While on the march, regular clean-up squads of Japanese
 
followed at the rear to dispose of the prisoners who fell out,
 
both Filipinos and Americans. Filipinos were bayoneted or shot,
 
and left where they fell, but Americans were usually taken some
 
distance from the road. At the end of the day the Japanese usually
 
dispatched those prisoners who seemed so weakened that they would
 
not be able to make the march on the following day. Different
 
methods were used to dispose of these weakened prisoners. There
 
were many cases of burial alive, often with the forced assistance
 
of American officers. Some of the prisoners were forced to dig
 
their own graves. The victims of this treatment were most often
 
Filipinos, but there were some cases of Americans being buried alive.
 
                         
      "On the march," Major Gunn said, "the Japs treated the Filipinos
 
 even worse than they did us. The Japs claimed that in
 
aiding the Americans the Filipinos had turned against their own
 
blood, that the Filipinos were Orientals who had betrayed the
 
Orient. When a Filipino fell out on the march he was shot or bayoneted
 
 where he lay. Then he was dragged to the side of the
 
road and left. In the case of an American, the Japs at least took
 
him out of sight of the other prisoners before they put him out of
 
the way."
 
              Major Gunn's worst memories were intensely personal.
 
They centered things which he, an American officer, had been forced
 
to do on threat of death; and, for this reason, his real name is
 
not being used.
 
                                                 -32-