Baby of Bataan: Memoir of a 14 Year Old Soldier in World War II - Hardcover

Johnson, Joseph Quitman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590960025 ISBN 13: 9781590960028

Publisher: Omonomany, 2004

Synopsis

A sweet musty tropical smell hung over the city of Manila in the spring of 1941. It was a city of warm monsoon winds, cold San Miguel beer, cabarets, and slender girls with hinting eyes. It was a plum duty station for professional soldiers and sailors, and many made a career there.

In early 1941, Joseph Quitman Johnson enlisted in the U.S.Army. This memoir relates how he was thrown in with these older professional soldiers during the pre-war days of duty in Manila. It tells of his courage and bravery in the defense of Bataan, how he escaped the Death March to fight on the beaches of Corregidor, and finally his imprisonment in Japanese prisoner of war camps. It tells of forced labor, cruelty, disease, of surviving the sinkings of hell ships en route to Japan, and of working in condemned coal mines. It tells of the coming of age of a boy who joined the Army when he was only 14 years old.

This story recounts actual incidents and events that occurred in his life. Many events were tragic, some heartless and inhumane. This is the story of two cultures at odds with the other, each at times unbending.

Joseph Quitman Johnson lived this story and each of these events. He began this saga in 1941 at the tender age of 14 when he joined the Army. For whatever reason, fate chose him as one of those who was to survive these many ordeals. He was finally to taste freedom at the age of 19 when the war ended.

This is a true story, his memoir. This is the story of an underage American soldier who grew up on the battlefields of Bataan and Corregidor and the Japanese prisoner of war slave labor camps in the Philippines and Japan. His hometown newspaper named him the "Baby of Bataan."

About this title

About the Author

Joseph Quitman Johnson was born and raised in Memphis. He enlisted in the U.S.Army in January 1941 at the age of 14. He was sent to the Philippines and served in the 31st Infantry Regiment in peacetime Manila. When Japan invaded the Philippines he fought on Bataan until it fell on April 9, 1942. He escaped the Death March and fought on Corregidor until it surrendered. He became a Japanese prisoner of war on May 6, 1942.

He spent the rest of World War II as a Japanese prisoner of war, working as a slave laborer in Japanese POW camps in both the Philippines and Japan. He was on two hell ships that were sunk while en route to Japan. When the war was over he returned home at the age of 19. He served several more enlistments in the Armed Forces and finally retired with recurring wartime service connected disabilities.

He now lives in Arizona.

Edition details

• Publisher: Omonomany
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1590960025
• ISBN 13: 9781590960028
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314