4 the first to escape from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in the Philippines. Before the last organized American resistance was crushed by overwhelming force, we had become accustomed to seeing our comrades die in battle by the score and by the hundreds. Hardship, bloodshed and death were a commonplace. Yet actual war brought nothing like the horror we were to see and experience in eleven months as military prisoners of a nation which had heretofore demanded and received rank on an equal footing with the leading powers of a civilized world. There was little choice for the ten of us who finally escaped from the Japanese. We knew that if we were caught in the attempt we would be put to death in a manner not pleasant to think about--we had seen it happen to others of our fellow American prisoners. But although our group contained ten of the strongest and healthiest Americans in the prison camp, we knew that there was a better than even chance of death as a result of our captors' treatment if we remained in the prison. We had also seen this happen to others of our fellow prisoners. And when we finally did win our way to freedom--ten Americans from Bataan and Corregidor-we were aided and accompanied by two Filipino convicts who in civil life, before the war, had been sentenced for murder, yet were willing to risk death from the Japanese in unselfish loyalty to the United States and their native land. During the eleven months of our captivity the ten of us were to see thousands of Americans die from the wilful neglect of |