Post by VeeVee on Jun 18, 2008 12:45:11 GMT -5
opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20080607-141288/Food-throwing-in-Pampanga
Food-throwing in Pampanga
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:50:00 06/07/2008
I was deeply struck and grateful to the Philippine Daily Inquirer for its editorial “Bataan.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 4/9/08) I belong to a dwindling group of Angeles City septuagenarians and octogenarians who, 66 years ago, were known as the “Death March Food-Throwers.” A week after the fall of Bataan, Filipino and American POWs passed by Angeles in railway freight cars, trucks and on foot. A huge crowd always lined up the tracks and roads and threw rice “baon,” “panocha,” “puto seco,” biscuits, fruits, sugarcane, drinking water in used catsup bottles and other food items to the sick soldiers.
The prison trains entering the town were crawling in at a speed of three to five miles per hour due to a sharp incline in the tracks. The boxcar doors were mostly opened and hundreds of outstretched arms bristled out to catch the food thrown by the crowds. I was able to hurl a lot of “panocha.”
Japanese armed guards atop freight cars simply watched the melee stoically. Total satisfaction for food-throwers and POWs alike would be achieved when a train stopped for about 20 minutes to replenish the locomotive engine’s water needs.
In Angeles alone a few POWs jumped out unnoticed into thick “talahib” grass clumps during the train’s crawl. I remember one, a Filipino Army lieutenant found half-dead in our wrecked house one midnight. My uncles nursed him back to health secretly and in six months’ time he managed to return home to the Ilocos region. Two others, an air force captain from Mindanao named Hadji and a Lieutenant Buenaventura from Sta. Maria, Bulacan, who also escaped, were nursed back to health under the noses of the enemy and, later, were also able to return home safely.
A Japanese military transport unit in our street also ferried POWs from Bataan to Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac province. The enemy drivers, who had previously befriended my uncles and cousins and who understood how we felt, would always pass by our street and would slow down their convoy to five miles per hour so we could successfully throw “baon” to the emaciated prisoners.
On one occasion, the lead convoy driver stopped and halted the whole line of 15 trucks on our street for almost 10 minutes to give us satisfaction in our food-throwing. His name was Takemoto-san. The next day his left cheek was swollen and one of his eyes was shut. He had a bandage around his head. He was hit with a wooden club in the face by his officer for stopping his convoy.
Still he continued to drive his convoy of POWs on our street without stopping anymore but letting it crawl at five mph. Our food-throwing continued unabated for three more weeks.
DANIEL H. DIZON, 2 Badjao Rd., Villa Gloria, 2009 Angeles City, Pampanga
Food-throwing in Pampanga
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:50:00 06/07/2008
I was deeply struck and grateful to the Philippine Daily Inquirer for its editorial “Bataan.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 4/9/08) I belong to a dwindling group of Angeles City septuagenarians and octogenarians who, 66 years ago, were known as the “Death March Food-Throwers.” A week after the fall of Bataan, Filipino and American POWs passed by Angeles in railway freight cars, trucks and on foot. A huge crowd always lined up the tracks and roads and threw rice “baon,” “panocha,” “puto seco,” biscuits, fruits, sugarcane, drinking water in used catsup bottles and other food items to the sick soldiers.
The prison trains entering the town were crawling in at a speed of three to five miles per hour due to a sharp incline in the tracks. The boxcar doors were mostly opened and hundreds of outstretched arms bristled out to catch the food thrown by the crowds. I was able to hurl a lot of “panocha.”
Japanese armed guards atop freight cars simply watched the melee stoically. Total satisfaction for food-throwers and POWs alike would be achieved when a train stopped for about 20 minutes to replenish the locomotive engine’s water needs.
In Angeles alone a few POWs jumped out unnoticed into thick “talahib” grass clumps during the train’s crawl. I remember one, a Filipino Army lieutenant found half-dead in our wrecked house one midnight. My uncles nursed him back to health secretly and in six months’ time he managed to return home to the Ilocos region. Two others, an air force captain from Mindanao named Hadji and a Lieutenant Buenaventura from Sta. Maria, Bulacan, who also escaped, were nursed back to health under the noses of the enemy and, later, were also able to return home safely.
A Japanese military transport unit in our street also ferried POWs from Bataan to Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac province. The enemy drivers, who had previously befriended my uncles and cousins and who understood how we felt, would always pass by our street and would slow down their convoy to five miles per hour so we could successfully throw “baon” to the emaciated prisoners.
On one occasion, the lead convoy driver stopped and halted the whole line of 15 trucks on our street for almost 10 minutes to give us satisfaction in our food-throwing. His name was Takemoto-san. The next day his left cheek was swollen and one of his eyes was shut. He had a bandage around his head. He was hit with a wooden club in the face by his officer for stopping his convoy.
Still he continued to drive his convoy of POWs on our street without stopping anymore but letting it crawl at five mph. Our food-throwing continued unabated for three more weeks.
DANIEL H. DIZON, 2 Badjao Rd., Villa Gloria, 2009 Angeles City, Pampanga