Of Rice and Men: From Bataan to V-J Day, a Survivor’s Story

Book excerpt: At the fall of Bataan on April 9 1942, over sixty thousand American and Filipino troops were rounded up by the Japanese and forced to march 65 miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando, Pampanga, in Central Luzon. Anyone showing a slight weakness to walk was instantly bayoneted in the back. Estimates of the number of total deaths from the march range from 5,000 to 8,000. Thousands more later died from malnutrition and disease in the abject conditions of the Japanese POW camps. One of the fortunate survivors was Sergeant Bob Reynolds who penned his combat memoir Of Rice and Men in 1947. With a cool, philosophical perspective, he details the harrowing experience, from bitterly defending Bataan on starvation rations, through the many atrocities of the March, and finally his miraculous survival in Cabanatuan POW Camp and, later, in Manila's Bilibid Prison.