4
 
the first to escape from a Japanese prisoner-of-war 
 
camp in the Philippines. Before the last 
 
organized American resistance was crushed by
 
 overwhelming force, we had become accustomed 
 
to seeing our comrades die in battle by the score
 
 and by the hundreds. Hardship, bloodshed and 
 
death were a commonplace. Yet actual war brought
 
 nothing like the horror we were to see and 
 
experience in eleven months as military prisoners 
 
of a nation which had heretofore demanded and 
 
received rank on an equal footing with the leading 
 
powers of a civilized world.
 
         There was little choice for the ten of us who
 
 finally escaped from the Japanese. We knew 
 
that if we were caught in the attempt we would be
 
 put to death in a manner not pleasant to think 
 
about--we had seen it happen to others of our
 
 fellow American prisoners. But although our group 
 
contained ten of the strongest and healthiest 
 
Americans in the prison camp, we knew that there 
 
was a better than even chance of death as a
 
 result of our captors' treatment if we remained in the 
 
prison. We had also seen this happen to others of 
 
our fellow prisoners. And when we finally did
 
win our way to freedom--ten Americans from Bataan
 
and Corregidor-we were aided and accompanied by
 
two Filipino convicts who in civil life, before the war,
 
had been sentenced for murder, yet were willing to  
 
risk death from the Japanese in unselfish loyalty to
 
the United States and their native land.
 
     During the eleven months of our captivity
 
 the ten of us were to see thousands of Americans
 
 die from the wilful neglect of