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I
was 21 when I volunteered in December of 1941. There was a total of
fourteen Czechoslovak volunteers who went to Bataan in December of
1941. Since none of us
were citizens, our official status was “Employees of the Department
of War.” Our motive There were three of us in Fukuoka:
Leo Hermann, Otto Hirsch, and Karel Aster. Eventually
Leo was transported to Japan in later 1944 although he suffered from
asthma on one of the hell ships.
He arrived in Fukuoka early in 1945. He was ill and placed in
the hospital and died in February or March of 1945.
The feeling among those who visited him in the hospital was
that he died in extremely weakened condition because of his trip but
also from lack of will to live on. His
wife in Manila survived Leo.
There was a stunned silence in our ranks and we were marched
under guard back to our barracks and ordered to stay in.
It was late afternoon – we were not marched to the mess hall
for our evening meal and when finally, early in the morning, some of
the more courageous men ventured out, the word quickly spread that the
entire Japanese garrison had withdrawn and the headquarters were
empty.
Soon we found out that the warehouse was filled with food
supplies – mostly Red Cross Aid. In a few days, US planes found us and dropped us food and we
got the first news of world events from magazines they also dropped.
The first American to come to the camp was a newspaper
correspondent (I believe from the Chicago Sun Times) and he gave us
the big news about the atomic bomb and that Harry Truman was the new
President. None of us had
ever heard of him before.
My friend Otto Hirsch and I ventured out of the camp several
times and even went to the post office to mail some post cards home.
They were never delivered. Eventually
a detachment of Marines came and organized our evacuation via train
through the ruins of Nagasaki to the harbor and an aircraft carrier.
Otto Hirsch settled in California, died about 15 years ago, and
I am in touch with his widow and two children. I have never been able
to make contact with Leo Hermann’s widow, although I heard that she
came to the US. There were
no children.
I was single until, in 1961 I married a widow friend of mine with whom
we went to Manila in 1941. She
spent the war in Manila and in 1944. Her husband was incarcerated by
the Japanese in Fort Santiago and Bilibid Prison for cooperating with
the US guerillas. He
survived, though very ill, and lived in Manila until 1955 when he
immigrated to the USA. He died in 1960 and was survived by his wife
Jana, their daughter Joan (born in the USA in 1940 and went with them
to Manila in 1941) and son Michael, born in Manila in 1949. We had a wonderful life together until my wife died in 2003. As a stepfather, I have four grand children and three great-grand children, all doing well.
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