In 1972, Bill Keith wrote a book called Days of Anguish, Days of Hope. The story is about former Brigadier General Robert Preston Taylor, Air force chief of Chaplains and his time serving in World War II as a chaplain. He was imprisoned in Japanese prison camps in the Philippines, Japan and Manchuria and endured severe torture along with thousands of other POW’s, barely living on the edge of starvation.
Recently Bill and I renewed our friendship after I learned he would be in town for a book signing. Although I missed the book signing we finally connected online. I found his website on the internet and posted a comment on his website. Bill now lives in Longview, TX, and I live in Shreveport, LA.. Bill and wife, Vivian Marie, were in town a few weeks ago to visit a friend in the hospital and invited me to lunch to discuss publishing some of his books on Amazon.com as “on demand” and ebooks. The decision was made to re-publish Days of Anguish, Days of Hope but since the first book was published before desktop computers we had to retype it. This weekend Bill is proof reading our work and then once satisfied, he’ll email me the book file and I’ll format it for the Amazon Kindle book reader and upload it to Amazon for approval. If all goes well the book should be available in three to six weeks. Next job will be to format the file for the “on demand” book. Meaning that if you order a paperback of the book, it will be printed and sent directly to you from Amazon within about a week.
Below, I’m including a small portion of the book for you to review. I hope it touches your life as it did mine.
Days of Anguish, Days of Hope
The Heat Box
The enclosure was four feet high, five feet long, and contained one blanket for each inmate. Perhaps if it had been better constructed, it would have resembled a casket. But Taylor knew no one would be so fiendish as to bury the dead in a casket that small. He tried to lie down, but he had to curl his legs in order to fit. The rancid odors caused him to gag. Maggots crawled under the blanket, and bluebottle flies swarmed in and out the cracks in the walls. The mosquitoes began silently floating in and out searching for new blood. The dim lamp hanging in front of the cell revealed their antics-diving, circling, then retreating to dive again. They infiltrated every inch of the cell, Taylor knew that only at daylight would the little tormentors grant a reprieve. He pulled his blanket across his face, hoping to shut out the unwanted visitors, but soon abandoned the idea. Vermin, heat and hunger pangs made him too miserable to succumb to his dull drowsiness. Finally, the first rays of morning sunlight drove away the myriads of mosquitoes, it was 5 A.M. A guard doused the coal-oil lamp in front of the heat boxes, looked in on the two prisoners and walked away.
The sun is ninety-three million miles away from most places, but not from Cabanatuan. It was right on top of them, causing the heat boxes to become sweltering. Lack of ventilation made breathing hard. The sun beamed through the split walls, Benny looked out the front bars and saw a detail, a prisoner flanked by two guards, approaching the cell, but as they came closer, Taylor recognized Chaplain Morris Day, flanked by four Japanese guards.
“Preston, I’ve brought your things,” day said. “ Have rough night, eh?”
“Not so bad,” he answered in a muffled tone. Chaplain Day eyed the guards, who seemed to be getting a little nervous. “Preston, Colonel Gillespie and the new exec called on Suzuki this morning. He’s plenty man and may try to make it rough on you.”
“New exec?”
“Yeah, a new colonel, Harold Johnson, came in with a batch of prisoners.”
“Hope he’s like Gillespie.”
“Preston, the Japs have asked for volunteers for a work detail down on Mindanao. They want four hundred and fifty men.”
“What for?”
“I’m not sure but Bill Dawson and I have volunteered.”
Taylor felt a premonition that he would never see his two friends again.
“Do you have to go, Morris?”
“No, but we talked to Colonel Oliver, and it just doesn’t seem right for these men to go to Mindanao without a chaplain. We’ve heard there are dozens of other work groups there and no chaplains.”
The guard poked Day in the ribs with his rifle butt, grabbed the little bag out of his hand and shoved it through the front of the cell. Taylor picked it up and examined it contents. It contained his Bible, notebook, pencil and half-dozen other items the Japanese, apparently feeling they had no value, allowed him to keep. “Take care of yourself, Preston, “ Day called as the guards ordered him back to the main camp.
For Taylor, the first day in the heat box passed uneventfully. He tried to adjust to the heat of the small enclosure but found it almost impossible. He was awakened from his half sleep, half dream, when he heard a guard shout.
By noon his strength was already beginning to ebb. Somehow he managed to raise up in the cell. Benny glanced out the front and saw a squad of Japanese soldiers marching directly toward the heat boxes. “This is it!” he shouted. “ The firing squad’s coming!”
The other prisoners heard his warning. Some panicked and began tearing at the walls. Others, too sick to move, just lay there.
“Preach! They’re coming for us. They’re gonna take us away!” The chaplain’s composure bothered Benny. “Don’t you care?”
“Sure, Benny, I care There’s just nothing I can do about it.
Our lives are in God’s hands. We’ll just have to leave the matter to Him.”
“What God?” Benny snorted. “I haven’t seen him around here lately!”
“Have you looked, Benny?”
The squad halted in front of their box. “All prisonarus out of the cellus.” Taylor recognized the voice. It was Tanaka, the interpreter.
A guard unlocked the doors and the prisoners began crawling out. They were ordered to form a line facing the cells. The squad leader, seeing some of the prisoners who were unable to move still lying in the cells, muttered something to Tanaka, who repeated, “All prisonarus outo. Any prisonaru who doesn’t obey order will be shotto.” Still they didn’t move. A guard, fingering the safety on his rifle, looked into the nearest cell, but the stench and smell of death caused him to back away.
The rifle bolts clicked shells into the breeches, and the guards aimed. “Wait!” Taylor called to Tanaka. “We’ll bring them out.”
Tanaka conferred with the corporal, who nodded his approval. The prisoners broke rank and carefully removed the other men from the cells. One, they discovered, was already dead. Another, his body racked by spasms, floundered in the dust. Even though his stomach was empty, he continued to retch. Intermittently, he shook from chills, burned from fever. Diarrhea added to his agony, and with both hand he tried to seize the headache that pounded his brain.
“Oh, God,” Taylor whispered. “When will it end? When will it ever end?”
“Ike!” the corporal yelled, and the guards began prodding the prisoners toward the main prison yard. As he marched away, Taylor looked at the men lying in the dust in agony. Their eyes pleaded for help, but nothing more could be done. Taylor never saw them again. A man on the grave detail working out of the Zero Ward said they were buried alive, unable even to scream out their resistance. It had happened before. When the officers protested, they were told the prisoners would have died anyway. The Japanese always seemed anxious to hasten death. It meant one less mouth to feed, one less body to smell.
Most of the prisoners had already formed long lines leading from the main to the opposite end of the yard. In the center was a crudely erected platform equipped with a loudspeaker and flying the Rising Sun. Guards, in mushroom helmets, stood every fifteen feet.
Captain Suzuki stepped from the commandant’s office and swaggered down the center of the yard toward the platform. Tanaka joined him and together they walked up the four steps to the platform.
Suzuki began his tirade against America. The troops had heard it many times before and spent the time thinking of food and trying to imagine themselves in a shady paradise, sipping cool beer, far removed from the hellhole named Cabanatuan and its devilish little proprietors.
When his speech ended, Suzuki rested for a minute and poured a glass of water from a large crystal pitcher. Then, pointing to the main gate, he shouted another order. The guards opened the barbed-wire gate, and four prisoners, two colonels and two lieutenants, were led through, their hands bound tightly behind their backs. A rope tied around each man’s stomach bound them together. A guard held the end of the rope. Each word a sign around his neck which read, “I TRIED TO ESCAPE.” Their bruised and bleeding faces bore silent witness to a night of punishment. Their captors, still carrying the clubs, continued to beat them across their backs as the paraded in front of the other prisoners, apparently, one group of ten officers had tried to go through the wire. Only four returned. No mention was made of the other six.
Captain Suzuki spoke again through Tanaka. “These men no escapu. They become exampru. No one escapu from Cabanatuan.”
When the four men reached the rear of the camp they were stopped and each given a shovel and ordered to dig. The sun beat down on the nondescript ranks of men trying to stand at attention. A private near Taylor fainted and was carried to the hospital.
When the depth of the graves satisfied the guards, they took the shovels from the men and ordered them to stand in front of the holes. Ten riflemen appeared from the command hut, marched to within a few paces of the prisoners and halted, standing at strict attention. Each of the condemned men was given something to drink, but they choked violently and were unable to swallow. Cigarettes were placed between their bleeding lips.
At the order from the officer the squad readied their weapons. He removed his saber from it scabbard and raised it into the air. The doomed men spit out cigarettes and held their chins high. A sinister silence crept over Cabanatuan. Only the drone of the swarming flies could be heard. The saber fell and the crack of the rifles broke the silence. Three of the men fell backward into their graves. A fourth, a big black-haired lieutenant, was purposely spared. He was hit only in the leg and knocked to the ground. Apparently he was receiving special treatment for showing belligerence to a guard. As he tried to stand, a second volley ended his torment. The officer then went to the open graves and shot each of the men between the eyes. The prisoners were dismissed. The object lesson had successfully created awesome fear in the hearts of all who witnessed the execution.
Taylor and his companions were marched back to solitary, but Taylor could not forget the faces of the dying men. He wondered about their last thoughts-home, wife, children, or just a desire to live. Maybe some even thought of God.
Let’s go play golf !
