Give Us This Day [Illustrated Edition]

Sidney Stewart

• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786251534
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Includes The Prisoners Of War In Japanese Hands During World War Two pack with 130 photos, plans and photos.
In Give Us This Day a young Oklahoman, a survivor of Bataan, reveals the terrible truth about a little-known aspect of the Pacific war as he experienced it from the beginning in the Philippines. He was a captive of the Japanese for more than three years; he knew one after another all the torments of confinement in conditions of primitive barbarism. True though his story is, it almost defies belief. With touching simplicity he recounts the stark and shocking details of one of the most shameful features of that war — the treatment of American soldiers who fell into the hands of the Japanese. At first Stewart hated his captors, but in the end hatred gave place to a dawning comprehension that the Japanese were as different from us as the men of Genghis Khan.
"It is one of the most harrowing and debilitating chronicles that I have read.... He describes the ordeal brilliantly; he harbors no resentments apparently, and he has emerged from an inferno of bestiality with utter serenity." — Maxwell Geismar, Saturday Review
"An impressive and moving book." — David Dempsey, New York Times
"His is no ordinary prisoner-of-war story; better written than most, it contains no tales of swashbuckling defiance.... The force of this book is its testimony to the indomitable strength of the human spirit." — Manchester Guardian
"The plain narrative of this story would by itself have been fascinating, but this book is far more than a story, it is a work of art." — André Siegfried, Academie Francaise
"Sidney Stewart's composed narrative is one of the most noble documents ever penned by a prisoner of war. The companions he writes about remained men to the end, until at last only one man remained; he survived to write this unforgettable, this magnificent story." — George Slocombe, New York Herald Tribune [Paris]

1— Manila: December 1941

1

IN THE LAND where dead dreams go lies the city of Manila, as it was before the war. Manila, where the white man didn’t work in the afternoon because it was too hot. Manila, with its beauty and its poverty and its orchids at five cents apiece.

What could a soldier do with a handful of orchids if he had no one to give them to? I used to buy those orchids. I’d pay my nickel for them and stand there awkwardly holding them in my hand. I would run my finger over the satin petals and then, embarrassed, I would give them to the first little girl I met, because there was something very lonely about buying orchids when you had no one to give them to.

Then one day I stopped thinking about orchids. The ancient Oriental city became like a frightened old woman caught in the centre of a highway crossing. People ran to and fro over the many bridges that span the dirty Pasig River flowing through the heart of Manila. It was so unlike the rivers of my native Oklahoma, where cottonwood trees line the sandy banks and clap their leaves happily in the wind.

The Pasig River swarmed with frightened life. Native women went on beating their clothes on rocks under the lacy fronds of the palm trees, but they never took their eyes from the sky.

Eyes wide with fear, naked little boys sat on rafts of coconuts they were floating to the markets.

Turbaned Moros hurried their majestic stride among the crowds of Japanese, Chinese and Filipinos, all in their native costumes.

Only the little caramotta ponies, that gave the streets the smell of a barnyard, seemed unable to sense the vast urgency of the people. Birds still gossiped in the towering acacia trees, and blind beggars huddled against the old Spanish walls away from the feet of the crowd, crying in plaintive tones for alms.

Japanese planes circled like giant hawks searching for prey.

We crouched down in the damp dirt of a new foxhole. It was noon and the hot sun beat down from overhead. I wondered how I could keep my trousers from getting muddy, and my heavy wash-pan of a helmet flopped loosely, giving me a headache. If only it ached a little more, it might take my mind off the strange fear I had.

The fear had started three hours before, when I heard the blasting announcements about Pearl Harbor. It was a small fear then, like a cobweb that drifts across your face in a darkened room. But now I held my face against my knees, so that my friends would not see the fear written there.

The Japanese planes roared over our heads, and we snuggled closer to the ground, which smelled like a fresh-ploughed field. We are Americans, I thought, proud and sure and free. We had nothing but contempt for the stupid fools blackening the sky. The Japanese must be crazy to attack a city held by Americans.

‘I’ll bet this war won’t last three weeks,’ Rassmussen said beside me.

I wondered if it would last even one. Surely they were only making a sort of last stand. They would rather go down in glorious defeat, because to lose a war that way would be, to the Japanese, a way of saving face.

‘Oh, I think it will last long enough for us to see some action, Rass:

He smiled as I looked up. He used a characteristic gesture, pushing his straight brown hair back off his damp forehead. His kind brown eyes were serious as we heard a singing sound in the air for the first time. Did he feel deep down, as I did, that little bite of fear?

The deafening roar of explosions split the air. I bit my tongue and hid my face again. I hoped Rass wouldn’t despise me if he knew I was afraid. The ground rocked beneath us, shaking as though it had life. But the explosions were a long way off. Down near the port area and along the waterfront. Yet the whining sound of the great missiles as they fell seemed close, as though they were right overhead.

We waited for more explosions but none came. Another man crawled into the foxhole and I looked around.

John Lemke panted for air. An ex-professor, John was brilliant and friendly, but most of all, orderly. His footlocker was always pointed out by the inspecting officers as an example of neatness. He removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his dark wavy hair. His clean-cut features were criss-crossed with worry.

‘Say, Rass,’ I laughed. ‘You know what? John’s got the same look on his face my Mom used to get when she figured one of my sister’s cats had done something under the divan.’

‘Oh well, when the all-clear sounds he’ll be above it all!’ Rass grinned and pushed his hair off his forehead again.

‘Peons!’ John did not hide his disgust. ‘I just crawled over here to read my latest from home and to show you something you should have already noticed.’ He pointed to new private-first-class stripes on his shirt, which was too big for him.

‘Tell me, Professor,’ Rass said. ‘Would you say that your education had helped you to get ahead in the army?’

John nodded solemnly. ‘I shall wear them as though they were a hair shirt.’ Then he raised his eyes toward the sky in an attitude of holiness. ‘The mighty shall be brought low,’ he quoted, ‘especially sergeants like you, Stew.’ He looked at me and grinned.

‘I give up, John. But what’s so hot about this letter?’

He pulled a crumpled envelope from his side pocket and slipped out the letter. Wetting his lips, he nodded as though to a classroom of bored students.

‘I quote,’ he said. “‘Dear Son: I’m so glad you are in the Philippines, because I am afraid that war with Germany is inevitable. But I know that Japan will back down and you will be safe there. Safe in the Philippines throughout the war...’

We all laughed, and I could see that everyone’s spirits went a little higher. Then the planes came overhead once more and we ducked down, waiting.

The bombs roared, whanging their way to the earth. The ground shook and the explosions sent the dust high into the air. There was a pungent burning smell. This time I knew the explosions were much closer. They had landed just across the river among the warehouses.

I raised my head above the foxhole. Smoke circled up beyond the old castle which was our barracks. I now had a new worry. I hated to see Estado Mayor destroyed.

The colourful old building was the ancient palace of the Spanish Mayors, who had lived here two hundred and fifty years. In those days boats had come up the Pasig River next to the castle. It was a beautiful old thing, in spite of our foxholes which guttered and criss-crossed the walled-in gardens. I looked over at the archways graced with Spanish iron lace, and the old feeling of storybook land came over me.

The mossy green walls were six to nine feet thick in some places, and most of the rooms smelled like a damp cellar. In the room that I shared with eight other men there was a mosaic map on the floor, a map of the world as it was pictured two hundred years ago, with blue stones for the water and yellow stones for the land. Many a time I had rolled over on my bunk, looking down at the map. I used to imagine a celebrated grandee standing there, with his lace collar and a long ivory pointer, pointing to the map and giving commands to the captains of his early Spanish galleons.

I was jarred out of my reverie by the moaning of the all-clear signal. It whined, gradually reaching a pitch of screaming frenzy.

We stood up, dusted ourselves off and stepped out of the foxhole. We felt like veterans who had weathered their first battle. We were a little proud of ourselves and, I know now, more than a little pathetic in our innocence. We knew so little about war.

I looked around. Some Filipino boys crouched behind the tall hibiscus bushes.

‘Like the ostrich hiding his head in the sand,’ Rass laughed, but when I looked at him I could see sympathy in his eyes. Then he saw I was watching him, and he brushed his hair off his forehead and looked back at our foxhole. ‘I wonder what protection they think a bush would give them if a bomb lit near here,’ he said.

I didn’t answer, because there is a sense of protection in being hidden and I knew how the boys felt. What you cannot see does not seem so terrifying.

We walked back into our offices and went to work. New orders were out. No ties were to be worn, and no saluting was required. All of a sudden the huge lazy machine called the army was waking up and coming to life. It might even acquire some appearance of efficiency.

I was sure of it when I saw Weldon. His collar was open and the blond hair on his chest showed. He was smiling and happy, for at last he foresaw an outlet for his tremendous energy. His sleeves were rolled back, revealing his brown arms and bulging, powerful muscles.

‘I wonder if they’ll send us out of here to make a landing on Japan,’ he said.

‘Well, I don’t know.’ John spoke up in his grave classroom voice. ‘It’s highly possible. But we’ll have to see how much damage they did. I was surprised that they even let those planes get over Manila.’

John looked terribly out of place in his clumsy, too-large uniform. The private-first-class stripes on his sleeve were pitifully inadequate for a man of his background. He formed part of the incongruous picture that made up the army.

By contrast, Weldon, strong-featured and big of physique, had been a miner and had gone to work in the mines when he was only fourteen. We were all part of a group and very close friends.

Hughes came in.

‘Well, what did you guys think of that one? Looks like it’s really opened up for us,’ he said. They all began to talk at once.

I didn’t listen, because I remembered that I had been afraid. I felt inferior to them. I felt that they would hate me for it if they knew.

I looked at Hughes, with his straw hair and long nose and little moustache. Every few minutes he pulled out a benzedrine inhaler. Holding a finger over one nostril, he would press the inhaler to the other and sniff deeply. Without listening to his words, I heard his English accent. His father had brought him to America to keep him out of the war over there. We all knew the story. He had come over and when there began to be talk about the draft, he had joined the American Army. I wondered what he was thinking now.

I thought again about being afraid. I turned around and looked at Rass. He grinned, brushing his hair back nervously.

‘I guess I ought to be ashamed of myself,’ he said, ‘but I had an awful funny feeling while I was in that foxhole.’

‘I did too,’ Weldon laughed. ‘But that funny feeling was me being plain scared.’

I felt better, knowing they had felt the same way. Relieved, I walked over to the window. Pillars of black smoke belched high into the sky. In the distance ambulances screamed through the city, and again I felt a pang of fear. But I made up my mind to conquer it.

‘What do you say we go eat?’ Rass said. We turned and walked out of the building and down across the garden to Stotsenberg Hospital, where we were fed. The other boys chattered away at each other, lively as monkeys, but I didn’t feel much like talking. John was silent too. As we reached the gate, I noticed a little Chinese flower girl standing there with her flowers in her hand.

She always stood there at the gate with flowers for sale. Usually we bought one and gave it to one of the girls who waited on the tables at the mess hall. But now there were tears in her eyes. Hands shaking, lips quivering, she huddled there against the wall as though the air raid was still on. Her eyes looked beyond us. I turned and behind me, down in the old walled city, I could see the smoke rising black and brown toward the sky. That was the poor section of the city. I wondered idly if she lived there.

‘Come on, Sid. Let’s go eat,’ Weldon called.

Quickly I reached in my pocket and pulled out a clime and handed it to her. I wanted to talk to her, to help her, but there were probably many just like her all over the city. I hurried and caught up with the men.

By now ambulances were roaring around on all sides. As they sped up the streets they splashed brown gravel high into the air. They careered in front of us and across the hospital driveway.

When we reached the driveway I saw that there were litters all over the green lawn. White sheets covered still forms, and I heard groans and cries.

I had always gotten sick at my stomach very easily. I wondered if I would get sick every time I saw someone get hurt. I can’t let...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Front Matter
• 1- Manila: December 1941
• 2 - Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippine Islands: January 1942
• 3 - Fall of Bataan: April 1942
• 4 - Camp O’Donnell, Luzon: May 1942
• 5 - Davao Penal Colony, Southern Mindanao: Autumn 1943
• 6 - Davao Penal Colony, Davao, Mindanao: December 1943
• 7 - Summer 1944
• 8 - August-October 1944
• 9 - En Route to Japan: December 1944
• 10 - Tennis Court, Olongapoo, Luzon: 1944
• 11 - Christmas 1944
• 12 - January 1945
• 13 - Formosa to Japan: January February 1945
• 14 - Modji, Japan: February March 1945
• 15 - Through August 1945
• SIDNEY STEWART