drill field and parade ground, with a road r;mning between the Japanese area and the prison stockade. Beyond this was the hospital for prisoners, staffed by American doctors but almost wholly without medicines or equipment. There were usually about 2500 patients in this hospital, but they fared little better than those who were ill in the prison proper. Each of these three divisions of Cabanatuan Camp No. 1 was a separate entity, partitioned from the other. A high barbed wire fence enclosed the entire area in which the prisoners were contained. At regular intervals around the prison stockade were elevated sentry platforms, always manned by Japanese guards with rifles or sub-machine guns of the light-calibre variety used by the Japs. Foot-soldiers also patrolled the stockade at all times. Discipline in the camp was severe. Lieutenant Colonel Mellniks Escape was in the minds of nearly all the prisoners at Cabanatuan, particularly since we had before us the example of the three young Naval Reserve ensigns who had walked off into the jungle on our first night at the camp. The success of this effort, however, had made it more difficult for the rest of us. For, as a result, the Japs had formed us into "shooting squads" of ten men each, with the threat to kill the other nine if any one man got away. It later developed, incidentally, that the three Naval Reserve officers were not as successful as we had thought. - 39- |