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Show Harold W. Poole April 3, 2001 to where I was going into it, and then it went down. But I didn't get credit for that because there was a couple of other guns shooting at it, and a couple of .37 millimeter antiaircrafts firing, too. But, anyway, that was an interesting thing to have happen. If I'd had that gun on the opening day at Clark Field, I'll tell you there would have been a half a dozen of those guys that would have got peppered, I'll tell you, instead of one. But, anyway, that was an interesting thing. We fought for four months until everything ran out, and then we had to surrender. And when the Japanese came in they lined us up, and they went through all of our clothes, and everything. They took all your money, your rings, and anything of value. Even glasses, and things like they took, you know. We could see right away we weren't going to be treated too well with that, because if you objected at all, boy they'd bat you with the rifle butt. And we knew then we weren't going to be treated very well. But after a short while there--it was only two or three days--they started this death march. You know, what they called the death march. It was a sixty-five mile march up the peninsula to get us out of the area, you know. Because Corregidor hadn't surrendered. They fought for twenty-eight days longer. And they were anxious to get artillery in there and start firing on Corregidor so that would be the last stronghold the Americans had in the Philippines. You know, they were very anxious to get that. And, so, they started this march because they had no other way of getting us out of there. And they lined us up four abreast, you know, and counted off about a thousand men at a time. There was twelve thousand American soldiers, and about sixty-five to seventy thousand Philippino soldiers, that were fighting with us on this march. And out of the twelve thousand 21 |
