Happy Birthday Eli Coloma, 86th FA (PS)

[friscohare]

Bataan Death March survivor celebrates 90th birthday[/u][/url][/size]

(ABC 7, Los Angeles, 04/18/12)

Eli Coloma was surrounded by family Wednesday to mark two milestones. First, the Fountain Valley resident celebrated his 90 birthday.

"Every day is a blessing and we're extremely thrilled and extremely blessed to have him in our lives," said his granddaughter, Alina Di Cesare.

The other milestone is a much darker memory that takes him back to 1942.

"All I had was survival, I hope I can survive this," he said.

Coloma was a member of a U.S. Army unit called the Philippine Scouts. They helped communicate Morse code. On April 9, 1942, he became a prisoner of war when he was forced by the Japanese army into the Bataan Death March.

He was among about 75,000 American and Filipino troops forced to walk more than 50 miles. The march lasted several days and thousands did not make it to the prisoner camp.

"We were not given food or nothing, no food, no water," he said.

Coloma remembers the torture like it was yesterday. He recalls what happened if a prisoner fell or sat down during the march.

"Depending upon the mood of the guard that was guarding us, they will put you on the side of the road and either bayonet you or shoot you in the mouth," said Coloma.

During the death march, Coloma turned 20. While it was far from a celebration, he says since then birthdays often bring back those memories. He's grateful he survived.

He retired from the military in 1962, after more than 20 years, eventually becoming a successful businessman in Orange County. Coloma still fits into his army uniform.

Coloma says his secret to getting this far is just taking it day by day.

His birthday wish was simple -- to celebrate two milestones with family.

"He went through that during his birthday," said his daughter, Arlene Coloma Smith. "To survive that in his young years and then to be at this age, it's special."

[VeeVee]

Thanks for posting this Sean. He's not even on my list... I'll have to add him. how did you know he was with the 86th FA?

[friscohare]

Hey Vic,
No prob! The Pacific POW list has him as part of the 86th FA Bn:

COLOMA ELIAS,PVT,10305874,FA,86th FA Bn (PS),521,

That's so cool that he rose from a Private all the way to Captain. There have been many cases of Scouts going up the ranks, too. Proves how loyal the Scouts truly were.

[friscohare]

While a radio operator for the Philipine Scouts, Elias Coloma, 90, of Fountain Valley survived the Bataan Death March at the beginning of World War II. After escaping from the Japanese, he served as a guerilla fighter through the end of the war and then re-joined the US Army, eventually retiring as a Master Sergeant in 1962.

Death March survivor finally tells story[/u][/url][/size]

(Orange County Register, 05/16/12)

Elias Coloma, now 90, was just the wicker basket guy at the Orange County Swap Meet.

"He was funny, always joking around," says Shirley Heinle, a swap-meet vender since 1983. "But we didn't know that about him."

Over the decades Coloma's wicker business expanded from retail to wholesale. Still, no one knew about April 1942.

"He'd give my kids lollipops and give me tips about (buying) baskets," says Sylvia Munoz, who supplied her business at Coloma's warehouse.

"But he never talked about that."

Even Coloma's own family knew little about April 1942.

"We heard bits and pieces about him eating bugs they found along the road," says his daughter Kele Coloma. "But we didn't know a lot. He had a hard time talking about it."

That's what happens when you witness inhumanity at a level rarely seen – even in war.

"I consider myself lucky," Coloma says, gripping his cane before his recent 90th birthday party. "I just can't express it."

And with those words, he finally begins talking about April 1942.

And how he survived the Bataan Death March.

BATTLE OF BATAAN

The Battle of Bataan is a story that goes in one direction – bad to worse.

It starts Dec. 8, 1941. Just hours after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Philippines. Very quickly, they cornered 80,000 unprepared American and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

"You'd hear boom-boom-boom," says Coloma, a forward observer with the Philippine Scouts, under command of the U.S. Army. "And wherever those shells dropped, they killed someone because we were too many people all in one place."

Four months it lasted. When C-rations ran out, Coloma's 86th Field Artillery Battalion ate horses. Then monkeys. Then grass. Then weeds.

"The shelling was continuous," says Coloma. "Night and day."

By April 9, 1942, it was clear that no help was coming. So U.S. Army Gen. Edward King surrendered his 15,000 American and 60,000 Filipino troops – the largest U.S. surrender since the Civil War.

At first it didn't seem so bad. The Japanese told Coloma he could walk home so he followed the endless line of men in the road.

"We began to realize it was really different when the weak people were pulled off the side of the road and shot," he says. "Or bayoneted."

Those who asked for water?

"Sometimes the guard would open their mouth with a weapon and shoot them," he says, holding his cane up like a rifle.

Asked where he slept, he pounds his cane on the floor: "We marched without sleeping," he says, his words growing more and more concussive. "In the hot sun we marched and at night we marched. No food and no water, okay? No rest."

DEATH MARCH

Five days he held on as others dropped or were executed.

"If there was mud on the side of the road, we'd try to drink from it," he says. "If there was wild rice, we'd pick the grain and put it in our pocket."

Sometimes the guards would allow it. Sometimes they'd tie the prisoner to a tree and shoot him – boom – as an example.

"I told myself, 'I will survive,' " says Coloma, whose cane punctuates every story. "I wanted to go home."

On the fifth day, they were crammed into boxcars in San Fernando.

"No one could sit down," he says. "There was no place to defecate, no bathroom, nothing," Coloma says. "It was so hot and so filled that some people died on their feet."

When the doors finally opened in Capas, the survivors marched nine more miles to their final destination, Camp O'Donnell.

Of the 75,000 men who began the death march, an estimated 10,000 were executed or marched to death along the way – making it one of the worst atrocities in modern warfare. And it wasn't over yet.

Malaria, dysentery and starvation claimed another 22,000 prisoners over the next three months. Camp conditions were so unsanitary that hospital floors reportedly were covered with bodies, blood and vomit – all covered with flies.

"I was lucky," says Coloma, whose weight dropped from 130 to 70 pounds. "I kept an old meat can, not washed, clipped to my pants. With that, I ate a bowl or rice and a cup of water a day."

In July, the Japanese transferred prisoners to another camp.

And that's when a stranger saved Coloma's life.

A QUIET LIFE

A crowd of Filipino civilians waited outside the gate to watch the prisoners pass.

One civilian pulled Coloma out of line, threw a clean shirt over him and snuck him away.

"They took me village to village," he says, "until I was home (in Guimba, in central Luzon). Then I said, 'I am free.' "

Coloma served as a guerilla fighter with (Maj. Robert) "Lapham's Raiders" throughout the war, then re-joined the U.S. Army, which promoted him and brought him to America. Coloma retired from the Army in 1962 as a master sergeant.

For the next 50 years he lived a quiet life with his wife and four daughters. Always hardworking. Always frugal. Always quiet about his past.

He was just the wicker basket guy.

Until a few years ago when he was hospitalized on his birthday and came close to death. His family sat by his side for days until Coloma – the ultimate survivor – pulled out and now lives with a pacemaker. Since then, his daughters have urged him to talk about April 1942.

"Nobody really knows what he did," says his daughter Kele Coloma. "He's like the quiet, unspoken hero. We just want people to know what he went through."

Fewer than 100 Philippine Scouts from the Bataan Death March are left, says Gil Mislang, vice president of the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society.

"These men are proud but they do not cry," he says. "When they talk about their hardships, they stop and look down and become silent for a little bit, but they continue. It shows, what they went through. They can never forget."

And that's what happens when Coloma is asked how he survived one of the worst atrocities in modern warfare – the Bataan Death March.

"I can't describe it," he says, and this time his eyes close, his words pause and even his cane goes silent. "All I had was a determination to survive, that's all."

He appears lost for a moment, then is back.

"I can't say anymore."

[VeeVee]

Philippine Scout veteran Elias Jacoba Coloma (86th Field Artillery PS), passed away on Nov. 10th, 2014. Godspeed Mr. Coloma.

Thank you to Gil Mislang for attending the service and for sharing the photos of the service program.