One of these prisoners was a quartermaster lieutenant who was in the last stages of what was called "wet beri beri". He was horribly swollen from his hips down, was in frightful pain, and constantly expressed the fear that if the swelling rose above his hips to his heart he would die. We finally got a Japanese doctor to examine him. The doctor said that if the lieutenant's condition had not improved "in a day or two" he would return with some medicine. The next day, however, the man was dead. In death he was not alone, for soon the first chore of our day was the re- moval from our barracks of the bodies of men who had died during the night. Commander McCoy: Mellnik had been at Cabanatuan about five weeks when I learned that I also was to be transferred there. After being captured on Corregidor, I had spent my first few days at Pasay, where the Japs had turned an elementary school into a prison for the senior Army and Navy staff officers. When these officers were removed from Pasay--presumably to be taken to prisons in Japan or Formosa--I was transferred to Old Bilibid in Manila. At Old Bilibid I was assighed to such jobs as cleaning out Japanese latrines and sewage systems. 0n another occasion I took a detail of enlisted men, under heavy guard, to Rizal Stadium, where the Japs had concentrated mountains of captured American quartermaster supplies. Much of these supplies consisted of food, and the Japs told us as we loaded it on trucks that it was to be sent to the American prisoners of war. During my eleven months of - 28 - |