No Uncle Sam: The Forgotten of Bataan

Air Power History, Summer, 2009 by Scott A. Willey

No Uncle Sam: The Forgotten of Bataan. By Anton F. Bilek. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2003. Maps. Photographs. Index. Pp. xvii, 260. $29.00 ISBN: 0-87338-768-2

Tony Bilek was a twenty-two-year-old Air Corps maintainer assigned to Clark Field outside Manila when the Japanese attacked on December 9, 1941. Along with thousands of other U.S. troops, he moved onto the Bataan Peninsula as the situation deteriorated. Bilek worked on several battered P-40s at Bataan Field near the southern end of the peninsula. There were persistent rumors about a relief convoy that was on its way from the U.S. that would arrive any day with troops and supplies. These faded away forever when Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1942.

The resulting Death March is well documented but is one of those historical atrocities that needs to be read about again and again, lest we forget what the more than 75,000 captives had to endure. Bilek well describes the robberies, murders, beatings, and deprivations suffered. Only about 55,000 were still alive when the POWs reached Camp O'Donnell some 95 miles north. Camp conditions were appalling--as they were everywhere Bilek was incarcerated for the duration of the war.

The survivors (fewer every day) remained at O'Donnell until June when they were trucked to a new camp at Cabanatuan, the camp made famous by the movie, "The Great Raid." Cabanatuan was divided into Sick Side and Well Side. The level of care was deplorable in both, but Bilek was on Sick Side until July 1943, suffering from beriberi. His duties there were less strenuous than those imposed on Well Side prisoners. He nearly died on several occasions; this was one of them.

When his condition had improved, he moved over to Well Side and stayed there for another year. Labor consisted of backbreaking work in the fields. Then came the opportunity to volunteer (yes, volunteer) to move to Japan. Scuttlebutt had it that conditions were far better in the Home Islands--how could they be much worse? Bilek did volunteer and moved to Kyushu aboard what became known as the "Hell Ships." In his case, it was the Mati-Mati Maru for a trip that took from July 4 until September 2, 1944, in appalling conditions of filth, heat, attack, breakdowns, and poor rations.

What lay ahead was ten months of service in the coal mines. Again, brutality and terrible working conditions were the order of the day. Bilek suffered a horrible injury to his hands but managed to survive the ordeal. For much of the time in the mines, there was a new hope--B-29s flying overhead. They signaled the inevitable end that came one day in August 1945, when the guards disappeared. The former prisoners were on their own for several days until U.S. forces found them, fed and ministered to them, and quickly shipped them home.

What sustained Tony Bilek? When the last China Clipper flight arrived in Manila on December 7, 1941, he got a letter from his girl "Marie" back home. He managed to keep it all those years, reading and re-reading it until the ink and paper were nearly gone. As the ship approached San Francisco, Tony Bilek learned that "Marie" had married another man several years before. The letter went into the ocean just outside the Golden Gate. But he was finally home to pick up the pieces of a shattered life.

This is an excellent story, very well told by one of the valiant few left from Bataan.

Col. Scott A. Willey, USAF (Ret.), Book Review Editor