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Alberty, Damon Conrad

On entering Army service: I wanted to go where it was safe, like the South Pacific.

On Bataan before capture: We were eating dog meat, monkeys, lizards and even our   horses. We had no normal food, and our equipment was obsolete from WW I.

On the Bataan Death March: You could not believe how men could treat one another. It was a nightmare.

On prison camp conditions: Men were dying from yellow fever, jaundice, dysentery, beri beri and malnutrition. As many died from sickness as were killed by the Japanese.

On burial detail: In four months we buried 26,000 bodies in groups of 100, naked because we needed their clothes. The grave was only marked with a cross and the number of bodies buried.

On his mental attitude as a prisoner:

You grew hard, like a robot with no emotion or feelings.

His attitude after his WWII prison experience: I do not hate anyone. That is a cancer that will kill your soul and spirit.

In early 1941, Damon Conrad Alberty, age 16, wanted to join the army and see the big world that surrounded the town of Greensboro, North Carolina where he was born on August 28, 1924. Alberty told the Army recruiter in Greensboro he was 18. Since proof of age was not required in those days, the recruiter eagerly enlisted him in the Army perhaps thinking about the $1 he would receive for signing up. Alberty had some choices of duty station and with all that was happening in Europe, requested that he be assigned somewhere relatively safe, such as a South Pacific location. The choice of a South Pacific duty station was to impact the rest of his life and etch memories that few people are alive to recount.

After basic training at Fort Benning and maneuvers in North Carolina, he was assigned to Fort McDowell in the Philippines. On the way, in October of 1941, his ship passed two Japanese destroyers and two transports who signaled they were on maneuvers. Alberty arrived in the Philippines three weeks before the December 7^th surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. His idyllic assignment in the South Pacific was interrupted by an attack on Clark Field on the morning of December 8^th , 1941 which was still December 7^th, Hawaii time. No one thought the Japanese could effectively attack two major targets on the same day. Most military airplanes were destroyed while lined up perfectly on the field with no thought to readiness for an attack. Shortly after the aerial attack the Japanese landed troops on the Philippines.

Alberty, with the 57^th Infantry Scouts, was one of the defenders of the islands and as history tells us, the defense was doomed from the start due to lack of supplies and reinforcements. General Douglas MacArthur declared Manila an open city on December 25. The defenders, including Alberty were forced back to the Bataan peninsula for a last stand against the vastly superior Japanese invading force. The troops on Bataan were told to hold until reinforcements came but they never arrived. Alberty along with the other troops held out for four months. Ammunition, supplies, and food were in extremely short supply and most military supplies dated from World War I. As cavalry horses were killed or died, the men ate them. The troops ate dog meat, monkeys, lizards, or just about any food available. The Bataan defenders were dying from enemy action as well as yellow fever, jaundice, dengue fever and malnutrition. There was no grave registration. Men were just buried where they died without any marking.

When the surrender finally came Alberty had been wounded and weakened but was still mobile. The Japanese quickly killed everyone in the sick bays. Shortly after the surrender on April 9, 1942, the men were placed in groups of 100 and started on a march toward Camp O’Donnell. This was the start of the infamous Bataan Death March. Alberty was only 17 years old. The Japanese atrocities, brutality, and inhumane treatment of the men on the march is well documented. As Alberty describes it, “it was a nightmare”. He “became like a robot in an almost dreamlike state with no emotion or feelings”. The men were given a daily ration of only a little rice with a few sips of water. Over 10,000 of approximately 50,000 men died on the 60-mile march, which took about 10 days to complete. Alberty said the “carnage on the side of the road was unbelievable”.

Shortly after arriving at Camp O’Donnell, Alberty was sent to a nearby Cabanatuan prison where he was on burial detail for four months. He buried over 28,000 bodies; 100 per mass grave with no identification except a cross marker which indicated how many bodies were in the grave. The men were buried naked, as any clothes were precious to the other men.

The prisoners were put in groups of ten. If one escaped, the other nine where killed. The conditions at Cabanatuan were atrocious. One water spigot provided one half cup of water per day per man. Two straddle latrines were used by thousands of men. Men lived in bamboo huts with dirt floors. The food provided daily was one cup of rice and a bowl of thin fish soup. There was no medicine. Many men tried to commit suicide. Some were successful. Alberty was one who was determined to survive. If another man refused to eat the soup because of some foreign material in it, Alberty would eat it because it provided the critical nutrition needed for survival. He put a rusty nail in his drinking water to get iron in his system. Survival and keeping his sanity were Alberty’s basic instincts during those times. As Alberty stated, “if you have never smelled death all around you, you would not understand”.

Alberty was assigned with other men to flatten a hill to build an auxiliary airstrip at Nichols Fields. He said to himself “how can we possibly do this monumental job”? His answer in retrospect is “with a bayonet pointed at your chest you can do a lot of things you never thought you could do”. He would get up at five a.m. and work until about six p.m. with the bare daily subsistence that was given to provide energy. He lost weight down to 87 pounds. Men died and were buried in the runway and packed down with gravel with pavement placed over their dead bodies. After work, men went to sleep, exhausted. Guards came by every hour and monitored the men closely to ensure no one escaped.

In July of 1943, Alberty was put on an old coal carrier ship and sent to Japan. The ship was a living hell for the 28-day voyage to Japan. It was very overcrowded with several hundred prisoners sitting in 6 inches of coal dust and unable to move about. The very minimum of food and water was given to the men. Conditions were filthy and foul smelling, as one would expect under those circumstances. Alberty considered himself already dead! He had no rights, had lost everything he owned and was isolated from his country with little hope of rescue before death. When he arrived in Japan, he was so weak and malnourished that only his being young saved him.

While a prisoner in Japan, he worked to build a breakwater near a submarine port and he also unloaded various ships containing timber, raw rubber, coal and soybeans and any war material you could imagine. At one time, because he had accidentally left his hat in a field where he was working, he was put in a solitary confinement cage with minimum food and water, where he could neither sit nor stand. While in solitary confinement, he kept from going crazy by thinking of places he had been, events in his life and all sorts of things to keep his mind occupied.

In 1945, he was thrilled to see the first B 29s flying overhead and dropping bombs. That gave him some hope for liberation he had not had for over three years. When the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, the commandant of his prison camp said if the allies invaded Japan, all prisoners would be put to death. Fortunately, the atomic bomb proved to be the catalyst for Japanese surrender and liberation for Alberty. Alberty is convinced that without the atomic bomb being dropped he would not be alive today to tell his story.

After liberation by Dutch paratroopers, Alberty went to San Francisco to Letterman General Hospital for six months of recuperation and treatment for his illnesses. He went on to spend a tour of duty at the American embassy in Rome as well as in Japan where he was involved in developing evidence against Japanese war criminals. Alberty received a full retirement from the Army in 1953 with 17 awards and decoration for his service. He returned to North Carolina, married, and has lived in Mayodan NC serving his fellow man through a ministry sponsored by the Moravian church helping the disadvantaged as well as serving on the town council for 17 years.

Alberty says he has been where the disadvantaged and homeless are as he has had no food, clothing, shelter, and little hope in his life experiences. When given the opportunity, he has spoken to young people and others about his experiences and the appreciation we should have of the opportunities we have in our United States of America that were won by men living and dying on the battlefield and yes, being prisoners of war.

Interviewed 5/1/1998