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Bataan Barb
- Thread starter Barbaria1
- Start date
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Big mistake, Barb. You know I'm likely to go overboard with excessive detail and background that many already know!
On the other hand, it seems some are confused about anything that came before this morning's lox and bagels.
Many persons with a casual knowledge of twentieth-century history see the Pacific war as suddenly beginning on 12/7/1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That point of view leads to the mistaken impression that Japan wanted to fight the U.S. and take over places such as Hawaii and even the West Coast U.S. This was not their intention.
Even the most fanatic war hawks in Japan realized that the U.S. was so much bigger and more powerful industrially (more than twice the population and six times the GDP) that a long, all-out war had to go to the U.S. Instead, Pearl Harbor's attack had a two-prong purpose. First, throw the U.S. Pacific Fleet onto the defensive for a year or more.
Second, to so discourage America that it would sue for an early peace.
So why did Japan, still bogged down in a 5+ year war of attrition in China, want to start a war on the U.S.
Resources. As opposed to countries with large landmasses such as the U.S., USSR, China, or Indonesia, Japan's small islands were sorely lacking in the modern strategic resources. Oil, Rubber, Tin, and Bauxite (aluminum) are almost non-existent in the islands, while iron ore was of very poor quality and copper, once abundant, was becoming exhausted. To become a modern industrial nation and fuel its imperialistic ambitions, Japan needed secure sources of these resources. That had been a part of the reason for the costly, protracted war in China. However, most of the large supplies of these materials were to be found in Southeast Asia in British Malay and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). Since Britain was stretched to the limit by the European War and the Netherlands had been overrun by Germany, Japan saw these territories as easy pickings.
There was just one problem. For Japan to wage a war of conquest there, the American Philippines sit right on their lines of supply. The military worried that the U.S. might enter the war to protect their friends. Thus, the Japanese military concluded that they would have to conquer the Philippines as part of the war and therefore needed to neutralize the superior US Pacific Fleet. The military high command in Japan planned a blitzkrieg campaign in the Philippines to remove the threat in a couple of weeks.
Japan started an invasion of the Philippines on December 8, 1941, ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As at Pearl Harbor, American aircraft were severely damaged in the initial Japanese attack. Lacking air cover, the American Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines withdrew to Java on December 12, 1941.
Left on the Islands were General Douglas MacArthur's U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) – 135,000 troops, of which 85 percent were inadequately trained Filipino soldiers armed with World War I rifles. Because of the reduced circumstances in the Pacific region, the need to garrison islands against a Japan drive on Australia, and the immense distance from the U.S. to the Philippians, reinforcement and resupply of his ground forces were impossible.
Faced with a superior sized enemy with air and naval supremacy, the USAFFE was unable to stop Japanese amphibious landings. On December 24, MacArthur decided to implement War Plan Orange 3, the withdrawal to and defense of the rugged Bataan Peninsula and the island fortress of Corregidor that controlled the entrance to Manila Bay. By January 6, 1942, MacArthur had won the race to Bataan, getting most of his troops into defensive positions on the peninsula, although much of their supplies were left behind.
USAFFE's January 7 to April 9 defense of Bataan was characterized by countless small unit actions as American and Filipino troops reacted to continuous Japanese attacks. Despite appalling conditions, rampant disease, heavy casualties, and increasing shortages of food and ammunition, the beleaguered U.S. and Filipino troops managed to create a stubborn defense of Bataan that, for several crucial months, proved to be a roadblock to Japan’s opening war blitzkrieg. Inevitably, however, Japanese strength and firepower overcame the defenders. USAFFE forces on Bataan surrendered April 9, and the fortress island of Corregidor in Manila Bay was captured May 6.
The forcible transfer of 60,000–80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from southern Bataan to San Fernando, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains for Camp O’Donnell, began on April 9, 1942. The total distance marched from Mariveles is variously reported by differing sources as between 60 and 69.6 miles (96.6 and 112.0 km).
Frank West Hewlett was an American journalist and war correspondent during World War II. He was the Manila bureau chief for United Press at the outbreak of war and was the last reporter to leave Corregidor before it fell to the Japanese. During the defense of Bataan, the Americans realized that no help was coming from the U.S. Frank composed a wry ditty of their position:
We're the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!
Rias
Neko Girl
oho is similar this officer looks like to takeo from call of duty world at war zombies also have katana on back but never use against zombies to much honour weapon for they meow
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
And one more detail : the Japanese occupation, in July 1941, of French Indochina, France being paralysed by the German victory too! As a reaction, the US put an embargo on Japan of oil, steel and other resources. This embargo was the sign for Japan that the US would not stay aside when it would seize Dutch and British colonies, and the immediate reason to decide for the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
" So why did Japan, still bogged down in a 5+ year war of attrition in China, want to start a war on the U.S."
... it could just be that they wanted to lay the foundations for the excellent dystopian TV series "Man in the High Castle" - which assumes a Nazi/Japanese victory in WWII! Well worth a watch team!
“Stop it! Please stop” she had implored while attempting to make eye contact with the soldier.
Taken aback, he froze and blinked at her long enough for a traumatized Betty to beat a hasty and tearful backpedaling retreat toward the other nurses, who closed protectively around her. The expression of surprise, however, had quickly faded from the soldier’s face. Barb heard one of his comrades say something to him that made him laugh. They had exchanged a few words, seemingly mocking in tone, after which he reached out toward Barb with the clear intent of reprising what he had done to Betty.
Taken aback, he froze and blinked at her long enough for a traumatized Betty to beat a hasty and tearful backpedaling retreat toward the other nurses, who closed protectively around her. The expression of surprise, however, had quickly faded from the soldier’s face. Barb heard one of his comrades say something to him that made him laugh. They had exchanged a few words, seemingly mocking in tone, after which he reached out toward Barb with the clear intent of reprising what he had done to Betty.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Barb looks so 'virginal' that her ultimate and inevitable ravaging will be all the more erotically provocative ... Can't wait!
A little “backgrounder addendum” to PrPr’s earlier post that may help set the scene:
The Bataan Death March took place in April of 1942, following the surrender, after a three-month struggle, of American and Filipino forces on the peninsula to Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army. Much to his surprise, Homma found there were nearly twice as many captives as his reports had estimated, which created an enormous logistical challenge: how to move large numbers of prisoners and refugees to the north in order to get them out of the way of the final assault on Corregidor. Under normal conditions this might not have presented such a a huge problem, but there was simply not enough mechanized transport, which meant they would have to walk.
The prisoners were massed around the towns of Mariveles and Bagac, near the tip of the peninsula, and started on the long trek north to the railhead at San Fernando on the 10th and 11th of April. As the march began, there were instances of kindness by Japanese officers and those Japanese soldiers who spoke English, such as the sharing of food and cigarettes and permitting personal possessions to be kept. But this was quickly followed by episodes of brutality as the common Japanese soldier had also suffered in the battle for Bataan and felt nothing but disgust and hatred for the vanquished.
During the march, the prisoners received little in the way of food or water. They were often subjected to beatings and torture. The "sun treatment" was a common form of torture, in which prisoners were forced to sit or kneel in sweltering heat under the sun without head coverings or water. On most days temperature highs were extreme, reaching as much as 100 degrees F, Those too weak to continue were killed. Many others were randomly stabbed with bayonets or beaten for no apparent reason at all.
The Bataan Death March took place in April of 1942, following the surrender, after a three-month struggle, of American and Filipino forces on the peninsula to Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army. Much to his surprise, Homma found there were nearly twice as many captives as his reports had estimated, which created an enormous logistical challenge: how to move large numbers of prisoners and refugees to the north in order to get them out of the way of the final assault on Corregidor. Under normal conditions this might not have presented such a a huge problem, but there was simply not enough mechanized transport, which meant they would have to walk.
The prisoners were massed around the towns of Mariveles and Bagac, near the tip of the peninsula, and started on the long trek north to the railhead at San Fernando on the 10th and 11th of April. As the march began, there were instances of kindness by Japanese officers and those Japanese soldiers who spoke English, such as the sharing of food and cigarettes and permitting personal possessions to be kept. But this was quickly followed by episodes of brutality as the common Japanese soldier had also suffered in the battle for Bataan and felt nothing but disgust and hatred for the vanquished.
During the march, the prisoners received little in the way of food or water. They were often subjected to beatings and torture. The "sun treatment" was a common form of torture, in which prisoners were forced to sit or kneel in sweltering heat under the sun without head coverings or water. On most days temperature highs were extreme, reaching as much as 100 degrees F, Those too weak to continue were killed. Many others were randomly stabbed with bayonets or beaten for no apparent reason at all.
Don't worry, Gentle Reader, this is Barb we're talking about. Of course, she'll meekly comply with everything that is required of her, and she'll come through just fine. 
Well, maybe I'm being just a tad optimistic, but you can be sure that we're all in for a treat!
Well, maybe I'm being just a tad optimistic, but you can be sure that we're all in for a treat!
windar
Teller of Tales
Maybe the cigarettes weren't so kind. Perhaps they couldn't read the Surgeon General's warning on the package...
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Sure! She should only have some patience before MacArthur returns!Don't worry, Gentle Reader, this is Barb we're talking about. Of course, she'll meekly comply with everything that is required of her, and she'll come through just fine.
Well, maybe I'm being just a tad optimistic, but you can be sure that we're all in for a treat!
(damn! I am reading ahead again!
Definitely a big part of my natural charm
Of course, she'll meekly comply with everything that is required of her, and she'll come through just fine.
Exactly
Goldman has always been a bit hazy when it comes to differentiating between historical events.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Japanese general : "Whoops, they were twice as numerous as our intelligence had estimated! Had we known they outnumbered us, we had not risked the invasion!"
US general : "Oh no, there were only half as much Japs as our intelligence had estimated! Had we known we outnumbered them, we would not have surrendered!"
twonines
LIMERICUS
Seriously, the Japanese Armies which conquered the Philippines and South East Asia contained a backbone of troops with five or more years of combat experience in Manchuria and China, and their logistic and administrative systems were well and truly attuned to the requirements of warfare.
2. Bataan Peninsula, on the road from Mariveles, shortly after midday, April 11, 1942.
Fortuitously saved and freed by Tanaka’s timely intervention, Lieutenant Bradley Whitaker and his 1st Sergeant, Norm Kowalski, of the U.S. 45th Infantry Regiment, hastened to rejoin their comrades. In their late thirties, both Whitaker and Kowalski were career soldiers, having joined the peacetime army in the twenties and served together through the lean years of the Depression. Although Whitaker was a few years older, and had recently been made an officer, they were accustomed to working closely as a team.
Moving up the road, they skirted a column of Filipino POWs, and while warily watching a band of Japanese soldiers they spotted murdering stragglers on the far side of the column, they had succeeded in making up at least half the distance separating them from their unit up ahead. But there was still a sizable piece of empty road ahead to traverse before they might overtake their unit at the tail end of an American column, so it seemed prudent to slow their pace and keep close to the Filipinos, for at least the time being.
As they trudged along, they saw evidence everywhere at the side of the road of the passing of the large numbers being driven that day toward an unknown hell. The roadside ditch was littered with discarded equipment, bloody bandages, and sundry articles of jettisoned clothing. There were corpses too ... the dead bodies of soldiers who had fallen out, or simply collapsed, along the way of wounds and fatigue. Many showed signs of having been bayoneted where they lay. And then there were the poor bastards who had been summarily executed ... wrists tied behind their backs and shot, bayoneted, and in some cases even beheaded.
“Jesus!” gasped Norm, at the sight of the body of an American officer sprawled on the verge of the road ... his severed head half-submerged in a watery ditch several feet away. “That could have been us back there, Lieutenant! Damn lucky that Jap officer came along in the nick to save our skins!”
“Yeah, maybe they aren’t all bad.”
“Maybe so ... but I’ve begun to think that, with the possible exception of that guy, the only good ones are dead ones.”
“Save it. We’re coming to a bend and I've got a plan. If we can manage to duck out of sight for just a second, we might ... with luck ... be able to cut the corner a bit by detouring through that cane field and catch up to our guys.”
“Why not just hightail it into the bush and head for the mountains instead?”
“Because we wouldn’t get far, and besides I feel a personal responsibility to stay with our unit.”
“Right, I guess we both do. Look! Check it out ... now’s our chance. The Japs aren’t looking ... let’s go!”
Crouching low, they descended into the ditch, scrambled up the other side and set off, their movements screened by a roadside field of tall sugar cane, to come out on the far side of the bend ... just as the tail of a column containing the remnants of Company C of the Forty-Fifth reached the straight-away.
Fortune shone on them again. As it turned out, the Japanese guards were again occupied on the far side of the column, allowing Whitaker and Kowalski to slip into the line of march undetected.
“We done thought y'all were goners!” drawled Louisiana-born, Corporal Clem Papeleux as Norm edged into column alongside him. “How’d ya manage ta give them Japs the slip?”
“Long story. Let’s just say we lucked out.”
“Everyone okay here, have we lost anyone?” queried Whitaker.
“Nah, not yet. But them Nips, shore do have it in for stragglers, they. Mean mean buggers, and itchy trigger-fingers, the lot of ‘em!”
“Well, keep an eye out for anyone who looks like he might fall out.”
“Yessir, Lieutenant. How far does ya reckon we’ve come today.”
“Nearly five hours now,” observed Norm, checking his wrist watch. “At this slow pace, and with all those starts and stops as we set out, maybe a couple of miles at best.”
“Ah’d pocket that watch, if’n Ah was you, Sarge. The Japs’ll con-fuss-scate it, soon’s they spots it.”
Prolonged bursts of small arms fire suddenly erupted from somewhere up ahead. Moments later the column ground to a halt. Nervously, the men stood in place, listening apprehensively to the rattle of gunfire, shouts and screams drifting back to them.
“Now what?” growled Clem.
“Bastards,” muttered Norm.
Moments later the column began moving again. A quarter of an hour later they came upon the site of a massacre. There were dead Fillipino POWs sprawled everywhere ... some heaped in piles ... and a dozen or so Japanese soldiers busily poking at bodies with bayonets.
“Murderin’ sons-a-bitches,” growled Clem.
“Don’t look, just keep moving,” warned Whitaker. “Pass the word up the line. Don’t react!”
***********
Barb and her nurses heard the shooting too, the sounds of the slaughter reaching them from somewhere down the road towards Mariveles ... somewhere out of sight around a bend.
“Uh oh, sounds like real trouble coming our way,” whispered Second Lieutenant Kristin Olsen, casting a worried look at Barb.
“Everyone keep quiet. Don’t react!” called out Barb to her girls, casting a nervous glance at the leader of their guard detail who had been stalking back and forth before them and had begun issuing a stream of orders to his subordinates.
Seconds later he was leaning over her. Taking a fistful of her hair, he jerked her head back sharply and unleashed a torrent of Japanese words and foul breath at her face. She didn’t comprehend a word of it, but was pretty sure she was being rebuked for breaking silence. There was fury in his face.
Still gripping her hair, he forced her to her feet and across the ditch onto the road, which at that moment was empty of POWs due to the fact that the shooting they had heard had halted the flow coming up the road.
Barking orders to his men, he spun Barb around to face the line of kneeling nurses as two of his men hustled over to to take firm hold of her arms, stretching them out and away from her body. Releasing his grip on her hair, he grasped the back of the collar of her white uniform blouse, the front of which had previously been ripped open, and in one powerful motion tore the back completely open, leaving the remnants of the garment hanging in tatters from her outstretched arms.
As a fourth Japanese soldier hustled forward carrying a coiled leather whip, their leader tugged at the back of Barb’s bra until the little metal clips and eyes that held it in place gave way. He flung the separated bands aside, causing the shoulder straps to slip from her shoulders and slide out onto her outstretched arms, while her breasts, liberated from their cups, bounced free. Satisfied, he took the coiled whip from the fourth soldier, pivoted and stalked back several paces.
Barb looked stoically ahead at her girls who appeared transfixed by what was happening, alarm and fear written all over their faces. Stealing a quick glance back over her shoulder, Barb was also aware of the fact that the man behind her had uncoiled his whip and was contemplating her bared back thoughtfully.
‘Oh, dear God!” she mouthed silently to herself. Looking once again at her wide-eyed girls, who were beginning to show clear signs of panic, something within her told her that this was a moment in which she had to be strong, to set the right example. She resolved that she would take whatever punishment that filthy little man might mete out with his wicked-looking whip. And once he had finished with her, she would return to her girls, knowing she had shown the kind of brave fortitude that she knew they were all going to need before this was over. She was determined to show no sign of weakness, to steadfastly resist the urge to flinch or cry out.
A tightening of the grip of the two soldiers on her forearms warned her the first lash was imminent. She sucked in her breath, set her jaw and closed her eyes.
But she was not prepared for the searing pain that assaulted her senses as that first lash broke hard across her shoulder blades and, despite her best intentions, she couldn’t help but let out a half-choked-off yelp.
The second lash followed quickly, scarcely allowing her an opportunity to recover. This one was aimed lower, halfway down her back, and was delivered in such a way that the knotted tip wrapped around her side enough to bite at and dig into the soft flesh of the underside of her right breast. That time she managed to limit her response to something approximating a grunt.
A slight pause followed, which gave her a bit of time to prepare herself for the next one ... enough time to glance up at her nurses, and flash them the distinctive eye-flashing look she often employed to let them know when she meant business. But this time, unfortunately, that look ... meant to be reassuring ... dissolved into a grimace and then a full-throated shriek as the third lash was delivered diagonally down her back from her left shoulder to the band of her skirt at the right side of her waist. She was left gasping in shock at the force by which it was delivered and the slicing way in which it cut across the lines of the first two. She found that her eyes had filled with tears, blurring her vision, rendering her unable to focus on the faces of her girls.
Barb suffered through two more wickedly brutal lashes, one aimed high across her shoulders, the other delivered once again in a slashing diagonal fashion. No longer was she able to think about showing strength and setting an example. The pain and horror were just too great. She was reduced instead to sobbing and wailing wretchedly between lashes.
The sixth and final one came after another pause, and only after the soldiers stretching her arms out renewed their grip, and pulled harder. This one ripped straight across the middle of her back ... once again with a punishing wrap-around effect that caught her right nipple full on ... drawing a smear of blood. This time, however, there was no reaction. Her head had slumped forward. She had fainted.
The soldier who had wielded the whip, reached up with his free hand to tip his cloth field cap with its neck flap back on his closely-shaved head, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Then he stomped around his limp victim to glare at the line of nurses, snapping his whip on the ground and spraying them with dust and bits of gravel.
Seeing them recoil in terror seemed to give him a sense of satisfaction. He turned and said something to his men, before stepping to one side to give them space to drag Barb’s limp figure forward. They dumped her at the edge of the road, directly right in front of her nurses, where she lay on her side, facing them, unconscious.
**********
Shortly thereafter, Company C, of the U.S 45th, or what was left of it, rounded the bend to approach the spot where the nurses waited under guard.
As they marched past, there was a sudden stirring of excited talk up ahead that worked its way through the ranks of weary POWs, working its way back to the rear of the column where Whitaker, Kowalski, and Papeleux ... like everyone else ... craned their necks to see what the commotion was all about.
And then they saw.
“Ooo-eee,” exclaimed Clem Papeleux, “Will ya look at that!”
“Nurses ... and they’re ours,” observed Norm.
“Looks like they’re being readied to join the march,” added Whitaker, noting that the Japanese guards had gotten the nurses to their feet, ready to step out onto the road as soon as the men of the 45th had passed by.
"Come-see," said Clem, pointing at Betty, whose torn blouse was open in front. "Look at the size of them jugs on dat redhead! Man I got the envie for some of dat tonight!"
“That all you can think of at a time like this?” grinned Norm, punching his Cajun-country friend playfully on the shoulder.
“Knock it off. This is serious,” snapped Whitaker. “Take a closer look. One of those nurses appears hurt ... the half-dressed one ... the one those Jap soldiers are helping to her feet. Judging by the looks of those angry red stripes on her back, I’d say those cruel bastards must have just had the poor thing whipped.”
Fortuitously saved and freed by Tanaka’s timely intervention, Lieutenant Bradley Whitaker and his 1st Sergeant, Norm Kowalski, of the U.S. 45th Infantry Regiment, hastened to rejoin their comrades. In their late thirties, both Whitaker and Kowalski were career soldiers, having joined the peacetime army in the twenties and served together through the lean years of the Depression. Although Whitaker was a few years older, and had recently been made an officer, they were accustomed to working closely as a team.
Moving up the road, they skirted a column of Filipino POWs, and while warily watching a band of Japanese soldiers they spotted murdering stragglers on the far side of the column, they had succeeded in making up at least half the distance separating them from their unit up ahead. But there was still a sizable piece of empty road ahead to traverse before they might overtake their unit at the tail end of an American column, so it seemed prudent to slow their pace and keep close to the Filipinos, for at least the time being.
As they trudged along, they saw evidence everywhere at the side of the road of the passing of the large numbers being driven that day toward an unknown hell. The roadside ditch was littered with discarded equipment, bloody bandages, and sundry articles of jettisoned clothing. There were corpses too ... the dead bodies of soldiers who had fallen out, or simply collapsed, along the way of wounds and fatigue. Many showed signs of having been bayoneted where they lay. And then there were the poor bastards who had been summarily executed ... wrists tied behind their backs and shot, bayoneted, and in some cases even beheaded.
“Jesus!” gasped Norm, at the sight of the body of an American officer sprawled on the verge of the road ... his severed head half-submerged in a watery ditch several feet away. “That could have been us back there, Lieutenant! Damn lucky that Jap officer came along in the nick to save our skins!”
“Yeah, maybe they aren’t all bad.”
“Maybe so ... but I’ve begun to think that, with the possible exception of that guy, the only good ones are dead ones.”
“Save it. We’re coming to a bend and I've got a plan. If we can manage to duck out of sight for just a second, we might ... with luck ... be able to cut the corner a bit by detouring through that cane field and catch up to our guys.”
“Why not just hightail it into the bush and head for the mountains instead?”
“Because we wouldn’t get far, and besides I feel a personal responsibility to stay with our unit.”
“Right, I guess we both do. Look! Check it out ... now’s our chance. The Japs aren’t looking ... let’s go!”
Crouching low, they descended into the ditch, scrambled up the other side and set off, their movements screened by a roadside field of tall sugar cane, to come out on the far side of the bend ... just as the tail of a column containing the remnants of Company C of the Forty-Fifth reached the straight-away.
Fortune shone on them again. As it turned out, the Japanese guards were again occupied on the far side of the column, allowing Whitaker and Kowalski to slip into the line of march undetected.
“We done thought y'all were goners!” drawled Louisiana-born, Corporal Clem Papeleux as Norm edged into column alongside him. “How’d ya manage ta give them Japs the slip?”
“Long story. Let’s just say we lucked out.”
“Everyone okay here, have we lost anyone?” queried Whitaker.
“Nah, not yet. But them Nips, shore do have it in for stragglers, they. Mean mean buggers, and itchy trigger-fingers, the lot of ‘em!”
“Well, keep an eye out for anyone who looks like he might fall out.”
“Yessir, Lieutenant. How far does ya reckon we’ve come today.”
“Nearly five hours now,” observed Norm, checking his wrist watch. “At this slow pace, and with all those starts and stops as we set out, maybe a couple of miles at best.”
“Ah’d pocket that watch, if’n Ah was you, Sarge. The Japs’ll con-fuss-scate it, soon’s they spots it.”
Prolonged bursts of small arms fire suddenly erupted from somewhere up ahead. Moments later the column ground to a halt. Nervously, the men stood in place, listening apprehensively to the rattle of gunfire, shouts and screams drifting back to them.
“Now what?” growled Clem.
“Bastards,” muttered Norm.
Moments later the column began moving again. A quarter of an hour later they came upon the site of a massacre. There were dead Fillipino POWs sprawled everywhere ... some heaped in piles ... and a dozen or so Japanese soldiers busily poking at bodies with bayonets.
“Murderin’ sons-a-bitches,” growled Clem.
“Don’t look, just keep moving,” warned Whitaker. “Pass the word up the line. Don’t react!”
***********
Barb and her nurses heard the shooting too, the sounds of the slaughter reaching them from somewhere down the road towards Mariveles ... somewhere out of sight around a bend.
“Uh oh, sounds like real trouble coming our way,” whispered Second Lieutenant Kristin Olsen, casting a worried look at Barb.
“Everyone keep quiet. Don’t react!” called out Barb to her girls, casting a nervous glance at the leader of their guard detail who had been stalking back and forth before them and had begun issuing a stream of orders to his subordinates.
Seconds later he was leaning over her. Taking a fistful of her hair, he jerked her head back sharply and unleashed a torrent of Japanese words and foul breath at her face. She didn’t comprehend a word of it, but was pretty sure she was being rebuked for breaking silence. There was fury in his face.
Still gripping her hair, he forced her to her feet and across the ditch onto the road, which at that moment was empty of POWs due to the fact that the shooting they had heard had halted the flow coming up the road.
Barking orders to his men, he spun Barb around to face the line of kneeling nurses as two of his men hustled over to to take firm hold of her arms, stretching them out and away from her body. Releasing his grip on her hair, he grasped the back of the collar of her white uniform blouse, the front of which had previously been ripped open, and in one powerful motion tore the back completely open, leaving the remnants of the garment hanging in tatters from her outstretched arms.
As a fourth Japanese soldier hustled forward carrying a coiled leather whip, their leader tugged at the back of Barb’s bra until the little metal clips and eyes that held it in place gave way. He flung the separated bands aside, causing the shoulder straps to slip from her shoulders and slide out onto her outstretched arms, while her breasts, liberated from their cups, bounced free. Satisfied, he took the coiled whip from the fourth soldier, pivoted and stalked back several paces.
Barb looked stoically ahead at her girls who appeared transfixed by what was happening, alarm and fear written all over their faces. Stealing a quick glance back over her shoulder, Barb was also aware of the fact that the man behind her had uncoiled his whip and was contemplating her bared back thoughtfully.
‘Oh, dear God!” she mouthed silently to herself. Looking once again at her wide-eyed girls, who were beginning to show clear signs of panic, something within her told her that this was a moment in which she had to be strong, to set the right example. She resolved that she would take whatever punishment that filthy little man might mete out with his wicked-looking whip. And once he had finished with her, she would return to her girls, knowing she had shown the kind of brave fortitude that she knew they were all going to need before this was over. She was determined to show no sign of weakness, to steadfastly resist the urge to flinch or cry out.
A tightening of the grip of the two soldiers on her forearms warned her the first lash was imminent. She sucked in her breath, set her jaw and closed her eyes.
But she was not prepared for the searing pain that assaulted her senses as that first lash broke hard across her shoulder blades and, despite her best intentions, she couldn’t help but let out a half-choked-off yelp.
The second lash followed quickly, scarcely allowing her an opportunity to recover. This one was aimed lower, halfway down her back, and was delivered in such a way that the knotted tip wrapped around her side enough to bite at and dig into the soft flesh of the underside of her right breast. That time she managed to limit her response to something approximating a grunt.
A slight pause followed, which gave her a bit of time to prepare herself for the next one ... enough time to glance up at her nurses, and flash them the distinctive eye-flashing look she often employed to let them know when she meant business. But this time, unfortunately, that look ... meant to be reassuring ... dissolved into a grimace and then a full-throated shriek as the third lash was delivered diagonally down her back from her left shoulder to the band of her skirt at the right side of her waist. She was left gasping in shock at the force by which it was delivered and the slicing way in which it cut across the lines of the first two. She found that her eyes had filled with tears, blurring her vision, rendering her unable to focus on the faces of her girls.
Barb suffered through two more wickedly brutal lashes, one aimed high across her shoulders, the other delivered once again in a slashing diagonal fashion. No longer was she able to think about showing strength and setting an example. The pain and horror were just too great. She was reduced instead to sobbing and wailing wretchedly between lashes.
The sixth and final one came after another pause, and only after the soldiers stretching her arms out renewed their grip, and pulled harder. This one ripped straight across the middle of her back ... once again with a punishing wrap-around effect that caught her right nipple full on ... drawing a smear of blood. This time, however, there was no reaction. Her head had slumped forward. She had fainted.
The soldier who had wielded the whip, reached up with his free hand to tip his cloth field cap with its neck flap back on his closely-shaved head, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Then he stomped around his limp victim to glare at the line of nurses, snapping his whip on the ground and spraying them with dust and bits of gravel.
Seeing them recoil in terror seemed to give him a sense of satisfaction. He turned and said something to his men, before stepping to one side to give them space to drag Barb’s limp figure forward. They dumped her at the edge of the road, directly right in front of her nurses, where she lay on her side, facing them, unconscious.
**********
Shortly thereafter, Company C, of the U.S 45th, or what was left of it, rounded the bend to approach the spot where the nurses waited under guard.
As they marched past, there was a sudden stirring of excited talk up ahead that worked its way through the ranks of weary POWs, working its way back to the rear of the column where Whitaker, Kowalski, and Papeleux ... like everyone else ... craned their necks to see what the commotion was all about.
And then they saw.
“Ooo-eee,” exclaimed Clem Papeleux, “Will ya look at that!”
“Nurses ... and they’re ours,” observed Norm.
“Looks like they’re being readied to join the march,” added Whitaker, noting that the Japanese guards had gotten the nurses to their feet, ready to step out onto the road as soon as the men of the 45th had passed by.
"Come-see," said Clem, pointing at Betty, whose torn blouse was open in front. "Look at the size of them jugs on dat redhead! Man I got the envie for some of dat tonight!"
“That all you can think of at a time like this?” grinned Norm, punching his Cajun-country friend playfully on the shoulder.
“Knock it off. This is serious,” snapped Whitaker. “Take a closer look. One of those nurses appears hurt ... the half-dressed one ... the one those Jap soldiers are helping to her feet. Judging by the looks of those angry red stripes on her back, I’d say those cruel bastards must have just had the poor thing whipped.”
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There were Australians captured at the fall of Singapore, and my mother's cousin spent the war in a Japanese prison camp, but most of our attention in the Pacific war was on the fighting in New Guinea, and the Kokoda Trail is much visited and walked even now.
Kokoda Track - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I grew up reading about this stuff in the 70s, but it's an unknown history to my children, times change
I have a Malaysian Chinese friend who lost a grandfather to the Japanese, when the colonial masters were knocked off their perch the little people suffered too, like Barb's Fillipino soldiers. The Japanese did not come as liberators.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Army Nurse Corp (ANC) First Lieutenant Barbara Ann Moore – is lashed at the roadside for ‘breaking the silence’
This original photograph was stolen from the Japanese by the Philippines during Japan's three-year occupation in World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps) ASSOCIATED PRESS
This original photograph was stolen from the Japanese by the Philippines during Japan's three-year occupation in World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps) ASSOCIATED PRESS
