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Home  Foreword Introduction The Road to Bataan The Bataan Death March The San Fernando Train Ride Camp O'Donnell Clark Field Concentration Camp Bilibid Prison The Hell Ships Japan The Nomachi Express Camp Nomachi Surrender, Liberation, and Repatriation The Homecoming Epilogue In Memoriam Extra: Bataan Death March Route Map Extra: Philippine Department of Tourism Extra: Star Tribune: March of Time ("Article of Interest" for 4-6 Grade Basic Skills Reading Test Prep) Extra: Footprints in Courage (A Book About Alf Larson and the Bataan Death March) Extra: Alf's Letter to God Post/View Comments |
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Camp Nomachi
Did the officers live separately? No. Two officers and a medical officer lived with us in the barracks. They didn't get any special privileges but they did have their own toilet and didn't have to work. Did you personally have any medical problems? I did get an ear infection. The doctor said that all he could prescribe was hot packs. He told me he could arrange to get hot water from the mess hall. I put the hot water in a canteen and held it on my ear. It was so hot that my ear burned and blistered. The heat finally burst the eardrum. Boy, did that feel good when it happened. I didn't have to work while I had the ear infection. That was the only time I had a couple of days off during my captivity in Japan! It must have been frustrating for the medical officer not to have any medical supplies. It was. The medical staff was prisoners like the rest of us. They were so frustrated because all they had to treat us with was charcoal. That was a stopgap method but it helped most of the time. Didn't the Japanese have any medical supplies to give or were they just being mean? I don't know. I think they didn't want us to have them. At Clark Field, some captured American medical supplies were available. At first they allowed us to take some but that soon stopped. We did get some quinine but it didn't last very long. They were American supplies? Yes. I think Japanese used them for themselves. In Japan, you had no medical supplies? We got nothing. Absolutely nothing! Was it that way for the duration? We never had any medical supplies. Never? No. Fortunately, we had very little major illness among us. In fact, I can't recall anything major, like appendicitis, happening in Japan. A prisoner did get a toothache. The medical officer pulled the tooth with pliers without using any anesthetic! I'll bet that hurt! He didn't care because the tooth hurt him so badly. You took care of minor ailments on your own the best you could. You didn't have any real difficulties yourself in Japan other than the ear infection. No.
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