Burl Morris ~ From Bataan to Hell & Back

On 17 August 1941, the Regiment received orders that due to their high level of training they had been selected for a very important overseas assignment. They were officially recognized as the best Anti-Aircraft Regiment in the United States and personally requested by General MacArthur for this assignment. Soon thereafter, their 250-plus vehicle convoy, after touring the state of New Mexico, set out for Angel Island in San Francisco, California. They had no idea where they were headed until they were loaded on their ship. On August 30th, the 1st Battalion boarded the USS President Pierce headed for the Philippines and on September 9th, the 2nd Battalion loaded onto the USS President Coolidge headed for the same destination.

The NM Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Foundation recorded that by the 26th of September the entire regiment had arrived in the Philippines and immediately headed for Fort Stotsenberg and Clark Field, about 75-80 miles north of Manila. On the 23rd of November all batteries were placed in combat positions for the protection of Fort Stotsenberg and the Clark airfield. The 200th had planned on some practice sessions, but those would never come, for soon after they set up camp, which took a few weeks, the Japanese, on the 7th of December, attacked Pearl Harbor (Dec. 8th Manila time.)

Within 6 hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese began bombing and strafing Clark Field. The 200th, according to the White Sands Missile Range Museum, was equipped with a battery of 50 caliber anti-aircraft guns, twenty-two 37mm guns (of which 7 were defective and had to go to Manila for repair) and twelve 3-inch guns (with 1 gun unserviceable). With these they shot down five Japanese planes, and became the “first to fire” in the Pacific Theater. They lost two men in the process. On Christmas Day, due to heavy Japanese reinforcements near Clark Field, the 200thheaded for Bataan, a distance of 73 miles.  Burl had told his friend, Steve Weaver that while in Bataan, he and several other guys were sunning on top of a three-story building when they saw a Japanese kamikaze heading straight for them. They jumped off the roof and Burl broke his leg in the process. Burl received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in battle on the 3rd of January 1942. It is quite possible it was due to the broken leg.

The Japanese set up a blockade cutting off all food supplies to the island. Over the next four months the 200th were reduced to just a shadow of the men who had arrived just seven months earlier. Although starving and suffering from malaria, dysentery, and dengue fever the troops were still willing to fight to the end. However, these brave warriors, duty bound to follow orders, could only hang their heads in shame when ordered to surrender by General King on the 9th of April 1942. Thus began almost 3 ½ years of hell for the Regiment. Emaciated by starvation and disease, many did not survive the march, others died at the hands of the Japanese. For some death came quickly due to spontaneous anger, but more often than not it was slow, methodical, and cruel administered from hearts of abject evil. Only 900 of the original 1800 would survive to see their homeland. 

“The Japanese, when they got through bombing Pearl Harbor, that’s when they went over to Manchuria and China, and continued on down to the Philippines,” said Lloyd, “they were unstoppable. Burl was under the command of General Wainwright while he was on Bataan. The Japanese had gathered up so much momentum that once they got set down there, the U.S. troops were getting strafed daily on the island, then the Japanese made a move on Bataan. The numbers I’m going to give you I’m not real sure of, but I’d heard they captured 70,000,” reported Lloyd. (Wikipedia records it as 75,000 and another source 80,000, the majority being Filipino)

A wave of emotion washed over him, which he struggled to control, as he described what his friend Burl endured during the initial days and the ensuing years after his capture. “When they were captured, the Japanese had so many men gathered up there they knew they had to do something with them. They’d already slaughtered a bunch of them, so they put them on a march and marched them 70 miles. These men were out of food, wounded, and they marched them 70 miles. Burl told me, ‘Anybody that couldn’t walk we tried to carry and all of us were in terrible shape anyway. But we drug people, we did anything we could.’ He said if you fell down and couldn’t get up they wouldn’t waste a bullet on you, they’d just bayonet you, and if anyone got real tough with them, they’d behead them. Burl said they killed thousands of guys, I’ve heard close to 10,000,” noted Lloyd.

“It took them quite a few days to get to where they were going. They were kept in internment camps until 1944 when the war began to turn against the Japs, then they were transported to POW camps in Japan"  Burl was taken first to Bilibid Prison in Manila and then loaded on the Hell Ship, Noto Maru. The Japanese Industrialists facilitated the move by requesting the Japanese Prisoner of War Bureau bring the POW's to Japan to be their new labor pool.   "They had five freighters lined up. They made the men walk into the hulls of the ship; the first man would put his nose against the steel plate on the wall and the others would put their noses on the back of the neck of the one in front of him. They stacked them just like cord wood, packing as many men as they could in those five ships. That included the commanding officers, one of whom was General Wainwright whom General King kept in the dark about his plan to surrender, he endured the Bataan Death March with his troops. General MacArthur was on Corregidor, and he took his family to Australia on a P.T. boat, where they started reorganizing and fighting to save Australia. 

“Burl said it took about 6-7 days for the ships to get to where they were going," continued Lloyd, "and during that time, our own submarines sunk two of those ships, not knowing prisoners were on them. Burl said the lucky ones were the ones who were sunk. He said when they got to Japan, they put them in a prison which was built around a coal mine, a deep coal mine and fed them nothing but rotten rice and very little of that. He said it was wormy food, people were dying of dysentery and problems you can’t even imagine. He said you can’t imagine; it was terrible. When they were down digging in the coal mine the temperature was close to 130 degrees,” exclaimed Lloyd. “Burl was in the POW camp for about three and a half years and 25%-30% of the prisoners died in prison, the Japanese were just horrible to them, cruel torturers.”  The Noto Maru left Manila August 27, 1944 with 1,035 American POW's on board.  They sailed to the Port of Moji, Japan arriving on September 4, 1944.  From there they took the train to Omori POW Camp and then Shinjuku Camp. According to the National Archives record, Burl was held prisoner at the Tokyo POW Camp (Shinjuku”) Tokyo Bay Area 35-140. Some of the prisoners, 188, were transferred from Tokyo Shinjuku Camp to Sendai Camp #10B and Burl was among them.  In Sendai #10 B.   POWs were employed by Tohoku Electric and Steel Co. (Tohoku Denki Seitetsu Wagakawa Plant and were involved in mining and iron smeltering. 

“Burl told me, ‘We wore the clothes we were taken prisoner in the whole time we were there, and we had the cleanest grounds you could ever see. Anything that crawled, if it had legs or it moved, we’d eat it.’ He said it didn’t matter what kind of bug it was or anything, they’d eat it,” said Lloyd. “Burl said, ‘When I signed up I weighed 193 pounds. The day I walked out of that prison I weighed 97 pounds,’ yeah,” added Lloyd as he paused to regain his composure. 

“Burl said the thing that really got them,” continued Lloyd, “was as the war was really winding down you could tell something was going on by the way the prisoners were being handled. Burl said, ‘About 5 to 7 days before they shut our prison down and the Americans started showing up, they made us go out and dig our graves. They made us dig a long trench and told us they were going to kill us. Yeah, they told us they were going to kill us, so we had to dig our graves. It took quite a few days and when we finally finished, we went to bed thinking they would kill us in the morning. When we got up there wasn’t a Jap at the prison, they had locked the prison completely up and all the Japs had disappeared. There was no food or anything left for us. The Japanese knew they had already lost, and the planes were coming to get ‘em. The first thing we noted,’ said Burl to Lloyd, ‘was a couple Navy dive bombers come flying over the place. They were dropping something, and I thought, gosh I hope that’s not bombs! It was sea bags full of rations!’ One of them hit the ground and all of the supplies started falling out and Burl said, ‘I crawled up on top of the barracks, I’m waving my hat, waving my shirt, I’m just waving my arms, and here comes a sea bag right for me. That’s my sea bag!’ Burl said emphatically, and he grabbed it when it came by him,” Lloyd stated. “He told me, ‘I didn’t think about it but that thing weighed about 120 pounds. That #@%* thing took me about halfway across the ground. When I finished rolling across that ground there wasn’t a spot on me that wasn’t scuffed, but let me tell you something,’ said Burl, ‘I wasn’t turning that bag loose.’ laughed Lloyd, recalling his friend’s vivid recollection of the scene. ‘I’ll never forget that feeling and I’ll never forget the feeling I had the next day, I was so #@%* sore,’ winced Burl. He said after that is when people started showing up. ‘Our boys came in and started liberating us.’ I asked him whatever happened to General Wainwright and Burl said he was right there with the rest of them, they didn’t show him any favoritism at all. 

A special thank you to George Solleder for creating the medal and ribbon racks used for this photo.

Burl’s first report date at the POW camp was 7 May 1942 and his last report date, 16 September 1945, a total of 3 years and 4 months. It must have seemed like a lifetime. After his rescue from the POW Camp he was diagnosed with pneumonia, hookworms and suffered with various fungus conditions throughout his lifetime. Following his repatriation, he was discharged from the Army on 9 April 1946 receiving a medical discharge. He received a purple heart, a Presidential Unit Citation, and the Philippine Presidential Citation. 

“When Burl returned to the states, he had been in prison so long,” sighed Lloyd, “but while fighting there in the jungle he had gotten all kinds of fungus all over his legs and body, so every two months or so he would have to go to the VA Hospital over in Houston and they’d pump him full of whatever medicine they pumped him full of to keep him going. He was tough. He told me he always had a problem with his drinking when he got back ‘cause he was mad. He told me, ‘My mind was screwed up, but I was mad. If anybody tried to give me any lip I had to fight hard to control myself, ‘cause I would have killed them.’ I got to know him better from 1968-72,” continued Lloyd, “Because that’s when we really started our big farming, you know. He was just a good down to earth guy with a heart of gold. Some thought him to be ornery, but if he was he had a right to be, he went through hell on earth,” said Lloyd, finally giving way to his emotions, “ I’m here to tell you, he went through hell. . . He was a good friend,” he concluded tearfully.

On 7 December 1946, 8 months after his discharge from the Army, Burl married Hilda Alice Dow. The wedding took place in the home of her parents in Anahuac. Burl did not live in Anahuac until after the war, but due to the fact he recognized Dr. Fahring’s voice, he must have visited for a time before being deployed. One can venture a guess that while he was living in Colmesneil, near Lufkin, he met Hilda Alice while she was attending Sam Houston University in 1939-1940.

On the 11th of March 1965, Burl and Hilda Alice hosted a reunion with five men who were prisoners with Burl in Japan. The men from Bataan and Corregidor included Arthur Miller, and I. W. “Buddy” Morgan, Fort Worth; Frank Arceneaux, Beaumont; Warren Elder, Seabrook; Ben Griffin, Hardin, and Burl Morris of Anahuac. What a reunion that must have been for they shared a bond that only men who have walked through hell together can truly understand. 

Besides being a Chambers County rice farmer, Burl was also a well-respected mechanic owning his own shop at the Sinclair station in Anahuac.  During his time in the Philippines he was assigned the job of driving a heavy duty truck and taking care of the mechanical repairs on the equipment due to experience he acquired working on his father's 80-acre wheat and cotton farm near Lufkin.  He died 12 March 1981 from injuries sustained when a tractor rolled over him the previous month. His friend, Steve Weaver, said Burl had an old Ford tractor with one of the fenders rusted completely out. He was pulling a leveler behind his tractor to smooth out his driveway, wearing a blue jean jacket. He turned to look at his progress and his jacket got caught in the tractor wheel. It pulled him off the tractor and the tractor ran over him. He is buried in the Anahuac Cemetery. 

It is my distinct honor to pay tribute to his heroism and service to our country at his own personal peril. May our current generation be inspired to emulate the integrity, courage, and commitment he modeled, and the many great heroes like him.

December 1945, General Wainwright said, “On December 8, 1941, when the Japanese unexpectedly attacked the Philippine Islands, the first point bombed was Ft. Stotsenberg. The 200th Coast Artillery, assigned to defend the Fort, was the first unit, under The General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, to go into action defending our flag in the Pacific. First to fire, and last to lay down their arms! A fitting epitaph for a valiant Brigade which fought standing firmly in its appointed place and facing forward to the enemy.”

First, let’s look at the people and their living conditions.  In a brief statement they were a poor and simple people. In the villages they lived in bamboo with thatched sides and roofs, with dirt floors which were call “Hooches” and they had none of the modern conveniences like electricity, running water, pluming, or heating or air conditioning.  They would cook their meals over a small fireplace outside in front of their of their hooch. One more important fact, when the girls would enter into womanhood they would begin chewing a stick called beatlenut. The longer they chewed this beatlenut the blacker their teeth would become; and this was considered a mark of beauty.  Personally, there is no way I could ever kiss a girl with these black shinny teeth.  Ugh!!!!!!!!! 

Because they had no plumbing their restrooms were the great outdoors.  In fact it was nothing to see them relieving themselves right on the side of a road, or around their hooch.  They would use their human waste as fuel in the fires they cooked over, which I suppose, is why the villages all smelled horrible.  In fact, though I remember the odor and will never forget it, I do not have the vocabulary to describe the smell.   

Their diets consisted mainly of fish and rice.  They grew their own rice in large fields which they worked all day in using water buffaloes.  It was nothing to see a small child sitting or lying on the back of these beasts of burden as the family worked in the rice paddy.  Of course, for them there was always the danger of being bitten by a deadly snake, but it never seemed to bother them. 

Speaking of snakes, they were everywhere, and many of them were what we called three second snakes.  By that I mean if you were bitten by one of those you had three seconds to live.  I had a personal and close encounter with a snake one day, which I have no idea what kind it was.  We were on a large search and destroy operation, and we were ascending a mountain by walking up a creek in the jungle, which had a thick canopy.  The column stopped for a five minute rest, and I leaned the weight I was carrying on my back against a large rock. From out of a tree overhead something dropped on my right shoulder and my blood ran cold when I realized it was a snake. As I said, I don’t know what type of a snake it was, I just knew it was long enough that its head was at the front of waist and its tail, I suppose of equal length down my backside.  Being a country boy, I knew enough not to move a muscle or breathe, heck, I couldn’t breathe. For what seemed like an eternity the monster stayed on my shoulder, then finally it dropped into the water between my feet and stayed there.  Meanwhile, the column began to move that is all in front of me.  My sergeant came tromping down the creek towards me and I softly said, “Stop, Snake,” to which he stop but kept yelling “Come on Sullins.” Of course, I refused, and replied Sarge, I have a snake between my feet.”  Then the snake swam downstream from me, and I could finally breathe freely. 

Speaking of monsters, there are two more I will share with you.  The first is rats, they also were everywhere, and they were huge.  I shall never forget my first day with my mortar squad.  We were on top of a mountain, and we lived in a sandbag bunker about ¾ underground.  When I checked in with the squad they all were friendly and welcomed me.  As it started getting dark, they told me my rack was one of the top ones, which seemed ok to me, until I heard some of them snicker.  However, they would not tell me why.  In the middle of the night I woke up to see these filthy, horrible monsters crawling all over me. Maybe the rats were not as large as I thought, maybe they were; but I got up and out of our bunker and never slept in it again. Another time as a seasoned combat veteran, I built a lean-to for a shelter and slept under it. Every night I would tie off my pants legs (Jungle Utilities), except this night I forgot.  The next morning when I work up, I felt something strange all the way up inside my Utilities leg.  Remember seeing in the cartoons when a character became scared, his heart would jump out in his chest.  Well this really can happen, as I saw mine.  Anyhow I knew I had a problem. I could neither shoot nor stab the rat, because missing him would be the worst thing I could do, which meant no kids. Finally, I very gently twitched my thigh muscle, and this huge rat came running out of my pants. 

This brings me to my third and last and most deadly monster of all.  One night me and one of my squad members were sitting on gun watch when we heard the most horrifying sound of all.  We were certain that our lives were about to end, but we remained still and hardly breathed; but the sound kept coming straight towards us.  Then we heard one of them whisper shall we eat them hear or take them back home with us.  The other one said let’s eat them here, if we take them back home the big boys will take them from us.  SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Those mosquitoes were horrible over there.  In fact, shortly afterward I was sent to the field hospital with Malaria and was unconscious for a week. 

Well, this was the Vietnam I saw, at least in part.  Thank you all for reading, and I hope this helps you all to appreciate living in Texas even more. 

By The Grace Of God, I am the “Old Marine Sgt.”