Herbert Hanneman

INTERVIEWER: Did you feel any threat from Japan?
HANNEMAN: None whatsoever. We just had a ball there. Clark Field was the Air Force airport, for the Army Air Force, nearest the Philippines. And they were always flying around, and then they had a coast artillery there for Manila. And they had an infantry there. And well, December 8th, that's when all hell broke loose as they say. Pearl Harbor was bombed. But to show you how alert we were, we came down for breakfast the following morning and we saw newspaper hawking, newspaper being hawked, says, “Pearl Harbor Bombed.” We hadn't even known about it.

HANNEMAN: But I remember that several of us, four or five of us, went down to a stream near there and wanted to take a good bath. So, we undressed and while we were undressed, all of a sudden we looked up and we were surrounded by Japanese soldiers.
INTERVIEWER: Bad timing.
HANNEMAN: Bad timing. Very bad timing. They did allow us to put our clothes on, but they took our wrist watches, and our rings, and ya know.
INTERVIEWER: Was that in--
HANNEMAN: With a little prodding, they got us to go to meet larger groups, and eventually, we were in a huge group.

HANNEMAN: Any food we got, we got it from the natives, but as we would go through, the natives would occasionally bring us food. But the second or third day, they started giving us a little bit of food at night when we'd stop.
INTERVIEWER: What food?
HANNEMAN: Rice, primarily. Just bowls of rice. And water, we had a heck of a time getting water. That's when we all became rather ill, because we couldn't get decent water. We'd drink out of carabao wallows, or anything that was liquid. And I think we all had diarrhea, of some kind. As a matter of fact, I'm sure we did. And then eventually, I don't know how long this lasted. Forgive me, I just don't know. But, eventually, those of us who were still living because they bayoneted the people who--
INTERVIEWER: Fell by the way?
HANNEMAN: Fell by the wayside. And also -- there was a -- they had a cavalry outfit, in Japan, I don't know how big it was. Maybe they got horses from the Philippines, for all I know. But they enjoyed riding into a bunch of us with their swords slashing. There were quite a few people killed that way. And--
INTERVIEWER: That was just for fun?
HANNEMAN: That was just their method of thinking it was fun, I guess. I don't know. They must have, they didn't think like we did, that's for sure. And, eventually, I guess, we got to Cabanatuan, which is an old fort of the Philippine Army.

HANNEMAN: So eventually, as I said, we got to Cabanatuan. And we were there for a whole year and, a year and a half. And how in the world any of us ever got through that I'll never know. They did allow us to start gardening. They let us have a garden, although we, none of us were very interested in gardening. But they did begin to feed us a little bit better. Mostly rice and mostly rice and fish heads, and occasionally greens. We did raise a few greens, you know like--spinach, what have you. And we had our own cooks, but they never got much of any food except this rice to feed us with. And as I said, we were there a year and a half, and we had burial details almost every day because during the night, [coughs] excuse me -- you'd hear people screaming, “For Christ's sake, get me out of here” [coughs] you know, stuff, stuff like this. In the morning, they'd probably be dead and then they'd have a burial detail.

HANNEMAN: The burial details they’d--in the morning, they'd come and get us, those of us who were able, they'd say, "Come on we’re--" They didn't understand our language, but we knew what they wanted with the bayonet. We'd go out and they'd drag these bodies through a field, and we'd would attempt to dig a hole big enough to bury them and throw them in there. And if they didn't fit, we'd take a shovel and break an arm or a leg and fit them in there.

HANNEMAN: Eventually, of course, that stopped, and they threw those of us who were able enough to get into the back end of a truck, they fitted us in like sardines, and they drove us into Manila. And that is where we got on a ship, prisoner of war ship. They had, we call it--we knew it was a prisoner of war ship, that is all that was on there, except for the crew. But they had a Red Cross flag draped across the top of the ship, figuring, I suppose, that the Americans would never bomb a Red Cross ship. We started out on that ship, and I have no idea how big it was. We were all down in the hold, down there.

HANNEMAN: And after a couple of days of getting organized there, why, they started us marching into the steel mill. And we were working in the steel mill as long as we were able.
INTERVIEWER: Doing what?
HANNEMAN: We unloaded iron ore, and we unloaded black sand. And we worked in the yards out there, carrying stuff from here to there.

HANNEMAN: Went back into the barracks, and we thought maybe we could get a little more food if we go in their pantry, and so we kind of half-way rushed the guards. And they threw down their guns and ran. We could have all been killed you know. It was the most foolish thing we could have done. But, anyhow, they threw down their guns and ran, and so we broke open the storeroom and got out all the rice and fish heads and vegetables they had, and our own cooks at least prepared enough so we had food. And I believe it was that same afternoon or the next day, that the first American plane came over. And it was a small plane, apparently from an aircraft carrier. And he dropped a few boxes. And all those few boxes had were magazines.

HANNEMAN: And one of the things they did for us when they gave us our discharge was that, as POWs, they gave us a vacation to a city of our choice, and a couple of hotels of our choice, with all expenses paid for two [coughs], excuse me, two weeks. Except for liquor, they wouldn't pay for any liquor. So anyhow, by that time I had proposed to my dear wife and she had accepted, and so we got married and we had two-weeks honeymoon and the--hotel in Chicago. I can't remember what the name of it was at that time, it's now the, was the Hilton at that time. Can't remember the name of it then. But anyhow, we had our honeymoon there for two weeks and I'll never forget that either. Our room number was 12--1215. And that's the total amount of my bill after two weeks, because most everybody, with my uniform on, could see that I'd been a POW. They wouldn't let me buy drinks.