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Saturday, October 15, 2005 From Belen to BataanSoldier recalls horror of his days as a POW of the Japanese during World War II (La Historia del Rio Abajo is a monthly column written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society about Valencia County history. This month's column is the last in a series commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. While the first article (in June) focused on the homefront and the second (in July) described the experiences of a Valencia County resident on the European front, this column is about yet another young man, Jack Aldrich, who lived in Belen as a child and later served in the Pacific Theater, including as a POW survivor of the Bataan Death March.
The last segment of today's article, about the 1991 dedication of the Bataan monument in Deming, is from Janie Matson's book, "It Tolled For New Mexico: New Mexicans Captured by the Japanese, 1941-45." Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author's alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society, the News-Bulletin or any other group or individual.) Jack Aldrich was only 7 years old when he first arrived in Belen in 1927. Jack and his family had moved from Harper, Kan., to New Mexico because his father, Ross Earl Aldrich, had contracted tuberculosis. Like thousands of so-called "lungers," Jack's dad had been told that New Mexico's clean, fresh air might help cure his dreaded disease. With a wife and two young sons to support, Ross Aldrich took an office job with the Santa Fe Railroad and wisely moved to the Rio Abajo for his health. Although very young when he lived in Belen, Jack still has vivid memories of the town, its surroundings and its people. With the Sandia Mountains and the Rio Grande nearby, Belen was certainly different from the flat, far less captivating landscape of the American Great Plains. Belen's residents were also different from the folks Jack had known back in Kansas. Jack recalls being one of the only Anglo kids in a community where most children came from Hispanic families. Jack fought against many Hispanic boys, including a boy whose family happened to live next door to the Aldrich's first house in Belen. In one incident, Jack and his next-door neighbor were hired to distribute handbills advertising the local Safeway store, whose manager was a boarder in the Aldrich home. The boys had not gone far with their handbill deliveries before another fight seemed imminent. Instead, the Hispanic boy suggested that they stop their fighting and try to get along. Jack agreed to the truce, and, with time, the pair became best friends. Jack eventually got along well with all the Hispanic boys at Central Elementary School. Jack learned to speak a lot of Spanish from his schoolmates, although he smiles when he admits that most of his Spanish vocabulary consisted of often-repeated swear words. Jack, his brother Robert, and their neighborhood friends played at places all over Belen. Jack and Robert swam in a local ditch, although their mother repeatedly warned against venturing near the dangerously swift water. The boys did not conceal their transgressions well: their wet hair stuck straight up after hours of mischief in the ditch. Jack and Robert's mom also warned them about a mysterious place in town where men hung out at all hours of the day and night. The boys were told to stay clear of this illicit speakeasy during the country's Prohibition era. Perhaps to scare young boys away, locals referred to this dark place as the Bucket of Blood. Jack remembers seeing his first "talkie" in Belen's downtown Central Theater. Jack doesn't recall much about the movie or its actors' dialogue because late arrivers kept walking on the piñon shells that covered the theater's old wooden floors. Jack and his fellow residents of Belen sometimes saw movie stars in person as well as on the silver screen. Dozens of fans would gather at the Belen depot each day, hoping that a celebrity might travel by and wave to the eager crowd. Train watching was said to be Belen's No. 1 sport in the 1920s. Jack and his family were among those who occasionally stopped by Belen's Harvey House to enjoy a meal. Although the Aldrich family couldn't afford to eat in the Harvey House's fine dining room, they could afford meals served by the efficient Harvey Girls at the restaurant's large lunch counter. Despite amenities like the Harvey House, the movie theater, Feil and Ellermeyer's (with the only elevator in town), and the Becker-Dalies Store (where Jack says they sold "everything in the world"), Belen was still a small, rather rustic town in 1927. Residents often kept chickens, cows, and horses in their yards, and the streets were not yet paved. The Aldriches lacked indoor plumbing, making trips to the outhouse necessary but difficult, especially in inclement weather. But Belen was a wholesome place in which to live. Jack's father recovered from his TB by eating a special diet and taking long walks for exercise. Ross Aldrich also slept in a backyard tent so he could enjoy the healing power of Belen's fresh air on warm summer nights. Ross Aldrich had recovered sufficiently for the Santa Fe Railroad to transfer him and his small family to the company's office in Vaughn, 111 miles east of Belen, in 1928. Jack missed Belen, but adjusted well to his new environment. In fact, Jack and his brother soon devised ways to amuse Santa Fe Railroad passengers who stopped at Vaughn's depot and Harvey House in search of the Wild West, or at least a small taste of it on the eastern plains of New Mexico. Wearing cowboy hats, Jack and Robert often took a burro to the depot where, for 25 cents, they would treat passengers to the spectacle of a burro kicking up its hind legs. The boys' business went well, but eventually "backfired" when the burro threw Robert into a prickly patch of cactus. After treating Robert's numerous injuries, Jack and Robert's mother put an end to her sons' popular, but short-lived, Wild West Show. Jack and Robert enjoyed other childhood adventures, including a thrilling ride on a caboose from Vaughn to Clovis. The Aldrich family survived the Great Depression of the 1930s better than most, and both boys had graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Clovis by 1940. In 1940 Robert joined the New Mexico National Guard and somehow talked Jack into joining the Guard too. According to Jack, he had to join the Guard because he couldn't stand the thought that his younger brother outranked him in any way. Neither brother could have imagined what impact their decision to join the National Guard would have on their immediate and future lives. The Second World War had begun in Europe in 1939, but the United States was still officially neutral in the conflict. Joining the Guard did not seem like a dangerous course of action in 1940. But everything changed for the United States and the New Mexico National Guard in 1941. Disturbed by Japanese aggression in the Far East, the U.S. enlarged the size of its military by creating the nation's first peacetime draft and by federalizing certain National Guard units, including New Mexico's. Suddenly Jack and Robert Aldrich were part of the U.S. Army's 200th Coast Artillery (AA) Regiment. After a rousing send-off in towns across New Mexico, the new unit traveled by train to California, shipped out from San Francisco and arrived at their assigned base in the Philippines by the fall of 1941. Jack and his fellow soldiers of the 200th had just settled in at Clark Field on the island of Luzon when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941. Jack recalls that he heard news of the attack on Pearl Harbor while taking a shower on the morning of Dec. 7. Dressing quickly, Jack ran to a nearby radio truck to learn more details before rushing to his duty station. "Everyone was buzzing with excitement," says Jack, although all agreed, "We're in the soup now." The war arrived in the Philippines about noon that same day when Japanese planes began bombing several American positions, including Clark Field. The ground shook and dark smoke soon filled the air. Jack recalls that he "suddenly knew fear for the first time. You get a strange metallic taste in your mouth. I didn't know what fear was until that day." Jack survived the horrors of his first Japanese attack. But far more action followed. In the coming weeks, the 200th and all American forces were ordered to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula, also on the island of Luzon, in anticipation of a massive land invasion by the enemy. Some Japanese forces had already arrived. It was during this period in the jungles of Bataan that Jack was on guard duty one bright night. "As I crossed a patch of moonlight to get a cigarette," Jack says, "a bullet smacked a tree just above my head. I hit the dirt as the report echoed. Then I got mad — the (s.o.b.) was trying to kill me!" "Madder than hell," Jack and a buddy searched for the sniper, but "we never did find him." When not on guard duty or hauling ammunition, Jack spent much of his time typing National Service life insurance policies for himself and his fellow GIs. He could not have known that the ship carrying these policies to the United States would be sunk long before they could reach their far-off destination. Meanwhile, conditions on Bataan deteriorated quickly. Food and medical supplies dwindled. Diseases, especially malaria, dysentery, scurvy and beriberi, spread among the men. Rations were cut to smaller and smaller amounts. Soldiers began to starve. Japanese bombs continued to fall. Everyone expected help to arrive any day. This was, of course, impossible because so much of the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor had been damaged or destroyed. The Japanese strategy to gain supremacy in the Pacific Theater was succeeding. With no reinforcements and few supplies, the Americans were no match for the fresh Japanese troops who arrived by the thousands in the Philippines. The men of the 200th and the rest of the U.S. Army fought bravely as they retreated further and further down the Bataan Peninsula. But the situation grew worse by the day. Feeling abandoned, increasingly discouraged soldiers uttered a new chant: "No Mama, no Papa, no Uncle Sam." Jack recalls the night of April 8, 1942, when an earthquake struck. "The road was jammed, and, at one stream, the vehicles were mired in deep ruts, and we got caught in a vehicle-pushing detail for two hours. Finally, they let us go on. We didn't know where we were, or where our regiment was." When Jack and his buddies eventually found their unit, they took whatever ammunition they could gather and spent the night "wondering how we were going to stop Japanese tanks with only rifles." Jack's position typified the American condition overall. Without outside assistance, resistance was impossible by April 8. At 12:30 p.m. the following day, Gen. Edward P. King officially surrendered all U.S. forces in the Philippines to the Japanese. Jack and most GIs were shocked by the news. "We were prepared to sell ourselves dearly that day," Jack asserts. But the average American soldier had no say in the matter. Realizing how desperate conditions had become, their officers had little choice but to surrender. Now Prisoners of War, the American troops were forced into long lines guarded by Japanese tanks and machine guns. The infamous Bataan Death March had begun. The Japanese were brutal. Jack recalls being prodded along by soldiers armed with bayonets. "We were denied food and water and made to march at a gait that kept the Japs with us at a dogtrot. When they were replaced by guards on bicycles, we were pushed faster. "And that was when the hot sun and the lack of water and food began to take its toll, and guys, already weakened by disease and hunger, began to fall by the side of the road." Those who fell behind or rushed for even the smallest source of water were often shot on the spot. Other Americans were forced to bury the dead, although GIs told heart-wrenching stories of being forced to bury their fellow Americans while the latter were still alive. Like many POWs, Jack soon suffered from sunstroke and malaria. Exhausted, he walked in a daze for miles. He rallied only when he felt rain on his face.He licked his face for whatever bit of moisture it could provide. Eventually, the Japanese crammed Jack and hundreds of other GIs into low boxcars. With a hundred men in each steel boxcar, it was soon hotter than an oven. Men passed out from the lack of air and heat. Standing near his car's half-open door, Jack suddenly "felt a blow to my chest." Someone along the tracks had mercifully thrown him a baked sweet potato. "I passed half of it out and ate the other half. It was like lead in my stomach. It was the first food I'd had in the entire Death March." Conditions hardly improved when the trains arrived at their destinations and the Americans and their Filipino allies were forced into POW camps. Jack and many other New Mexicans were assigned to Cabanatuan, one of the worst POW camps in the Philippines. But most New Mexicans survived their POW camps, largely because they looked out for one another and helped each other whenever they could. In one instance, a New Mexico friend found Jack "dirty and blacking out. He hauled me out in the rain and bathed me, and when I got better, he got me a kitchen job. It meant more food." At another time, two buddies got Jack assigned to special duty beyond the camp's main gate where he had the best chance to find and smuggle needed items back into camp. The nightmare continued for Jack and thousands of Americans when they were transported on Japanese ships to destinations in Japan and elsewhere in the Far East to work as slave labor. As Jack boarded the Haro Maru, "the old metallic taste of fear returned," especially after he and 700 other POWs were forced below deck where there was "no room to sit and the temperature shot up" when the hold was closed. Allotted only three tablespoons of water per day, the POWs were soon dehydrated. Their meager ration of thin soup often crawled with maggots. Despite this, Jack says, "We made fun of ourselves because we looked so ludicrous — just skin stretched over bones. No buttocks, and ... heads like skulls, with deeply sunken eyes." Increasingly desperate, some dehydrated men went so far as to drink salt water. "Those guys would go insane — leap around like animals," Jack recalls. "I thanked God my hammock was out of reach of these monsters. Usually someone beat them insensible. "A few slashed their wrists and drank their own blood. These men usually bled to death. In the morning, the Japs lowered ropes to haul up those who died each night." Of course, American pilots and sea captains had no way to know that American POWs were below deck on the Haro Maru or on any other Japanese naval ship. Jack remembers the day his ship was first hit. According to a fellow POW, men "began to panic and tried to form a pyramid to climb out of the hold. In the light of the explosions I could see the faces of the fellows they were stepping on. A chaplain tried to pray above the noise." Somehow Jack survived. Thousands of POWs were not as fortunate, trapped below deck or drowning without life jackets or rafts when their ships were sunk by American planes or submarines. No wonder these often doomed Japanese crafts became known as the Hell Ships. The Haro Maru reached Japan and delivered its human cargo to a prison camp near the town of Kosaka. Here Jack faced extreme winter cold. Somehow, he got a job on a jackhammer crew after claiming that he was experienced with the equipment, although "I had never seen a jackhammer in my life. But it was a way to keep warm." Jack endured many additional tribulations until the day he heard a rumor that American planes were about to bomb a nearby target. "Sure enough, that night we heard the explosions and saw the fires. We went wild. We knew it wouldn't be long" until they would be rescued. In August 1945, Jack heard even more encouraging news: the U.S. had developed a new super weapon that could destroy whole cities. One such a bomb had been dropped on a Japanese city, killing as many as 80,000 people, according to Jack's source of information. Within days, the Japanese interpreter at Jack's camp "told us the war was over. We looked at each other. There wasn't a sound. "He said he hoped we wouldn't run around the countryside killing and raping women and so on. When he went into the guardhouse, we were still standing dumb. "Then suddenly it hit home. We looked at each other and started screaming and yelling. We ripped off our POW ID patches, and began to sing --'God Bless America.'" Soon rescued by U.S. troops, Jack was taken to an Army hospital to recover from his horrific ordeal. It took a while to adjust to normal life. Jack says, "We couldn't sleep on beds — we weren't used to it. After hospital bed check, we'd all jump out and lie on the floor." Finally, American ships carried the ex-POWs home to the United States and, for most New Mexicans, to Bruns Army Hospital in Santa Fe. The men were overcome with joy to see their loved ones at last. But when Jack saw his father for the first time, he immediately searched the room for his mother. "Where's Mom?" he wanted to know. His Dad's sad expression was all Jack needed to see to learn the awful truth. None of Ross Aldrich's letters with the news of their mother's death had ever reached Jack or Robert in their isolated POW camps. Homecoming had become a bittersweet experience. But at least he was safely back in New Mexico and could finally get on with his life, although injuries suffered at the hands of brutal Japanese soldiers plague Jack to this day. How had Jack — and his brother Robert — survived the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the 85-mile Bataan Death March, several POW camps and the dreaded Hell Ships when over 5,200 Americans had not? Jack is the first to admit that luck was on his side. Like most survivors of the Death March and the POW camps, he adds that having a sense of humor always helped when things appeared most bleak. Jack also expresses gratitude to his fellow POWs, especially his fellow New Mexicans, who were often there at his most desperate moments, just as he was often there at theirs. Clearly, Jack had learned how to live and work with diverse groups from an early age in Valencia County. Finally, Jack asserts that he survived because he never lost faith in his country and its ability to win the war and someday rescue its long-lost, but not forgotten soldiers. Years later, in 1991, the town of Deming dedicated a 10-foot granite Bataan Death March memorial west of the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum. More than 50 Bataan Death March survivors attended the ceremony, including Jack Aldrich. Jack recalls that, after the dedication ceremony had ended, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to see a small boy, no older than Jack had been when he lived in Belen in 1927. The boy looked up at Jack with admiration and gave the veteran a respectful salute. Moved, Jack returned the salute and shook the boy's hand before the youngster wandered back into the crowd. It was as if Jack's distant past had reappeared, touched him gently and wandered off again. Memories of childhood are like that, especially for men like Jack Aldrich who have lived so long, survived so well, and proudly contributed so much to the histories of their small communities and to their nation as a whole. Dr. Richard Melzer is a professor of history at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus and is the author of many books, mostly dealing with Southwestern history.
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