Wayne J. Petrie was born in Milton-Freewater OR. on September 18, 1918. He grew up in Touchet, WA., moving to and graduating from Lewiston High School (Lewiston, Idaho) in 1937. Wayne enlisted in the Army Air Corps (now the USAF) in 1941. Upon completion of Basic Training Wayne was shipped to the Philippines, on the Island of Luzon, in May of 1941. Eight hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked the Philippines. The newspapers would call it "The Newest Alamo". Eisenhower would state, "Never has so much been done with so little.", due to the 4 1/2 month heroic stance of troops outnumbered by the entire 15th Imperial Japanese Army. Wayne was among the last troops to hold the final MLR becoming wounded in the final days of the battle. For this he would receive the Purple Heart. Starvation, disease and lack of weapons and supplies forced the American and Filipino Troops to surrender the Bataan on April 9, 1942.
The next 42 months of mental and physical torture were survived only by "a will to live and a faith in prayer", Wayne stated.
Recalling the infamous Death March Wayne stated, "It was indescribable. For 24 days the Japanese marched us on one meal and very little water. Some soldiers had no food and little water for a full ten days. We moved at a snail's pace and those who were too weak to keep going were bayoneted or shot."
"We were finally imprisoned at Camp O'Donnell, 20,000 of us."(camp photo) The final number would be over 60,000 POW's from at least four different nations. Wayne's first assignment would be burial detail. "there was one spicket of water available. We finally sent details to a stagnant pond. Malaria broke out. Several hundred American and Filipino POW's died daily. Escape was nearly impossible. The Japanese told us that for each American to escape, ten would be shot. Once when an American escaped, the POW's were forced to sit in the hot sun wondering who they would pick to die. Since we were all numbered the guards selected men with numbers 5 below and 5 above the escapee. Our boys were forced to dig their own graves."
By early June the Japanese began moving POW's to three camps all named Cabanatuan.
Eventually all three would be combined into one camp. Wayne would be interned in Cabanatuan until the summer of 1943. One of the worst camps on the Philippines, Wayne would take the advice of a doctor and volunteer to get on a labor detail in Japan.Wayne had no idea of the "whole kind of new hell" he would have to survive as he was shipped to Japan on the "Hell Ship" Clyde Maru. This ship was a captured freighter. He would arrive in Mojo, Japan on August 9, 1943. There he would travel by train to Fukuoka Camp #17 near the town of Omatu. Little did Wayne know that Fukuoka 17 would become known as one of the worst Japanese slave labor camps of WWII.
"I was there two years, 10 days and 8 hours.", Wayne recalled. We were forced to work in the coal mines which had previously been condemned, 18 hours a day with one day every 11 days for rest. This one day of rest was spent cleaning camp for Japanese inspectors and standing at attention the hot sun for 8-10 hours at a time. Wayne told of a high number of broken bones received in mine accidents. Some purposely inflicted to avoid the severity of the work. "There were 1,732 men in camp. 1,400 received broken bones from mine accidents. There were 250 amputations of legs and arms that I know of.", Wayne recalled. "In the two years I was there (at Fukuoka 17) we lost at least a man a day to accidents in the mine, starvation and brutalities."
Wayne himself was injured in a mining accident. The roof caved in with five men buried underneath. Wayne's left hand was broken and he was given two days rest for what would have been a two month rest in an American hospital.Wayne recalled frequent beatings, explaining that the Japanese preferred a club or baseball bat to beat prisoners. They also used whips, belts and ropes. "We came to think a slap or hit two to three times a day was nothing. We usually were beaten without provocation." Many of the beatings were for such things as failure to bow, ask permission to use the latrine, or follow orders quick enough to suit the guards.
Finally the Allied forces began to bomb the area and Wayne recalled cheering. Fukuoka 17 was never officially liberated, the guards simply walked away. When the country collapsed due to the atomic bombs, "...about 15,000 soldiers were grateful, otherwise we would have been in direct line of the allied bombings." Some of the men left the camp as soon as the guards deserted it. Wayne was one who did not wait for help to arrive, but instead commandeered a freight train and went to the northern part of the island from which he and fellow prisoners were shipped home. The USS Joseph Dyckman would take Wayne to San Francisco. After receiving medical attention, he would be transferred to Fort Lewis for a series of medical check-ups and rest. From Fort Lewis Wayne would gain transportation to Lewiston, Idaho, arriving home 2 weeks before Christmas of 1945.
Sgt. Wayne J. Petrie would be officially discharged from military service on March 17, 1946 almost 4 1/2 years to the date of the beginning of the heroic BATTLE FOR THE BATAAN.
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