camp, about ten days and sixty miles away. Hungry and thirsty, sick and tired, it was every man for himself, few helped one another. If anyone fell behind he was shot, bayoneted or beheaded and their bodies left in full view of the following column. Between Mariveles and Cabcaben the column of prisoners was shelled by their own guns on Corregidor. A few days and 100 kilometres further on, the first column arrived at San Fernando where they were forced into railroad boxcars. Packed like sardines, suffocating in the summer heat, and those suffering from dysentery defecating on each other, many died 'standing up'. Four hours later they detrained at Capas and were forced to march the remaining ten kilometres to Camp O'Donnell.
Around 9,300 Americans survived the Death March, between 600 and 650 died or were killed on the way. The Filipino prisoners, numbering around 45,000, arrived at the camp after completing the March, about five thousand had lost their lives during the March. The first forty days at Camp O'Donnell saw the deaths of around 1,500 more Americans and by the end of July at least another 20,000 Filipinos had died. On June 6, 1942, the surviving Filipino prisoners were granted complete amnesty and released. The extremely high death rate, the highest of any P.O.W. camp anywhere, compelled the Japanese to move most of the prisoners to another camp at Cabanatuan, north of O'Donnell. It was at Cabanatuan that the Death March survivors met up with their fellow countrymen captured on Corregidor and who fortunately did not participate in the March but had suffered the humiliation of being marched through the main streets of Manila in front of thousands of Filipinos who had been ordered out to watch the procession. After the fighting on Corregidor, some American P.O.W.s were forced to do a most distasteful duty. Divided into work parties they were ordered to cut the right hand off every Japanese soldier found dead. Some bodies had been lying in the hot sun for days. The dead bodies were then burned and the hands cremated, the ashes placed in small urns to be returned to their families in Japan.
The striking memorial, built on the site of the Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp on Luzon, includes a Wall of Honour on which are inscribed the names of around 3,000 Americans, many of them survivors of the Death March, who died at Cabanatuan. On the night of January 30, 1945, a secret raid was organized to free the remaining prisoners at Cabanatuan. A team of US Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas attacked the camp and liberated 517 prisoners. The raiding teams suffered only three fatalities the Japanese around 1,275.
TOKYO PRISON ATROCITY
Towards the end of the Pacific War, the execution of captured Allied aircrews became almost automatic. Courts-martial were dispensed with on orders from the Military Police Headquarters. In the Tokai Military District, twenty-seven airmen were executed by firing squad, but often, less humane methods were used. In the Japanese Army Prison in Tokyo all the buildings were built of wood and into this prison were crammed 464 Japanese soldiers serving sentences. Also confined in the prison were 62 American airmen who earlier were shot down and captured. During the night of May 25, 1945, Tokyo was heavily bombed by the US Air Force and the prison was hit by incendiaries. In the conflagration which followed, all the 62 airmen were burned to death. A significant factor in this incident was that none of the Japanese prisoners or any of the prison guards suffered a similar fate. The failure of the Japanese to release the 62 flyers could only have been deliberate.
KYUSHU UNIVERSITY ATROCITY
After a bombing mission over southern Japan on May 5, 1945, the crew of a B-29 bomber had to bale out after being rammed by a Japanese suicide plane. The B-29 crashed near the town of Takete. After landing, the crew were taken into custody and transported to Kyushu University in Fukuoka about one hundred miles north of Nagasaki. In the university's anatomy department they were subjected to the most horrib