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Later they were able to talk, quietly and coherently. In an evacuation hospital they recalled the horrors and degradation they had endured for almost three years; the last days on Corregidor, when the enemy lost 4,500 troops in his final frenzied attack; the death march from Bataan; the sight of Filipino children impaled on Jap bayonets; the notorious compounds at Camp O'Donnell, where the death rate among captives had been as high as 250 a day; the filthy and vermin-ridden compound at Pangatian, where every foot of ground finally was a filled-in latrine; the diet of rice, sweet potatoes, radish tops, "pigweed," fish powder; the beatings with hardwood sticks; their friends who had died.*
In Oak Park, Ill., Mrs. Abraham Katz heard the news that her son, Charles, "was saved, and said quietly: "I wish all mothers of prisoners could share my joy." But in Maywood, Ill., families waited in vain for word of 85 of their sons who had been with the 192nd Tank Battalion at Bataan. For most of the families of some 12,000 American soldiers and sailors taken by the Japs—and still unaccounted for—the waiting and suspense only became sharper.
* Japan is ready to do anything she can "to improve the lot of Allied prisoners," the Tokyo radio reported last week. "We hope that the enemy will in turn recognize the Japanese generosity for making such a noble decision. . . ."