too--the printing presses were turning out
 
worthless Japanese Occupation Currency
 
 at top speed.
 
      But few of the prisoners captured on 
 
Corregidor were to remain long in Manila.
 
 We were shortly to learn that, although 
 
many civilian internees were to be quartered
 
 in the Manila area, the Jape had other plans
 
 for those of us who were American prisoners
 
 of war.
 
 
Lieutenant Colonel Mellnik:
..............................................
 
       McCoy was still at Pasay when I learned,
 
 on May 27, 1942, that I was to be transferred
 
 to the prisoner-of-war camp at Cabanatuau,
 
 about seventy-five miles north of Manila in
 
 the Province of Luzon.
 
      Was was their custom when American prisoners
 
 were to be moved, the Japanese waited until the
 
 heat had reached its peak before loading some 
 
fifteen hundred of us into iron boxcarse There
 
 were a hundred men to each car, with no room
 
 to sit or lie down. The cars were tightly closed
 
 so that there was no ventiletion. With the sun
 
 beating down on the metal roof, the inside
 
of the car was like an oven, with no water or
 
 sanitary facilities available. Although several
 
 men fainted, there were no deaths on the trip.
 
When we got off the train at Cabanatuan  we were
 
 put into an open field surrounded by barbed wire
 
 and patrolled by sentries. We were told that
 
 we would remain overnight.
 
      Curious and sympathetic Filipino civilians
 
 watched us from a respectful distance, some
 
of them bearing bananas, papayas
 
 
                         23