Tenney - My hitch in hell: the Bataan death march

Today only three or four who suffered the brutalities of the Bataan Death March are still alive. With the first printing of this book, many people became aware of the part we played seventy-four years ago in World War II. But those who fought and died, and those who fought and lived, deserve to have the full and accurate story told, the true details of our sacrifice for our country and the worlds freedom. Since the first publication of My Hitch in Hell in 1995 much has happened, and important information needs to be added to our story. That is the reason behind this revised edition.

Over twenty years ago, I thought publishing an account of my experience would put my suffering behind me and allow me to go on with my life. And yet, at that time, I still had many unanswered questions about what happened to us in Bataan. It was clear that many important things were still hidden from us and from the public, by both the American and Japanese governments.

In 1995 the Japanese appropriated $16 million for all World War II POWS to visit Japan with their families in order to promote peace and friendship... all POWS except the specifically excluded Americans. I spent years writing to congressmen, senators, the president, and ambassadors, trying to find out why we had been excluded. Over fifteen years, I wrote hundreds of letters but received nothing in return. It wasnt until 2008 that I finally received any response.

Why did pows from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, and Indonesia receive reparations of $15,000 to $25,000 from their respective governments for their suffering, while we, the American pows, received only $1.00 a day for missed meals and $1.50 a day for our labor? We received nothing for our pain and sufferingnot even the Red Cross funds that had been appropriated for us. Why?

Why, immediately after our liberation from the Japanese camps, did our government make us sign a document saying we could be court-martialed if we discussed anything about our imprisonment and enslavement without getting the War Departments permission? Why were we being asked to keep silent about our ordeal?

What did General King risk in ordering the troops on Bataan to surrender to the Japanese? Had his order come directly from MacArthur? What was the full story?

What was being printed in Japanese textbooks about World War II and our torture and enslavement for the private enrichment of Japans biggest corporations? Why did the countrys young people know nothing about this part of their history? What did they know about Unit 731s medical experimentations on the POWS ?

If the United States had not ended the war in the Pacific with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but had invaded Japan by land instead, what was the immediate plan of the Japanese for us, their prisoners of war?

You will find answers to those questions in the epilogue to this edition.

It took a concentrated effort to get those answers. I went to the National Archives in Washington DC to read previously sealed American war documents, newly opened to the public, and also Japanese papers that had been captured, translated, and released. Before, I only had a piece of the total picture. Now I feel I have a broader understanding of what happened, and I feel I have an obligation to present that fuller picture. History cannot be preserved when a country rewrites it to satisfy its own agenda. The truth needs to be preserved and remembered.

Please understand: my goal in presenting these facts is not to cause more anger, vengeance, or hatred in the world. We have had enough of that. We who fought in The Big War thought it would be the war to end all wars; sadly, it was not. Today the same underlying prejudices, fears, and imperialism that caused that warand all othersare still rampant. What I have come to understand after living ninety-six years on this planet is that the only way to bring lasting peace to our world is to learn all the lessons we can from history. And the only way we can learn those lessons is by having the full picture.

We POWS had our honor, dignity, and freedom taken from usfirst by the Japanese and then, in our silence, by our own country. Yet as soldiers, deep inside we felt what we were doing was for the benefit of our country. I now know what purpose our fifty-year silence served. It is my hope that todays young people will understand ours as a silence of honor and sacrifice of the highest order.

To the members of Company B, 192d Tank Battalion, both those living and those who died in the defense oftheir country