From those that were there… (2)

Photos in Mr. Coloma’s collection

Elias Coloma was a Filipino scout when the war started.   The following is part of Mr. Coloma’s story.

“You’d hear boom-boom-boom,” the forward observer said in his interview.  “And wherever those shells dropped, they killed someone because we were too many people all in one place.”  Four months it lasted.  When C-rations ran out, Coloma’s 86th Field Artillery Battalion ate horses.  Then monkeys.  Then Grass.  Then weeds.  “The shelling was continuous.  Night and day.”

“At first it [the march] didn’t seem so bad.  The Japanese told me I could walk home, so I followed the endless line of men in the road.  We began to realize it was really different when the weak people were pulled off the side of the road and short or bayoneted.

Luzon, P.I., Bataan Death March

“Sometimes the guard would open their mouth with a weapon and shoot them.  We marched without sleeping.  In the hot sun we marched and at night we marched.  No food and no water, okay?  No rest.  If there was mud on the side of the road, we’d try to drink from it.  If there was wild rice, we’d pick the grain and put it in our pocket.  Sometimes the guard would allow it.  Sometimes they’d tie the prisoner to a tree and shoot him – Boom – as an example.

“I told myself, ‘I will survive.’  I wanted to go home.  On the 5th day we were crammed into boxcars in San Fernando.  No one could sit down.  When the doors finally opened in Capas, the survivors marched 9 more miles to Camp O’Donnell.  I was lucky,” said Coloma [whose weight dropped from 130 to 70 pounds], “I kept an old meat can, not washed, clipped to my pants.  With that, I ate a bowl of rice and a cup of water a day.

Sgt. Coloma

“In July, the Japanese transferred prisoners to another camp.  A crowd of Filipino civilians waited outside the gate to watch the prisoners pass.  One civilian pulled me out of line and threw a shirt over me.  They took me village to village until I was home [in Guimba, in central Luzon].  Then I said, I’m free.

“I can’t describe it.  All I had was a determination to survive, that’s all.  I can’t say anymore.”

***

Elias Coloma went on to fight as a guerrilla with Major Robert Lapham and his Raiders throughout the war.  He then re-joined the US Army which promoted him and brought him to America.  He retired from active duty in 1962 as a Master Sergeant and rose to Captain in the reserves.

Click on images to enlarge.

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MILITARY HUMOR – [updated style] – 

 

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Farewell Salutes – 

Victor Begovic – Browns Bay, NZ; British Merchant Navy # R339598

Frederick Drew – Glen Head, NY; US Army, 123rd Signal Batt,/3rd Infantry Div.

Gertrude Grace – Toronto, CAN; WAF, WWII

Earl Laube – Waukegan, IL; US Army, WWII, ETO

Alfred Martz – Jensen Beach, FL; US Navy, WWII & Korea

Robert McDow – Shawnee, OK; US Army Air Corps (2 yrs.) & US Air Force, Korea

Jess Wilson – McKee, KY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, aircraft sheet-metal mechanic

Richard Synder – Tucson, AZ; US Army Air Corps, WWII, (Ret. 20 yrs)

Ross Trower – Springfield, VA; US Navy, RAdm. Chaplin (Ret 38 yrs), Korea & Vietnam

 

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