank were captured that day. The second
tank was hit. A sheell went through the tank and
took the bowgunner's head right off and went out the back.
Two tanks out of five put out a commission in
three minutes. Our tanks had to turn around and head
(02:25):
back towards Batan. I will say that Ben Moran made
the comment many minutes later that if he ever got
out of that thing alive, he was going to devote
his life to God. Ben Moran became a Jesuit priest.
So tanks in the Philippines was not too bright. We
ended up with the most unusual army. We had an
(02:45):
air force without airplanes, a navy without ships, and soldiers
without shoes. We had the old dough boy helmets. We
were using Springfield rifles manufactured in nineteen seventeen, ammunition manufactured
in nineteen fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. When we were firing
(03:07):
our guns, we were hoping that one out of every
four bullets would explode. That was the kind of war
we had to fight at that time. So it was
a disaster for us, really. And yet he told the
fighters Hombaton and Corregador that support was coming. It was
not coming. I have a note here from the War Department.
(03:30):
I think the end remark sort of tells the whole story.
The end remark was that the relief of the Philippines
will not be undertaken because it is impossible. Did you
hear that the War Department decided that it was impossible
to help us. Let me tell you what General MacArthur
had to say. This is an instruction to all commanders,
(03:55):
inform your troops that supplies and ammunition are on their way.
Airplanes are coming in foot soldiers will be here soon.
This man lied to us when he knew different, and
so we fought the best we could and corregular are
(04:16):
held out. That was a thorn in their side and
they had to solve that problem. The Japanese had a
flotilla of about thirty thousand troops, tanks, flamethrowers, everything on
their way to Australia. But the Japanese had to take
the flotilla, turn it around and come into Batan. They
(04:40):
came in on April third, the First Emperor's birthday, and
that's when the push started. And it was disaster. The
Japanese were absolutely stepping over their own dead bodies because
they had to move forward and forward and forward. Now,
(05:03):
ladies and gentlemen, think for a moment. We were on
a peninsula, three sides of water. Where were we going
to go? We had nothing left. By the eighth of April,
everybody on Baton was already down at the water's edge.
(05:25):
At the water's edge, and on April eighth, General Wainwright
on Corregador, General King on Baton received a message from
Douglas MacArthur. The message said, this garrison will not cup
it too late. If all else failed, you will charge
(05:48):
the enemy. General King said, I cannot do that. If
I do not surrender my forces tomorrow morning, Batan will
be known around the world as the first worst disaster
in the history of mankind. I can't do that to
(06:09):
my troops. I have to give some of them a
chance to live. And so General King gave instructions. On
the morning of April ninth, all forces on Batan are
to lay down their arms and surrender to the Japanese
soldiers and a sad day. Most people don't understand this.
(06:35):
Let me tell you the worst military defeat the United
States ever had on Baton. On April ninth, Baton, seventy
thousand people were forced to surrender. Seventy thousand people. And
yet when we talk about Baton, most people don't know
(06:56):
what we're talking about. I gave a program some years ago,
and one woman came up to me. At the very end,
she said, Oh, I'm so glad I came. She said,
when I heard it was going to be talking about
Baton twirling, I really wasn't interested at all Baton twirling.
That's what somebody knew about Baton.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
We'll continue with Lester Tenney's story here on Our American Stories.
This is Lee Jabib, host of our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss,
(07:40):
and your stories. Send us your story, small or large
to our email oas at Ouramerican Stories dot com. That's
oas at Ouramerican Stories dot com. We'd love to hear
them and put them on the air. Our audience loves
them too. And we returned to our American Stories and
(08:11):
with the late doctor Lester Tenney's story. Tenny is the
author of My Hitch in Hell, the Baton Death March.
When we last left off, Tenny was telling us about
the largest surrender of troops in US history to the Japanese.
Most of these men would be forced into the Death March,
to the first prison camp they'd be held in. Let's
(08:34):
return to the story. Here again is doctor Lester Tenney.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So the war ended for us on April ninth. You
have to understand that General King was doing things in
violation of the military code. He was not following orders
from his commander. His commander said, you will not capitulate,
(09:02):
you will charge the enemy. He capitulated. He did exactly
what you were not supposed to do. He could have
in court martial. Let me share with you. Every officer
was given a promotion, one rank promotion, every officer except
General King. You know. They asked me if I wanted
(09:26):
to have some pictures up on the screen. I have
a lot of pictures, but there's no way that a
picture could show you the anxiety, the frustration, the sadness
of what went on Baton. No pictures, and so I
didn't bring any for that reason. And so that's a
little bit of story leading up to the Baton death March.
(09:51):
I don't know why we call it a march. I
really don't. It wasn't march. These were twelve thousand sick
men that were forced by the Japanese to walk to
the first prison camp. It was called a death march,
not just because how many died, although out of the
(10:13):
twelve thousand Americans that were captured on Batan at the
end of the war, only seventeen hundred came home. Think
about that, twelve thousand to seventeen hundred. But that's not
why it was called the Baton death March. It was
called a Baton death March because of the way they died.
(10:35):
If you stopped, you died. If you had a malaria attack,
you died. If you just couldn't take another walk, another step,
you died. If you had a defuicate, you died. No food,
no water, but they gave us nothing we were called
lower than dogs. We were called cowards because we surrendered,
(10:58):
and that was part of the reason why we were
treated so poorly, because their philosophy was if you surrendered,
you were lower than a dog. Because they would not surrender.
They would rather die for the Emperor than to surrender.
My nose was broken on the death mark two or
three times. My teeth were all knocked out, thanks to
(11:18):
the Veterans administration. I have something to true now the Va.
Thank you, mister VA. I had my nose broken, my
teeth knocked out, my head s flid open. The fourth
day on the march, a Japanese officer was coming by
on horseback, swinging his Samuri sword, trying to see what
kind of heads he could cut off. He missed my neck,
(11:43):
but he slipped me down the back with his Samuri sword.
My friends they carried me. They brought up a medic
from the rear end who brought me up sewed me
up with needland thread. I don't know what he did,
but they would not let me fall down. So I
had my share of pain on the Death March. And
(12:04):
so now the March one hundred and six, one hundred
and seven degree hot no food, no water on the
side of the road. In the Philippines they have wallows.
The wallows fill up with water. The caribou, the water
buffal they bathe in that wallow. They do their duty
(12:27):
in that wallow. And we're marching and we're dying of thirst,
and we see that water. We run over spread the
scum and drink the water. Result a meebic dysentery in
the worst way. And so when we arrived in that
(12:48):
first camp O'Donnell, men started to die at two hundred
and fifty a day. They were dying from the effects
of the march. We had one artesian well, one artesian
well popping up water, you know, Donald on the parade ground,
(13:10):
I saw men die with a canteen in their hand,
waiting to get a drink of water. You know, I
do this program in Japan. These kids know absolutely nothing
about World War two zero. They don't know a thing
about World War two. And so when I go there,
(13:33):
I made a decision. I have to think of something.
What can I tell these young people about the Japanese soldiers.
Can I say they're all bad? They were all no good? Now,
I can't say that, Ladies and gentlemen, you might all
know right now I have learned to forgive. I have
(13:59):
forgiven the Japanese. Now you may think about that in
terms of what I'm doing. Remember I did it for me,
not for them. I became free. I became free. And
you have to be strong to be able to forgive.
It's only the weekends that can't forgive. The strong are
able to forgive. Let's get on with our life. And
(14:21):
so here we were at this particular time, having to
try to survive, and I said to myself, how can
I deal with these young people? And it came up
to me and I went to the Japanese people that
I knew, and I questioned them, and I talked with them,
and I came up with this answer. Now, challenge, don't
(14:44):
challenge me on it. This is my answer. Number one.
Most of the soldiers on Baton came from little villages
in Japan, and so they lived their little life in
their little community, and that was all. There was, anything
but what they spoke. No one looked like anything but
that they did, and that's how they lived their life. Now,
(15:07):
all of a sudden, they're on Batan. Their commanding officer says,
we've got to move these people to that first prison camp.
If they don't move, kill them. And the commanding officer
walks away and listen. Little Japanese private says, well, okay,
(15:27):
I'll do that, and so he sees this man fall
down and he says to the man in Japanese, hey, buddy,
get up and move on. The American says, I don't
know what you're talking about. I don't speak your language.
The Japanese says, did you hear me? Fella? You get
going there. I was told to make you go because
(15:48):
if you don't go, I have to kill you. And
I don't want to kill you, So get going. The
American sits there and says, I still don't understand you.
I just can't move. The little Japanese guard says, I
guess I have to kill bang and that's it. Is
that possible? Well, I don't know if it's possible. I
(16:08):
don't want to pretend that I do. I don't know.
I just know that when I was able to say
that to the Japanese students, to make them realize that
not everybody is bad, that there may be other reasons
for it. One thing I was able to do was
able to tell them all about Baton, all about the
(16:28):
horrors of war, about the POWR life. I never would
have been able to tell them that before I tell
the story that you hear today, what happened, how horrible
it was that the Japanese did this. And so if
you were able to survive the war, if you're able
to survive the Baton death Marge, if you're able to
(16:51):
survive that first time in the camp O'donnald, then they
put us aboard a ship and took it to Japan.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And we're listening to doctor Lester Tenney tell his story
of the Baton Death March. He was there, My goodness.
It starts with twelve thousand men and seventeen hundred come home.
But it was the way they died. Lester told that
audience at the World War Two Museum. And they were
treated so poorly because we surrendered, and the Japanese would
(17:28):
rather die than surrender, so they saw our soldiers as
less than human, like dogs. When we come back more
of the story of the Baton Death March with doctor
Lester Tenney here on our American stories, and we returned
(18:09):
to our American stories and with the late doctor Lester
Tenney story. Tenny is the author of My Hitch in Hell.
When we last left off, doctor Tenny was recounting his
experiences to an audience at the National World War Two
Museum in New Orleans about the Baton Deathmarch as a
pow in the Japanese occupied Philippines. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
The ships were called hell ships because the Japanese refused
to put markings on the ships. No Pow markings, no
red cross markings, just plain ships. And when the American
submarines saw these ships, they sunk them. Twenty six ships
were sunk by Americans. Ten thousand Americans died because the
(18:58):
Japanese refused to put marketing on the ships. I went
into the first ship that I went into with five
hundred of us in the whole of a ship. Thirty
two days later we arrived in Japan. But for those
thirty two days, when a man died in the hole
of that ship, we held a lottery to see who
(19:20):
was going to get his water or his rice. There's
no picture that could describe that, believe me, none. We
finally arrived, and now I'm telling you about my arrival.
Eighty six Japanese companies Mitsui, New Bounce Steel, al Kawasaki,
mat Mitsubushi. These are big companies. They bought POW's from
(19:46):
Japan and they put them to work. I was bought
by Mitsui. Five hundred of us became coal miners. I
shoveled coal twelve hours a day, every day for three years.
Oh yes, those were the days, all right. The first
(20:07):
day we went down in the coal mine. Now, these
are a bunch of Americans who had never been in
a coal mine in their life. And now we're going
down there, and we are weak. We hadn't eaten anything
now in months. So this first day down there, there
was twelve Americans and two Japanese in my little group.
You remember, I learned to speak Japanese. I learned to
(20:31):
speak Japanese after ten easy beatings, not ten easy lessons,
ten easy beatings. So now we're down there. Three Americans
were moving this big rock. I mean, they were a rue.
They were struggling moving this rock. And the two Japanese
are laughing, laughing, And I looked at him and I said, non, Deska,
(20:53):
what are you laughing about? And they said, h three Americans,
they're so big, they're so weak. I said yes, I
bet two Japanese could have done it. And he looks
at me and he says, nay, Chibond done. I said no.
(21:15):
He said yes, And so he grabbed a hold of
that rock and he's started to move that rock. I
swear he herniated himself. But he moved the rock in place,
and he stood up and I said to my friends,
let's give him a round of applauds, and we applauded him.
The next two hours, the two Japanese built the wall.
(21:37):
All we did is applaud them. We filled their muscles,
Oh my, oh, you're so strong, and they built the wall.
So we did have some fun kind of things like that.
If you got out of work, you got out of
work because you were sick or injured. If you were sick,
you got half rations. If you were hurt in the camp,
(21:59):
you got rations. If you were hurt in the coal mine,
you got full rations. So when a man broke an arm,
or broke a leg, or broke a hand, there was
always in the coal mine. Yes, we broke our own hand,
we broke our own foot. We would break a bone
just to get out of work for two or three days.
(22:20):
And if you couldn't break it yourself, you hired a breaker. Yeah,
with seventeen hundred men there, you could always find a
man to do something. And we did have a few
that were breakers, and they would know how to break
an arm or leg or a hand so that you
didn't have to lose it. So you had to pay
(22:42):
for it. What did you pay? You paid so many
rations of rice, or you paid cigarettes. The Japanese gave
us a pack of ten cigarettes once every three, four
or five, six, seven weeks. You never knew when. But
if you wanted an arm broken or a leg broken,
(23:03):
depending on what you wanted, the price would go up
based on how serious it was. My hand was only
five packs of cigarettes. A foot was seven parts of cigarettes.
Now my arm was ten packs of cigarettes, very very expensive. Now,
how are you going to get rice? Well, let me
tell you. With seventeen hundred men in our prison camp,
(23:26):
you know that there's always going to be one or
two that can't eat their food today, what do you
do with the food? With the food? Where did I
get the word food? The rice? You can't save rice
because rice gets sour, and if it gets sour, you
better not eat it. You're going to get sick. So
what do you do with your rice when you can't
(23:47):
eat it? You sell it? What do you sell it
for cigarettes? How many cigarettes can you get for a
raption of rice? Now, folks, I'm a retired professor of
finance from Arizona State University, and I want you to
know that I learned everything that was about finance in
prison camp. Yeah maybe you heard of this before. You
(24:11):
buy low and you sell high, and that's the whole
philosophy of what we did in prison camp with our cigarettes.
If I had a package of cigarettes, there's no way
I was going to smoke it. That cigarettes were worth food,
so I would hold the cigarettes back. Today cigarettes are issued,
I would have to pay one pack of cigarettes for
(24:34):
a bowl of rice. But if I could wait two weeks,
three weeks, three and a half weeks when the cigarettes
were being smoked supply and demand, then I could buy
a ration of rice for two cigarettes, sometimes even one cigarette,
(24:55):
not a pack, but one cigarette. And so if you're smart,
you buy low and you sell high. So you think
I'm joking, No, No, I'm very serious. I play the game.
But what if the guy goes bankrupt? What if he
owes too much and he can't pay off. Well, that
(25:17):
was a very common process. See he owes me an
action of rice on Thursday comes Thursday, I want my
ration of rice and he says, I can't give it
to you. I owed it to somebody else, and I said,
come on the back of the barn. You're not going
to do that to me. That's my food. So in
order to protect that man against people like myself that
(25:38):
would want to punch him, we developed a bankruptcy court. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you
the truth. We developed a bankruptcy court. It's the difference
between our bankruptcy court and what you know about bankruptcy
was this, the man had to pay every ration of rice.
(25:59):
But what we did was we had to protect the
man from being beaten. At number one, number two, we
had to make sure the man was able to eat
at least two rations of rice a day so that
he was able to go to work. Because he didn't
go to work, the Japanese were going to kill him.
So we developed a bankruptcy court, brought him in, found
(26:19):
out how many rations he owed, and then would set
up a program for him to pay one ration a
day until the whole thing was paid off, So we
had a lot of systems in prison camp.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And you've been listening to doctor Lester Tenney, and he's
the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Baton Death
Marchan what a story he's telling. To have lived through this,
And my goodness that Japanese not marking those ships. There
were no pow markings, no red cross markings, and so
many well, so many Americans needlessly died at the hands
(26:55):
of Americans or allies. And my goodness, then, all about
the intricacies of life in that prison, and life in
many prisons, by the way, work on this same basis
of scarcity supplying demand black markets. And when we come
back more of the story of doctor Lester Tenney, the
(27:17):
Baton Death March and its aftermath. Here on our American stories,
and we return to our American stories and the final
(27:40):
portion of the late doctor Lester Tenney's story. Doctor Tennant
is the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Baton
Death March. Let's return to the story that he told.
The National World War Two Museum in New Orleans one
of the finest places to take your family to visit
to learn more about World War two than anywhere else
(28:01):
in America. Let's return to doctor Tenney's story.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Of the Americans captured by the Germans, one point five
percent died as a prisoner of war. Of the Americans
captured by the Japanese, forty percent four zero died as
a prisoner of war. We always said, all the prisoners
(28:28):
said the same thing, The war is over when four
things happen. Number one, we don't have to go to work.
Number two, we get all the rice we want. Number three,
we ever get a red crossbox, a box from home.
Number four, we don't have to salute the Japanese guard
every time we see him. When those the four things happen,
(28:48):
the war's over it. My prison camp number seventeen was
exactly across the bay from Nagasaki, thirty miles across the water.
We heard the explosion, we saw the cloud rise. It
was right like it was in our backyard, so we knew.
We didn't know what it was, but we saw it.
(29:10):
I want you to know that a document was issued
by General Tojo in November of nineteen forty four. That's
said in essence. I won't read the whole document to you,
but it said that if Americans land on Japanese soil,
(29:30):
you are too disposed of all the prisoners. And then
it says the method. Whether they are destroyed individually or
in groups, no matter how they were destroyed by bombing,
poisonous gas, smoke, drowning, or decapitation, it's your responsibility to
(29:53):
try to leave no traces of the body. Now, that's
what we had. If the war did not end, then
every prisoner in Japan would have been executed. One hundred
and twenty thousand prisoners were in Japan. One hundred and
twenty thousand would have been killed instantly if that war
(30:16):
did not end, and if we had a land on
Japanese soil. So it's important that that we understand that. Anyhow,
on August fifteenth, we went to work in the coal mine.
One hour later we were brought back. Hey, what's going
on here. This has never happened before. At ten o'clock
(30:38):
in the morning, we were all put in the mess
hall and every man was given a Red crossbox. The
Red Cross sent the boxes to the prisoners, which we
never got. The Japanese got them. We did not get letters.
We got very little mail. I got one Christmas card
(30:58):
from my family which caused me to get one of
the most severe beatings I've ever had by the Japanese.
I got a Christmas card with a lot of names
and numbers on it, and the Japanese asked me, what
are these numbers mean? You're a spy? I didn't know
what's two twelve, one, forty three, six't eighteen? How do
you know what they're talking about? It took me almost
(31:21):
one hour of beatings to realize that my family got
all the people in the apartment building to sign their
name and what apartment they were in, and finally I
was able to convince the Japanese of what it was
and they accepted it. Let me tell you this Red crossbox.
There was a pack of cigarettes in there, a candy bar,
Hershey bar, can of sardines, some food, other kinds of food,
(31:45):
little good things that you wanted. That was what was
in the box. We got that ten o'clock that morning.
Then we went in for our meal, our our ration
of rice, and the POWs behind the rice bolts would
say to us, will you guys like a little more rice?
(32:06):
Are you kidding? Pile it on, buddy man. They piled
it on. All we wanted to eat, no work red
crossbox all we wanted to eat rice. Something's happening. The
hair just turned out like this. We just couldn't believe it.
(32:27):
Finding my buddy said to me, hey, Kenny, go out
and say hello to the guard without bowing. See what happens. Sure,
you're right, Sure he told me to go out. But
you do have to understand. After having so many beatings,
and by the way, in the coal mine, we were
(32:47):
beaten by the Japanese civilians if we didn't bow low enough,
didn't work hard enough, or didn't work fast enough, and
they would beat us. And they beat us with shovels, pickaxes,
and hammers. That's how we were beat down in the mine.
So another beating would not be too bad. And so
I went outside and I said to the Japanese guard
(33:08):
who was standing there with his rifle, and I walked
up to him and I said, kenichiwa, tell me dodge,
and he looked at me. Ten seconds, fifteen seconds. Finally
he stood at attention and he bowed to me, and
I knew the war was over. He bowed to me,
(33:35):
you know out. I was in the hospital for about
a year and I got out of the hospital and
I wrote a letter to the State Department, how do
I go about suing the Japanese companies for my wages
and what they owe me. The copy of the letter
(33:57):
I have here is dated September twentieth, nineteen forty six.
The response that I got from them from the State
Department was nothing more than a document that said that
the State Department is working to do something for us.
(34:18):
That was in nineteen forty six. I haven't seen anything either.
The first fifty years, we did not talk about anything.
We didn't say anything. No one knew that I was
(34:39):
the prisoner of war. No one my wife knew. I
never told anybody else. You see, most people think being
a prisoner of war, you wave a white flag and
you say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I surrender. I surrender.
Well that's not the way. It was not with us.
(35:00):
But we were not proud of being a prisoner. For
fifty years, we were not proud of being a prisoner.
Maybe the Japanese were right, we should have fought to
the end. Maybe the Japanese were right, we're cowards, and
so that's how we felt for fifty years. Fifty years
we felt that way. It's just been the good Lord
(35:20):
has been so kind to me that I'm able to
share the real story of what happened on Badon and curricular.
That's our story, folks, That's what we did, That's how
we put up with it. I have a poem that
I would like to read you, because it's hard, tells
my whole story. I was looking at my watch again.
(35:41):
We started at six, it's now seven point fifteen. Let
me share this with you. I may. I think it
tells my story. Anyhow, as I sit here thinking of
the men I left behind, I have to put in
writing what is running through my mind. I want the
world to know. So gather closely, friends, while I tell you. See,
(36:06):
when I die, I know I'll go to heaven because
I've done my hitch in hell. But there is just
one condition from my telling of this story. You see,
I am looking for no sympathy, and I am seeking
no glory. Though I've marched those many miles and survived
so many camps. Why, I've had malaria and dysentery, fevers,
(36:29):
aches and cramps. I've shoveled a million tons of coal.
I've cleaned a thousand miles of ground. A meaner places
side of hell is just waiting to be found. The
number of Japanese soldiers I've saluted is very hard to tell.
But I won't have to salute in heaven because I've
(36:52):
done my hitch in hell. When finally taps are sounded
and I lay aside life's cares, I'll do my last salute.
As I climb up those shining stairs. The angels will
all greet me, and harps will start to play. Why
I'll draw a minion rations and eat them all in
(37:15):
one day. It's then I'll hear Saint Peter tell me
with a yell, Hey, front and center, my dear soldier,
you've done your hitch in hell. Thank you very much,
thank you, thank.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You, thank you, front and center, my dear soldier. Indeed,
the late Leicester Tenney telling his story, his raw story,
his real story. We were not proud of being a prisoner,
he said. And folks, whatever you do, visit the National
(37:54):
World War Two Museum in New Orleans. Bring the family.
It's a beautiful town. I got married in that town.
Five times. I've been to that museum. That's a pilgrimage
for me and my family. It should be for you
and your family too. The story of doctor Lester Tenney.
Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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