My Hitch in Hell: A Soldier Recounts the Bataan Death March in WWII

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Let me give you some information. The first tank battle of World War II was on December 23rd at the city of Agou, A-G-O-O, up at Lingayen Gulf. General Wainwright asked for a company of tanks to meet the Japanese. When we got up to our bivouac area, our post-ordinance brought us enough gasoline for five tanks. And so five tanks went into battle instead of a company of tanks.

I know what I'm talking about. I was in one of the five tanks. Let me tell you something about tanks. For those of you who are not familiar with tanks, you can put that tank out of commission with one shell. One shell!

All you have to do is hit the track. Ben Morin was the lieutenant in charge of our lead tank. The lead tank was hit right away. Once it was hit in the turret, the second shell hit a track. The tank went to the right, ended up in a rice paddy. The four men in that tank were captured that day. The second tank was hit. A shell went through the tank and took the bow gunner's head right off and went out the back. Two tanks out of five put out of commission in three minutes. Our tanks had to turn around and head back toward Bataan. I will say that Ben Morin made the comment many months later that if he ever got out of that thing alive he was going to devote his life to God.

Ben Morin became a Jesuit priest. So tanks in the Philippines was not too bright. We ended up with the most unusual army. We had an air force without airplanes, a navy without ships, and soldiers without shoes. We had the old doughboy helmets. We were using Springfield rifles manufactured in 1917.

Ammunition manufactured in 1915, 16, and 17. When we were firing our guns we were hoping that one out of every four bullets would explode. That was the kind of war we had to fight at that time.

So it was a disaster for us really. And yet they told the fighters on Bataan and Corregidor that support was coming. It was not coming. I have a note here from the War Department.

I think the end remark sort of tells the whole story. The end remark was that the relief of the Philippines will not be undertaken because it is impossible. Did you hear that? The War Department decided that it was impossible to help us. Let me tell you what General MacArthur had to say. This was an instruction to all commanders. Inform your troops that supplies and ammunition are on their way. Airplanes are coming in.

Foot soldiers will be here soon. This man lied to us when he knew different. And so we fought the best we could and Corregidor held out. That was a thorn in their side and they had to solve that problem. The Japanese had a flotilla of about 30,000 troops, tanks, flamethrowers, everything on their way to Australia. But the Japanese had to take their flotilla, turn it around, and come into Bataan.

They came in on April 3rd, the first emperor's birthday, and that's when the push started. And it was disaster. The Japanese were absolutely stepping over their own dead bodies because they had to move forward and forward and forward. Now, ladies and gentlemen, think for a moment. We were on a peninsula, three sides of water. Where were we going to go?

We had nothing left. By the 8th of April, everybody on Bataan was already down at the water's edge, at the water's edge. And on April 8th, General Wainwright on Corregidor, General King on Bataan received a message from Douglas MacArthur. The message said, this garrison will not capitulate.

If all else fails, you will charge the enemy. General King said, I cannot do that. If I do not surrender my forces tomorrow morning, Bataan will be known around the world as the first worst disaster in the history of mankind. I can't do that to my troops.

I have to give some of them a chance to live. And so, General King gave instructions on the morning of April 9th. All forces on Bataan are to lay down their arms and surrender to the Japanese soldiers. It was a sad day.

Most people don't understand this. Let me tell you, the worst military defeat the United States ever had on Bataan on April 9th. Bataan. 70,000 people were forced to surrender.

70,000 people. And yet when we talk about Bataan, most people don't know what we're talking about. I gave a program some years ago and one woman came up to me at the very end.

She said, oh, I'm so glad I came. She said, when I heard it was going to be talking about Bataan twirling, I really wasn't interested at all. Bataan twirling. That's what somebody knew about Bataan.

We'll continue with Lester Tenney's story here on Our American Stories. There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anibay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. Anibay has designed the only fully machine washable sofa from top to bottom.

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Kids can be climbing trees and skinning knees instead of being sick with waterborne diseases. Sponsor a child at worldvision.org slash water for kids and help ensure access to life-changing essentials like clean water. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we tell stories of history, faith, business, love, loss, and your stories. Send us your stories, small or large, to our email oas at our american stories dot com. That's oas at our american stories dot com. We'd love to hear them and put them on the air.

Our audience loves them too. And we return to Our American Stories and with the late Dr. Lester Tenney's story. Tenney is the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Bataan Death March. When we last left off, Tenney was telling us about the largest surrender of troops in U.S. history to the Japanese. Most of these men would be forced into the death march to the first prison camp they'd be held in. Let's return to the story.

Here again is Dr. Lester Tenney. So the war ended for us on April 9th. You have to understand that General King was doing things in violation of the military code. He was not following orders from his commander. His commander said, you will not capitulate.

You will charge the enemy. He capitulated. He did exactly what you were not supposed to do. He could have been court-martialed. He could have been court-martialed. Let me share with you. Every officer was given a promotion, one rank promotion.

Every officer except General King. You know, they asked me if I wanted to have some pictures up on the screen. I have a lot of pictures, but there's no way that a picture could show you the anxiety, the frustration, the sadness of what went on in Bataan.

No pictures. And so I didn't bring any for that reason. And so that's a little bit of story leading up to the Bataan death march. I don't know why we call it a march.

I really don't. It wasn't a march. These were 12,000 sick men that were forced by the Japanese to walk to the first prison camp. It was called a death march not just because how many died, although out of the 12,000 Americans that were captured on Bataan, at the end of the war only 1,700 came home.

Think about that, 12,000 to 1,700. But that's not why it was called the Bataan death march. It was called the Bataan death march because of the way they died. If you stopped, you died. If you had a malaria attack, you died. If you just couldn't take another walk, another step, you died.

If you had a defecate, you died. No food, no water is what they gave us, nothing. We were called lower than dogs. We were called cowards because we surrendered. And that was part of the reason why we were treated so poorly because their philosophy was if you surrendered, you were lower than a dog because they would not surrender.

They would rather die for the emperor than to surrender. My nose was broken on the death march two or three times. My teeth were all knocked out. Thanks to the Veterans Administration, I have something to chew now, the VA.

Thank you, Mr. VA. I had my nose broken, my teeth knocked out, my head split open. The fourth day on the march, a Japanese officer was coming by on horseback, swinging his samurai sword, trying to see what kind of heads he could cut off. He missed my neck, but he slipped me down the back with his samurai sword. My friends, they carried me. They brought up a medic from the rear end who brought me up, sewed me up with needle and thread.

I don't know what he did, but they would not let me fall down. So I had my share of pain on the death march. And so now the march, 106, 107 degree, hot, no food, no water. On the side of the road in the Philippines, they have wallows. The wallows fill up with water. The caribou, the water buffer, they bathe in that wallow. They do their duty in that wallow. And we're marching and we're dying of thirst.

And we see that water. We run over, spread the scum, and drink the water. Result, amoebic dysentery in the worst way. And so when we arrived in that first camp, O'Donnell, men started to die at 200, 250 a day. They were dying from the effects of the march. They were dying from the effects of the march. We had one artesian well.

One artesian well popping up water in O'Donnell on the parade ground. I saw men die with a canteen in their hand waiting to get a drink of water. You know, I do this program in Japan. These kids know absolutely nothing about World War II.

Zero. They don't know a thing about World War II. And so when I go there, I made a decision.

I have to think of something. What can I tell these young people about the Japanese soldiers? Can I say they're all bad? They were all no good? No, I can't say that. Ladies and gentlemen, you might well know right now, I have learned to forgive. I have forgiven the Japanese. Now you may think about that in terms of what I'm doing. Remember, I did it for me, not for them. I became free. I became free. And you have to think about it. I became free. And you have to be strong to be able to forgive.

It's only the weak ones that can't forgive, the strong are able to forgive. Let's get on with our life. And so here we were at this particular time, having to try to survive. And I said to myself, how can I deal with these young people? And it came up to me. And I went to the Japanese people that I knew. And I questioned them. And I talked with them. And I came up with this answer.

Now, don't challenge me on it. This is my answer. Number one, most of the soldiers on baton came from little villages in Japan. And so they lived their little life in their little community. And that was all they was. No one spoke anything but what they spoke.

No one looked like anything but that they did. And that's how they lived their life. Now, all of a sudden, they're on baton. Their commanding officer says, we've got to move these people to that first prison camp.

If they don't move, kill them. And the commanding officer walks away. And this little Japanese private says, well, okay, I'll do that.

And so he sees this man fall down. And he says to the man in Japanese, hey, buddy, get up and move on. The American says, I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't speak your language. The Japanese says, did you hear me, fella? You get going there. I was told to make you go because if you don't go, I have to kill you. And I don't want to kill you, so get going. The American sits there and says, I still don't understand you.

I just can't move. The little Japanese guard says, I guess I have to kill you. Bang. And that's it. Is that possible? Well, I don't know if it's possible. I don't want to pretend that I do.

I don't know. I just know that when I was able to say that to the Japanese students to make them realize that not everybody is bad, that there may be other reasons for it, one thing I was able to do was I was able to tell them all about baton, all about the horrors of war, about the POW life. I never would have been able to tell them that before. I tell the story that you hear today, what happened, how horrible it was that the Japanese did this. And so if you were able to survive the war, if you were able to survive the baton death march, if you were able to survive that first time in the camp, Camp O'Donnell, then they put us aboard a ship and took us to Japan. And we're listening to Dr. Lester Tenney tell his story of the baton death march.

He was there. My goodness, it starts with 12,000 men and 1,700 come home. But it was the last time home, but it was the way they died, Lester told that audience at the World War II Museum. And they were treated so poorly because we surrendered and the Japanese would rather die than surrender. So they saw our soldiers as less than human like dogs.

When we come back, more of the story of the baton death march with Dr. Lester Tenney, here on Our American Stories. There's nothing like sinking into luxury. Anabay sofas combine ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. Anabay has designed the only fully machine washable sofa from top to bottom. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anabay has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Sofas start at just $699. And right now, you can shop up to 60% off storewide with a 30-day money back guarantee.

Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hi, it's Jenny Garth. We all know the importance of taking care of our physical and mental health. But what about our sexual health? I've been there, feeling totally stuck when it comes to my libido. That's why I started taking Addi.

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Individual results may vary. Addi or flibanserin is for pre-menopausal women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have had low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation, or the sexual partner. This low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship, or medicine, or other drug use. Addi is not for use in children, men, or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink one to two standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addi dose. Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime. This risk increases if you take certain prescriptions, OTC, or herbal medications, or have liver problems, and can happen when you take Addi without alcohol or other medicines. Do not take if you're allergic to any of Addi's ingredients. Allergic reaction may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sometimes serious sleepiness can occur.

Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep, and dry mouth. See full PI and medication guide, including boxed warning, at Addi.com slash PI. Addi.

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Shop Blinds.com now and get up to 50% off with minimum purchase. Rules and restrictions may apply. And we return to our American stories and with the late Dr. Lester Tenney's story. Tenney is the author of My Hitch in Hell. When we last left off, Dr. Tenney was recounting his experiences to an audience at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans about the Bataan Death March as a POW in the Japanese occupied Philippines.

Let's return to the story. The ships were called hell ships because the Japanese refused to put markings on the ships. No POW markings, no Red Cross markings, just plain ships. And when the American submarines saw these ships, they sunk them. 26 ships were sunk by Americans. 10,000 Americans died because the Japanese refused to put markings on the ships. I went into the first ship that I went into with 500 of us in the whole of a ship. 32 days later, we arrived in Japan. But for those 32 days, when a man died in the whole of that ship, we held a lottery to see who was going to get his water or his rice. There's no picture that could describe that, believe me. None.

We finally arrived and now I'm telling you about my arrival. 86 Japanese companies. Mitsui, Nippon Steel, Kawasaki, Mitsubushi. These are big companies. They bought POWs from Japan and they put them to work.

I was bought by Mitsui. 500 of us became coal miners. I shoveled coal 12 hours a day, every day for three years. Oh yes, those were the days all right. The first day we went down in the coal mine. Now these are a bunch of Americans who've never been in a coal mine in their life. And now we're going down there and we are weak.

We hadn't eaten anything now in months. So this first day down there, there were 12 Americans and two Japanese in my little group. You remember, I learned to speak Japanese. I learned to speak Japanese after 10 easy beatings.

Not 10 easy lessons, 10 easy beatings. So now we're down there, three Americans were moving this big rock. I mean they were, they were struggling, moving this rock. And the two Japanese are laughing, laughing. And I looked at them and I said, Nandesuka, what are you laughing about? And they said, uh, three Americans.

They're so big, but they're so weak. I said, yes, I bet two Japanese could have done it. And he looks at me and he says, no.

I said, no. He said, yes. And so he grabbed a hold of that rock and he started to move that rock. I swear he herniated himself, but he moved the rock in place and he stood up and I said to my friends, let's give him a round of applause. And we applauded him. The next two hours, the two Japanese built the wall. All we did is applaud them. We feel their muscles.

Oh my, oh, you're so strong. And they built the wall. So we did have some fun kind of things like that. If you got out of work, you got out of work because you were sick or injured. If you were sick, you got half rations. If you were hurt in the camp, you got half rations.

If you were hurt in the coal mine, you got full rations. So when a man broke an arm or broke a leg or broke a hand, it was always in the coal mine. Yes, we broke our own hand.

We broke our own foot. We would break a bone just to get out of work for two or three days. And if you couldn't break it yourself, you hired a breaker. Yeah, with 1,700 men there, you could always find a man to do something. And we did have a few that were breakers.

They would know how to break an arm, a leg or a hand so that you didn't have to lose it. So you had to pay for it. What did you pay? Oh, you paid so many rations of rice. Or you paid cigarettes. The Japanese gave us a pack of 10 cigarettes once every three, four, five, six, seven weeks.

You never knew when. But if you wanted an arm broken or a leg broken, depending on what you wanted, the price would go up based on how serious it was. A hand was only five packs of cigarettes. A foot was seven packs of cigarettes. Now, an arm was 10 packs of cigarettes.

Very, very expensive. Now, how are you going to get rice? Well, let me tell you, with 1,700 men in our prison camp, you know that there's always going to be one or two that can't eat their food today. What do you do with the food? The food.

Where did I get the word food? The rice. You can't save rice because rice gets sour. And if it gets sour, you better not eat it.

You're going to get sick. So what do you do with your rice when you can't eat it? You sell it. What do you sell it for? Cigarettes.

How many cigarettes can you get for a ration of rice? Now, folks, I'm a retired professor of finance from Arizona State University. And I want you to know that I learned everything that was about finance in prison camp.

Maybe you've heard of this before. You buy low and you sell high. And that's the whole philosophy of what we did in prison camp with our cigarettes. If I had a package of cigarettes, there's no way I was going to smoke it. That cigarettes were worth food. So I would hold the cigarettes back. Today, cigarettes are issued. I would have to pay one pack of cigarettes for a bowl of rice. But if I could wait two weeks, three weeks, three and a half weeks when the cigarettes were being smoked, supply and demand, then I could buy a ration of rice for two cigarettes. Sometimes even one cigarette.

Not a pack, but one cigarette. And so if you're smart, you buy low and you sell high. So you think I'm joking. No, no, I'm very serious.

I play the game. But what if the guy goes bankrupt? What if he owes too much and he can't pay off?

Well, that was a very common process. See, he owes me a ration of rice on Thursday. Comes Thursday, I want my ration of rice. And he says, I can't keep it. I can't keep it. I owe it to somebody else. And I say, come on the back of the barn. You're not going to do that to me.

That's my food. So in order to protect that man against people like myself that would want to punch him, we developed a bankruptcy court. Yeah, I'm not telling you stories.

I'm telling you the truth. We developed a bankruptcy court. The difference between our bankruptcy court and what you know about bankruptcy was this. The man had to pay every ration of rice. But what we did was we had to protect the man from being beaten.

That's number one. Number two, we had to make sure the man was able to eat at least two rations of rice a day so that he was able to go to work. If he didn't go to work, the Japanese were going to kill him. So we developed a bankruptcy court, brought him in, found out how many rations he owed, and then would set up a program for him to pay one ration a day until the whole thing was paid off. So we had a lot of systems in prison camp. And you've been listening to Dr. Lester Tenney, and he's the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Bataan Death March. And what a story he's telling to have lived through this. And my goodness, the Japanese not marking those ships.

There were no POW markings, no Red Cross markings. And so many, well, so many Americans needlessly died at the hands of Americans or allies. And my goodness, then all about the intricacies of life in that prison. And life in many prisons, by the way, work on the same basis of scarcity, supply and demand, black markets.

And when we come back, more of the story of Dr. Lester Tenney, The Bataan Death March, and its aftermath, here on Our American Story. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only machine washable sofa inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabric. Experience cloud-like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

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Shop Blinds.com now and get up to 50% off with minimum purchase. Rules and restrictions may apply. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of the late Dr. Lester Tenney's story. Dr. Tenney is the author of My Hitch in Hell, The Bataan Death March. Let's return to this story that he told at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, one of the finest places to take your family to visit to learn more about World War II than anywhere else in America.

Let's return to Dr. Tenney's story. Of the Americans captured by the Germans, 1.5% died as a prisoner of war. Of the Americans captured by the Japanese, 40%, 4-0, died as a prisoner of war.

We always said, all the prisoners said the same thing. The war is over when four things happen. Number one, we don't have to go to work. Number two, we get all the rice we want. Number three, we ever get a Red Cross box, a box from home. Number four, we don't have to salute the Japanese guard every time we see him.

When those four things happen, the war is over. My prison camp, number 17, was exactly across the bay from Nagasaki, 30 miles across the water. We heard the explosion. We saw the cloud rise. It was right like it was in our backyard, so we knew it.

We didn't know what it was, but we saw it. I want you to know that I want you to know that a document was issued by General Tojo in November of 1944 that said, in essence, I won't read the whole document to you, but it said that if Americans land on Japanese soil, you are to dispose of all the prisoners. And then it says the method, whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, no matter how they were destroyed by bombing, poisonous gas, smoke, drowning, or decapitation, it's your responsibility to try to leave no traces of the body.

Now that's what we had. If the war did not end then, every prisoner in Japan would have been executed. 120,000 prisoners were in Japan. 120,000 would have been killed instantly if that war did not end and if we had to land on Japanese soil.

So it's important that we understand that anyhow. On August 15th, we went to work in the coal mine. One hour later, we were brought back. Hey, what's going on here?

This has never happened before. At 10 o'clock in the morning, we were all put in the mess hall and every man was given a red cross box. The red cross sent the boxes to the prisoners, which we never got. The Japanese got them. We did not get letters. We got very little mail. I got one Christmas card from my family, which caused me to get one of the most severe beatings I've ever had by the Japanese. I got a Christmas card with a lot of names and numbers on it and the Japanese asked me, what do these numbers mean? You're a spy.

I didn't know. What's 212? 143?

618? How do you know what they're talking about? It took me almost one hour of beatings to realize that my family got all the people in the apartment building to sign their name and what apartment they were in. And finally, I was able to convince the Japanese of what it was and they accepted it. Let me tell you, this red cross box, there was a pack of cigarettes in there, a candy bar, Hershey bar, can of sardines, some food, other kinds of food, little good things that you wanted.

That was what was in the box. We got that 10 o'clock that morning. Then we went in for our meal, our ration of rice and the POWs behind the rice bowls would say to us, would you guys like a little more rice?

Are you kidding? Pile it on, buddy. Man, they piled it on. All we wanted to eat. No work.

Red cross box. All we wanted to eat, rice. Something's happening. The hair just turned on like this.

We just couldn't believe it. Finally, my buddy said to me, hey, Teni, go out and say hello to the guard without bowing. See what happens. Sure, you're right. Sure, he told me to go out. But you do have to understand, after having so many beatings, and by the way, in the coal mine, we were beaten by the Japanese civilians if we didn't bow low enough, didn't work hard enough or didn't work fast enough and they would beat us and they beat us with shovels, pickaxes and hammers. That's how we were beaten down in the mine.

So another beating would not be too bad. And so I went outside and I said to the Japanese guard who was standing there with his rifle, and I walked up to him and I said, Konnichiwa Tomodachi. And he looked at me, 10 seconds, 15 seconds. Finally, he stood at attention and he bowed to me. And I knew the war was over.

He bowed to me. You know, I got out, I was in the hospital for about a year and I got out of the hospital and I wrote a letter to the State Department. How do I go about suing the Japanese companies for my wages and what they owe me? The copy of the letter I have here is dated September 20th, 1946. The response that I got from them, from the State Department, was nothing more than a document that said that the State Department is working to do something for us.

That was in 1946. I haven't seen anything either. The first 50 years, we did not talk about anything. We didn't say anything. No one, no one knew that I was a prisoner of war. No one. My wife knew.

I never told anybody else. You see, most people think being a prisoner of war, you wave a white flag and you say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I surrender, I surrender. Well, that's not the way it was, not with us. But we were not proud of being a prisoner. For 50 years, we were not proud of being a prisoner. Maybe the Japanese were right. We should have fought to the end.

Maybe the Japanese were right. We're cowards. And so that's how we felt for 50 years. 50 years we felt that way. It's just been, the good Lord has been so kind to me that I'm able to share the real story of what happened on Bataan and Karakor. That's our story, folks. That's what we did.

That's how we put up with it. I have a poem that I would like to read you because it's hard, tells my whole story. I'm looking at my watch again.

We started at six, it's now 715. Let me share this with you, if I may. I think it tells my story anyhow. As I sit here thinking of the men I left behind, I have to put in writing what is running through my mind. At last, I want the world to know. So gather closely, friends, while I tell. You see, when I die, I know I'll go to heaven because I've done my hitch in hell.

But there is just one condition for my telling of this story. You see, I am looking for no sympathy and I am seeking no glory. Though I've marched those many miles and survived so many camps, why I've had malaria and dysentery, fevers, aches, and cramps. I've shoveled a million tons of coal. I've cleaned a thousand miles of ground.

My meaner place this side of hell is just waiting to be found. The number of Japanese soldiers I've saluted is very hard to tell, but I won't have to salute in heaven because I've done my hitch in hell. When finally taps are sounded and I lay aside life's cares, I'll do my last salute as I climb up those shining stairs. The angels will all greet me and harps will start to play while I'll draw a million rations and eat them all in one day.

It's then I'll hear Saint Peter tell me with a yell, hey, front and center, my dear soldier, you've done your hitch in hell. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Front and center, my dear soldier, indeed, the late Lester Tenney telling his story, telling his story, his raw story, his real story.

We were not proud of being a prisoner, he said. And folks, whatever you do, visit the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Bring the family. It's a beautiful town. I got married in that town. Five times I've been to that museum. That's a pilgrimage for me and my family. It should be for you and your family too.

The story of Dr. Lester Tenney here on Our American Stories. The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back. We're partnering with Nissan, so pull up to their exclusive lounge to get a special look at the all new 2025 Nissan Kicks and Nissan Rogue. The Nissan Rogue S is more affordable than CR-V and RAV4 and features available 12.3 inch touchscreen display. While the all new Nissan Kicks holds it down with a totally redesigned interior cabin with features like available wireless Apple CarPlay and available panoramic moonroof. Relax and see how Nissan is leveling up the game. Come kick it.

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