the chinks in their barracks as the Japanese lined up the five Americans and two Filipinos and executed them by rifle fire. There was no trial. The problem of food at Cabanatush was always a pressing one. Despite the fact that the food the Japs gave us was deadly in its monotony, we werenever at any one meal given as much as we wanted to eat. For breakfast at Cabanatuan we were rationed one mess kit of lugao, a thin concoction of rice and water. At noon and at night we received one mess kit of steamed white rice, with about one-half canteen cup of a greenish-colored soup, usually with no substance in it. When there was substance, it consisted of camote tops, the leafy part of the Philippine sweet potato. In the five months I was at Cabanatush, the only piece of meat I ever received was a half-inch cube of a carabao which had died on the prison confines. This great event happened once. On one occasion the Japs gave us three chickens and nine eggs for each mess of five hundred men--doubtless so they could claim in their propaganda that we were fed on chickens and eggs. After my escape, and return to the States, I was shown Japanese propaganda statements which declared that American prisoners of war in the Philippines are given the same diet as that received by the Japanese soldier. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such a fare, to us, would have seemed sheer luxury. For breakfast the Japanese soldier has a vitaminized mush with his rice. At noon |