Blood Brothers: A Medic's Sketch Book Part 1

Blood Brothers.

by Colonel Eugene C. Jacobs.

PREFACE

The purpose of Blood Brothers is to acquaint the reader with a series of harrowing incidents experienced by the isolated U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East during World War II.

We might well be voicing the words of Saint Paul which were recorded in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter I) verse 8:

"For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life!"

Of his First Guerrilla Regiment, General Douglas MacArthur stated that "He had acquired a force behind the j.a.panese lines that would have a far reaching effect on the war in the days to come"; that it had kept "Freedom's Flames burning brightly throughout the Philippines"; that it had produced a "human drama with few parallels in military history"; and later, during the landing in Lingayen Gulf, had "accomplished the purposes of practically a front line division."

MacArthur further stated that "the courageous and splendid resistance maintained by you and your command filled me with pride and satisfaction."

Of the h.e.l.l s.h.i.+p Oryoku Maru, Gen. James O. Gillespie stated "it was probably the most horrible story of suffering endured by prisoners of war during World War II."

Gen. John Beall further stated, "You say a lot of things that need to be said, lest the United States forgets the horrors of the way the j.a.panese treated our prisoners."

In writing Blood Brothers, I found it necessary to resort to frequent flashbacks; and to keep the reader aware of the history taking place around the world, I tried to make reference to these events as they happened, even when they were merely rumors.

This story has not been pleasant to write; I'm glad it is finally finished.

In Blood Brothers, there are no heroes. The survivors of the Philippines arrived home in 1945, quietly and without recognition, to be admitted to hospitals near their homes.

With winners and heroes everywhere, there was no time for "Losers."

Eugene C. Jacobs

"Our senses can grasp nothing that is extreme! Too much noise deafens us! Too much light blinds us! Too far or too near prevents our seeing!

Too long or too short is beyond understanding! Too much truth stuns us!"

Blaise Pascal

*General Harold K. Johnson, a former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, had been a former j.a.panese prisoner-of-war, had experienced each and every event as it happened to other P.O.W.s, and had been an excellent friend through more than thirty years of Army service; he had agreed to write this PREFACE; unfortunately, this was followed by a long hospitalization ending in terminal cancer.

MY SKETCHES

During the first few weeks of our incarceration in j.a.panese Prisoner-of-War Camp No.1 in the Philippines, 1,500 (25% of our 6,000 captives) died of starvation, malnutrition, various vitamin deficiencies, malaria, diphtheria and various wounds that would not heal. I knew that within another 6 to 8 months, we would all be dead, and there would be no record of it. There was no paper to keep any record of events.

Within a few weeks, I was able to obtain a" nickel school notebook. In it, I drew many sketches, depicting the lifestyle in prison camp.

Of course, I had to be secretive. There was a penalty for keeping records in camp; if I'd been caught, I would have been beheaded.

By the time we were being processed for transfer to Old Bilibid Prison in late October 1944, I had made some 110 sketches. I rolled them up and placed them in a Mason jar. I buried the jar at the east end of building No. 12, planning to come back after the war and dig it up.

When the war was over, I was flown from Mukden, Manchuria to Kunming, China and on to Manila, P.I., where I was housed in a tent at Reple Depot # 29 south of the city. The next day I was flown in a Piper Cub back to Cabanatuan to look for my drawings, landing at an airfield we had built as prisoner-labor. A battalion of Engineers furnished a bulldozer.

The camp buildings were all gone. I figured out where building # 12 had been. We dug for hours and found nothing.

As fate would have it, one year after I returned to Active Duty at Walter Reed General Hospital in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., I located my 110 sketches at the Pentagon. MacArthur's Sixth Army Rangers had retrieved the buried drawings when they liberated Camp #1 in late January 1945.

All of my sketches had been carefully numbered, and marked on the back "Unidentified Artist." I had been officially declared an artist.

INTRODUCTION

In j.a.panese prisoner of war camps, all prisoners were divided into groups of ten, called "blood brothers."

If anyone of the ten "blood brothers" made any attempt to escape, the other nine would be punished "Sevelery!"

Typical punishments:

Tie the blood brothers to fence posts and require each pa.s.sing j.a.panese soldier to slap and kick them.

More severe punishment required recruits to use the bound brothers for bayonet practice.

The most severe punishment required an officer to unsheathe his samurai sword and behead the "brothers."

My ten blood brothers, all Medical Officers of the Regular Army, were:

Lt. Col. William Draper North

Major James Bahrenberg

Wilbur Berry

Wesley Bertz*

Eugene Jacobs

Emmert Lentz

Steven Sitter

Clarence Strand *

Clarence White*