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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-
 
 
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