1 in the Philippines, 1,500 (25% of our 6,000
captives) died of starvation, malnutrition, various vitamin
deficiencies, malaria, diphtheria and various wounds that would not
heal. I knew that within another 6 to 8 months, we would all be dead,
and there would be no record of it. There was no paper to keep any
record of events.
Within a few weeks, I was able to obtain a" nickel school notebook. In
it, I drew many sketches, depicting the lifestyle in prison camp.
Of course, I had to be secretive. There was a penalty for keeping
records in camp; if I'd been caught, I would have been beheaded.
By the time we were being processed for transfer to Old Bilibid Prison
in late October 1944, I had made some 110 sketches. I rolled them up
and placed them in a Mason jar. I buried the jar at the east end of
building No. 12, planning to come back after the war and dig it up.
...
When the war was over, I was flown from Mukden, Manchuria to Kunming,
China and on to Manila, P.I., where I was housed in a tent at Reple
Depot # 29 south of the city. The next day I was flown in a Piper Cub
back to Cabanatuan to look for my drawings, landing at an airfield we
had built as prisoner-labor.
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