There were no latrines in the area, except
 
 some shallow holes which the Japs allowed
 
 us to dig on the outskirts of the concrete,
 
         The heat was at its worst. Men fainted by 
 
the score, and were passed from hand to hand
 
 down to the waters of the Bay. Each morning a
 
 hundred or more unconscious were taken out of the
 
area back into the tunnel. I do not know what
 
 happened to them. We were covered by clouds of
 
 black flies, and dysentery had already begun to
 
 spread among us. Our dead, their bodies bloating, 
 
lay on The Rock for several days. The Japs doused
 
 their own dead with oil and burned them in huge pyres,
 
 mostly on Bataan.  (Before a Japanese was burned, a
 
 hand or am was cut off and burned separately, and these
 
ashes were returned to Japan.)
 
        After seven days we were given our first food--one
             
messkit of rice and a tin of sardines.
 
      On the afternoon of May 22nd the Japs loaded us onto
 
three merchant ships cf about 7,000 tons each.There were
 
 approximately four thousands of us on each ship,
 
 designed to accomodate  12 passengers.
 
         We remained aboard all night, in the most suffcating
 
 condition imaginable. We got under way the next
 
 morning and we were surprised to observe that we
 
 were not being taken directly to Manila, as was
 
the case with the one ship loaded only with captive Filipinos.
   
 We were to learn later that there was a reason for this.
 
Instead, our ship dropped anchor off  Paranaque, a suburb
 
south of Manila. Here we waited until the heat of the day had
 
                            
                                     - 16 -