A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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THE ARMY CHAPLAINCY Winter-Spring 2006
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A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
by Chaplain (COL) Cecil a. Currey, Ret.
Author's notes: This interview presetves a record of one chaplain's trials and
courage in the face of daunting peril during the evil days of World War 11. It consists
of the reminiscences of Chaplain (MG) Robert Preston Taylor, USAF, Ret.
Chaplain Taylor was born in Texas on 11 April 1909, one of twelve children! He
grew up in Henderson, Texas, not far from the Louisiana. border, where his father
ran a nursery and his tall, thin son Bob regularly helped him in his work. Taylor also
spent considerable time tending to his animal trap line, selling the skins so derived
to help pay for his schooling. The family was Baptist and fair skinned, red-headed,
gangly Bob regularly attended services at the family's local church. Taylor
graduated in 1933 with a baccalaureate degree from Baylor University, and later
completed both a master's and a doctorate in theology at Southwestern Seminary
in Fort Worth. Robert Preston Taylor entered the Army in 1940.
Taylor was 83 years of age at the time of this interview, and it was conducted by
telephone
from Tampa to his retirement home in Fort Worth, interrupted once while the
general completed mowing his lawn! He talked to the interviewer in 1992. His
memories are in paragraph form, and Chaplain Taylor's World War I1 experiences
are in the context of the rest o f his life and career. Except for comments within
square brackets, the words are Chaplain Taylor's.
I was shipped from San Francisco to Manila Bay in the
Philippines
in ~ a 1941
y along with about three thousand other
officers and enlisted men. At that time I was a chaplain -a lieutenant attached to the 31st Infantry. By the time I
arrived in the Philippines, all dependents of United
States military personnel were being pulled out and sent
back to the States. I spent the first few months
organizing prayer meetings and ministering to my troops.
[An unassuming man, Chaplain Taylor was "as common
as an old shoe. You'd never have known he was a
chaplain if he didn't have his insignia on." He gained real
confidence while preachinn and, states Hampton Sides
A
I (Ghost Soldiers, 198) "the fervor
A young C/wplflr17Tylor
rose in his voice and he flailed about as though he were
wrestling
with Satan himself."
p.
On Sunday, 7 December 1941, 1 conducted worship services as usual. It wasn't
until early the
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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next morning that we were told about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Shortly after
learning of the
attack at Pearl, I attended officers' call, where we were instructed to prepare our
units to move out. Japanese bombers were headed for Manila.
A few minutes after air raid sirens began to scream, I could see their bombers
flying overhead. They began bombing Cavite Naval Base, then they hit Nichols
Field. Following each raid, I would rush into the city and use my jeep as an
ambulance to take the wounded to hospitals.
After I arrived in a camp just south of Fort McKinley, the commanding officer, a
COL Doane,
announced an officers' call. He briefed us on the situation and told us that the 31st
Infantry had been assigned the defense of Bataan. After the meeting, COL Doane
called me over and said he had given me a jeep and a driver, CPL Denny. He told
me as long as there was one jeep it was mine so I could pray with and minister to
the troops.
About three days later, we broke camp and headed for Bataan. Our orders were to
set up road blocks and maintain the security of the two main coastal roads which
ran south down both sides of the peninsula. and then meet at a place called
Mariveles.
The Japanese started their attack against Luzon Island on 10 December. As their
army moved forward we would retreat, blowing up bridges behind us to slow them
down. We withdrew to the Pela Baguio line where we held for some time. While
there I was assigned to head the burial detail. I was given an Army truck which I
used to go up and down the line picking up the dead, most already starting to
decay from being exposed to the tropical sun. [For his efforts in this regard,
Chaplain Taylor was awarded the Silver Star, an uncommon decoration for a
chaplain.]
One morning CPL Denny and I were on our way to visit the battalion defending our
left flank
when a Japanese Zero spotted our truck. When it began to circle us, Denny and I
jumped out and hid in the jungle. The Zero swooped down and hit the truck with
machine gun fire which caused it to explode. It took us all night to walk back to our
base camp. When we arrived there the next morning, I was told to report to COL
Brady, our commander. He had heard about our truck being blown up and offered
me his own jeep so I could continue to minister to the troops. He also
congratulated me. I had been promoted to captain.
We tried to hold out against the Japanese but we eventually began to run out of
food and
ammunition. Finally a full retreat was ordered and we began to fall back, destroying
weapons and trucks as we went. [It was during this time that Taylor volunteered to
go find a number of men from his unit who had become separated from the rest.
While attempting to do so he was surrounded by Japanese soldiers and for nearly
a week had to hide in the jungle of Bataan.] When we surrendered, I was at the
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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hospital in Little Baguio. After the surrender the Japanese soldiers stripped us of
our watches, rings, and anything else of value. They separated us into groups of
300 and then formed two columns: prisoners of war on the left, civilians on the
right, with guards in the middle. We spent the night in that formation.
The next day we were still there. It had been two days since we had received food
or water.
Men were dropping left and right. The Japanese quickly bayonetted anyone who
could not
stand on his feet. We finally started to march around noon.
Probably the most distinct memory about that march was what happened to a
close friend of
mine, Father Duffey. We had worked together numerous times. During the march
we walked side by side. There were guards stationed about every 20 or 30 feet
along the column. Near us was a guard we had nicknamed "the Shadow." For
whatever reason he disliked Father Duffey.
Every time Duffey stumbled or slowed down, the guard hit him with the butt of his
gun. After
about three hours of marching, Father Duffey's face was swollen and bloody. Dust
from those
marching in front of us was caked on top of his injuries. As we continued to walk I
saw more and more bodies piling up on the roadsides. Sometimes bodies were left
lying in the roadway and we had to step over them.
The road began to zigzag up a mountain. This put an even greater strain on us so
more and
more men began dropping. Guards would then quickly run over to them and
bayonet them or cut their heads off. About the time I thought I couldn't walk any
further, the sun began to set and the air cooled down a little. We walked all night.
The next morning, as the sun was rising, we came near the top of the mountain.
Filipino civilians lined both sides of the road, handing prisoners canteens of water,
bananas, papayas, and sugar cane. It was the only food or water we had been
given in three days. A Filipina handed Father Duffey a cup of water. Just as he
started to drink from it, "the Shadow" hit him in the mouth with his rifle butt. The tin
cup dug into Duffey's mouth and blood and teeth fell to the ground.
Duffey fell to his
knees and
the guard then ran
his bayonet through
my friend's side. I
tried to stop him but
several other men
grabbed me and
forced me forward so
the same wouldn't
happen to me. But
A-Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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Duffey lived. He later
joined me at the
POW camp at
Cabanatuan. He told
me
he had been saved
by some
Fillpino mountain
people, and he lived
with them for more
than a year before
the Japanese
recaptured him.
Bataan Death March
We continued walking until
nightfall, at which time the
guards led us off the road and
crowded us into a rice ~ a d d v .
They made us sit down ands
then ran barbed wire around
us to
enclose us and that's how we
spent the night. The next
morning the guards delayed
starting us on our march
because a military convoy
was using the road.While we
waited for the
traffic to end, the Japanese
guards decided to have a little
fun. They picked me and
nineteen other officers,
stripped us of our clothes, tied
our hands behind us and
forced us to kneel facing the
sun. We stayed like that for
three hours until the guards
were ready to resume our
march. Out of those 20
officers, only seven survived.
Later that day we reached Limay. There we were put in an old corral that had been
used by
Japanese cavalrymen as a stable. It was full of horse droppings so some of the
men tried to refuse to enter. Those who hesitated even slightly were hit with
bamboo clubs. After we were all crammed in, the guards began throwing balls of
rice to us. Most of the rice found its way to the ground so we were forced to eat it
that way or starve.
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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After a few hours of standing in the corral, six American ambulances, with
Japanese drivers,
pulled up. COL Schwartz got out of the lead truck. He was the C.O. of the hospital
at Little Baguio where I had surrendered. He walked over to the corral and asked
us to lift out our worst casualty cases. Then he spotted me and told the guards he
wanted to take me with him. He also asked if there were any doctors among the
prisoners. There were none.
We loaded up the ambulances and headed back to Little Baguio. The colonel told
me he had
treated a Japanese colonel and 25 other wounded enemy soldiers. As a result a
Japanese general had allowed his hospital to remain in operation. As we traveled
back toward the hospital we returned on the same road I had been marching on.
Dead American and Filipino soldiers stretched down both sides of the road as far
as the eye could see. We passed column after column of American prisoners still
continuing their death march. It took us only about an hour to travel the distance it
had taken me almost two days to march.
The following morning a truck convoy pulled up to the hospital and took all its
supplies. The
very next morning Japanese artillery began firing at Corregidor. American guns
there returned
fire and proceeded to shell our hospital. Then, after several days of shelling, GEN
[Jonathan]
Wainwright ran out of supplies and ammo on Corregidor and had to surrender.
Several days later we were loaded onto trucks and taken to Bilibad, an old Spanish
prison.
The next day I was loaded on a train headed for Cabanatuan. Guards loaded us
into old cattle cars which were small when compared to ones used in America. I
figured they could hold about 40 men as long as we remained standing, but the
Japanese forced one hundred men into each car. and squeezed the doors shut. It
took about two hours to get to Cabanatuan. By the time we arrived, half the men
were unconscious and three were dead. We spent the night in the train station and
then marched to the prison at Cabanatuan, about six miles away, the following
morning.
When we arrived we were told the rules by the POW camp commander, CPT
Suzuki. His
speech lasted about half an hour and then our own ranking officer, COL Gillespie,
spoke to us. After he dismissed us, we reported to our barracks. My most vivid
memory of that prison camp was of the "hot boxes" they put men in to be punished
for some infraction of the rules.
For several months I was assigned to work in the makeshift hospital there.
Hundreds of men
were dying weekly from malnutrition and disease. We had no medicine to give
them. I often sat and talked with the doctors about ways we might get medical
supplies. One day I talked to a young corporal named Winky who led a work detail
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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which labored in the rail yards. I asked him to get word to Clara Phillips [a female
spy who used the code name of High Pockets and who worked with Filipino
guerrillas] requesting her to get medicines into our camp. With her help we not only
got some supplies but were also able to smuggle in a short wave radio.
Unfortunately, Clara Phillips was apprehended a few months later by the
Japanese. [When arrested, she was carrying a Greek language New Testament
she had located as a present for Taylor. Inscribed to "Chap Bob," the Japanese
quickly figured out who it was for.] They also found a list of POW names and items
they needed in her belongings. As a result. 12 of us were arrested and
interrogated. [Several of those arrested were chaplains.]
After several brutal beatings we were thrown into hot boxes made of tin and
bamboo with
dimensions about four by four feet. They put two of us in each box. [Those so
imprisoned were unable to stand or lie down and had to spend their time squatting.
The treatment of others was bad; for Taylor it was worse. He developed
suppurating sores from contact with the box and his muscles decayed from
disuse.] We were given only a few tablespoons of rice and water every other day. I
spent nine weeks in that hot box before I went into a coma. It was two weeks
before I recovered. [He had been in that sweat box all of the summer of 1944.
During that time he read through the Bible five times and also completed a reading
of Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead someone quietly passed to him. Once he
fell into the coma, his prison mates believed him to be dead and sought permission
to remove his body from the box to prepare it for burial. Only after removing it did
they discover that he was still breathing. Now all the camp inmates, for whom he
had so often prayed, joined in prayers for his survival.]
When I woke, Dr. Schwartz told me he had convinced CPT Suzuki I had contracted
a strange
jungle disease and if! were left there I would contaminate both the prisoners and
the guards. Suzuki told Dr. Schwartz to move me to the hospital immediately so I
could die there. It took me over two months to recover. Afterwards, with the aid of a
bamboo cane, I got around camp quite well.
After I was better, the other chaplains and I went to see CPT Suzuki to ask if we
could conduct
services. We had been turned down many times before. We were really surprised
to find that
Suzuki had been replaced by CPT Watanabe. He spoke perfect English, unlike
Suzuki who talked through an interpreter. Watanabe allowed us to conduct
services the very next Sunday and he also made his guards attend the service.
Later, while having tea with him, I found out that he had been taught English by a
Christian missionary. The Sunday and Wednesday services greatly increased
camp morale and life there became a little more bearable. At this point I had been
a POW for over two years. [Prisoner morale increased when overflights of
American Navy Hellcat fighters from offshore carriers began buzzing Cabanatuan.]
On 7 October 1944 the Japanese ordered the evacuation of all American officers
from
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
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Philippine POW camps. They planned to take us to Japan on board cargo ships
where we would be used as slave laborers in mines and munitions factories and
foundries and shipyards and mills throughout Japan and Manchuria. The prisoners
so chosen were trucked south to Manila and kept for two months at Bilibad prison
before we were transferred, on 13 December, to the docks where we first saw the
vessel that would take us to Japan. We called them "the hell ships." Mine held
about 1,600 American officers. They put about 800 of us into the aft hold of the
ship. The hold measured about 50 by 70 feet. The others were put into the forward
and middle holds. There were no bathrooms, so we were forced to go on the floor
or in our pants (those of us who had pants). The stench was soon unbearable.
We set sail aboard the Oryoku Maru at sunset, p h e night was unbearable.] and by
morning
over 30 men in the aft hold had died. While we were in transit, the ship was hit by
American dive bombers. We didn't sink but the forward hold took a direct hit and all
our men inside it were killed. A bomb also hit the deck above our hold and blew a
hole big enough for us to climb through. Unfortunately, hot shrapnel rained down
on us and everyone was screaming like mad. [Chaplain Taylor was wounded in the
hip and wrist from shrapnel fragments.] We climbed up on deck, dove into the
water and began swimming for shore. As we neared land, Japanese soldiers there
began firing on us with machine guns. They killed many of the men but finally let us
swim ashore. [Instead of 1,600 men, there were now only 1,300.1
Some of the American prisoners were then transferred to [the Lingayen Gulfaboard
a narrow
gauge railway and then to] another ship, that was also bombed and sunk before it
could reach
Japan. About 600 of us who remained were moved to still another ship, the Enoura
Maru. We
found ourselves in a similar situation except this time the ship had previously been
used to transport cattle and the floor was ankle deep in manure. [Men died in large
numbers.] We survived the crossing to Formosa arriving on 1 January 1945 and
were then taken to Moji. We made the trip from Formosa to Japan aboard the
Brazil Maru. I counted the men as they came out of the hold. Only 400 of the 1600
who had started still survived. We were taken to an assembly hall where they split
us up and sent us to different work camps.
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
a half years of imprisonment.
We were then taken to Okinawa on an American hospital ship. From there we went
back to
Manila where everyone was given a one grade promotion in rank. I thus became a
major. I finally made it back home on 1 November 1945. [When Taylor returned
home, he discovered that his wife, lone, thinking him dead, had married another
man. In her defense it should be said that in 1942 she had received a government
report that her husband was unaccounted for and presumed dead. In time Taylor
ma
Writing in World magazine, Marvin Olasky told about Chaplain Taylor. He quoted a
recent
book by Hampton Sides entitled Ghost Soldiers (New York: Random House, 2001)
wherein the author asserted that chaplains in peacetime sometimes seem like
extra baggage, but "in a world of perpetual suffering, chaplains played an
exceedingly important role in the life of the camp. Theology was an immediate, and
intensely practical, matter. The mysteries of survival often condensed down to
spiritual mysteries. The prisoners ... saw the way same individuals kept their faith
even through their moments of deepest anguish." He went on to tell how Chaplain
Taylor, in battle or in prison camp "was known for instinctively placing himself at
the point of maximum danger." (World, 8 September 2001, p. 54; Ghost Soldiers,
p. 197.)
Despite his tr~alsas a prisoner of war, Chaplain Taylor remained in the military
after his return
to the United States at the end of the conflict, soon transferring to the newly
created United States Air Force where he continued his ministry as he rose in rank.
In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower made Robert Preston Taylor the Deputy
Chief of Air Force Chaplains with rank of brigadier general. In 1962, President
John Kennedy appointed him Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the rank of major
general. Following his four-year tour of duty in that office, Chaplain Taylor retired
from the military in 1966 and accepted a position with Southwestern Seminary
where he worked for six years in the area of Development. A real hero to many
because of his wartime service to them, Chaplain Taylor died in 1997.
I was sent to Fukuoka-22 in February 1945. 1 stayed there for several months and
was then
transferred to [a prison camp in Mukden] Manchuria. After a few months in
Manchuria, the war
ended and we were finally liberated. I will never forget it.
ROBERT PRESTON TAYLOR
Born: April 11, 1909
Henderson. Texas
Southern Baptist
U.S. Army
A large plane circled over us on 15 August 1945 and six American paratroopers
bailed out
and landed just outside our camp. After a few minutes the big gates at the entrance
opened and the paratroopers walked in. The next morning, the Japanese
commandant surrendered his sword to GEN Parker, who then announced that we
were now free men. There was thunderous applause marking the end to three and
One of 12 children. Robert Taylor spent
his early
years in the Texas towns of Henderson,
Overton,
Kilgore, and Gladewater. He attended
high school at Jacksonville Academy and
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death Ma~.ch
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A Chaplain on the Bataan Death Marc11
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north. There, as the defeated troops had been in Manila, they were subjected to
the humiliation of a forced march through the streets before being moved to Camp
No.2 east of the city. Because the camp lacked a water supply, the Japanese
marched the group back over the same route to what would officially become on
June 2, 1942, Camp No.1, Cabanatuan. Camp No.1, became the principal
internment camp in the Philippines.
Chaplain Taylor was to stay with the Cabanatuan hospital until his departure for
Japan (except for a period between April and August 1944 when he was confined
by the Japanese secret police in the city of Cabanatuan). Assigned with five other
chaplains to minister to the hospital patients, Taylor was perhaps the best known
officer in the camp, which held as many as 10,000 prisoners of war at a time. For
the most part, he remained in fair health, was an exceptional preacher, and was
active in numerous projects and services for the welfare of all prisoners. Both in
the hospital area and later when deaths and work details reduced the camp to a
single compound, Chaplain Taylor demonstrated a proclivity for building chapels.
Chaplain (BG) Robe11P. Taylor.
Chief o f Air Force Chaplain Service. 1962-1966.
Courresiy of U.S. Air Force Museum.
Taylor was invited to accept a commission in the Regular Army in either 1939 or
1940. He took the required examinations and was commissioned as a 1st
Lieutenant. Because of his commitments to his denomination, he asked to be
transferred to the Army Reserve.
He was, however, called to active duty in September 1940 and assigned to
Barksdale Field, LA.
In April 1941. he sailed for the Philippines. After his arrival in May, he was
assigned as
Regimental Chaplain, 31st Infantry, Cuartel de Espana, Manila. After the Japanese
attack on the Philippines, he Served with front line troops in Bataan and was
awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action at the Battle of Abucay in January
1942. During the final stages of the battle to hold Bataan in April 1942, he was
separated from his unit while assisting in a mission to search out and care for the
wounded. He was reported as missing in action. One year later, his family received
a false report that he had been killed in action.
At the time of the actual surrender, he had reached Hospital No.2 at Cabcaben and
was directed by the hospital commander to remain there as part of the staff. He
was present on the Death March as it proceeded out of the jungles of Bataan by
way of Lamao, Limay, Orion, Pilar, Balanga, Abucay, Orani, Hermosa, and Lubao.
The hospital group, however, diverted to Bilibid Prison in Manila at San Fernando,
arriving on May 25. After a short stay, the hospital staff, along with Chaplains
Taylor and Zimmerman, went by boxcar to Cabanatuan, about 70 miles to the
In April 1944, he was apprehended by the Japanese Kempitai (secret police),
along with
Chaplains Oliver. Zimmerman, and Tiffany, for his part in smuggling food,
medicine, money, and messages from Filipino collaborators into the camp.
Following an episode of interrogation and torture, he was incarcerated for 14
weeks in a "tiger cage" too small to allow standing upright or lying full length. He
was released from this punishment only when the Japanese thought he was near
death.
On December 13, 1944, he boarded the Oryoku Maru in Manila Harbor to begin a
voyage to
Japan. Although severely wounded en route, he was among the few hundred out
of 1,619 prisoners of war who managed to survive the trip. In all, three ships were
required to complete the voyage, which was characterized by bombings, disease,
starvation, thirst, exposure, and cruelty. The third ship, the Brazil Maru, docked in
Moji, Japan, at the end of January 1945.
After he had recuperated somewhat, he was moved to Mukden, Manchuria, where
he
remained until his liberation in September 1945. Upon his return to the States, he
was treated at McCloskey General Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was
assigned for the second time in his life to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, in January
1946. In August of the same year, he was transferred to Mather Field, California.
He was assigned Deputy Command Chaplain, Air Materiel Command, at Wright
Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, after a period of reorientation at the Chaplain
School, Carlisle Barracks. In January 1950, he became Air Chaplain, Civil Air
Patrol, Washington, D.C., where he served with distinction. His marriage to the
former Mildred Good took place in June 1950. He was enrolled as a student at the
Air War College in August 1952; then became Staff Chaplain of the Air University
between June 1953 and December 1957. This was followed by a tour in the office
of the Chief of Air Force Chaplains. Promotions to Deputy Chief of Chaplains with
the rank of brigadier general (July 1958) and to Chief of Air Force Chaplains with a
'
A Chaplain on the Bataan Death March
Page I l of l l
rank of major general (October 1962) followed.
Chaplain Taylor retired in 1963 and returned to Texas, where he continued his
relationship
with the Southern Baptist Church as a lecturer and preacher and in service to the
n tthe Southwest ~ a ~ t i~heological
st
Seminary. His
Development ~ e ~ a r t m eof
militarv decorations include: the Silver Star: the Distinauished Service Medal: the
~ r o n z kStar; and the Presidential Unit citation with hvi oak leaf clusters; and the
Prisoner of War Medal. Taylor was given an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from
the Atlanta Law School, an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Baylor
University, and an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the College of
Osteopathy and Surgery. Chaplain Taylor also became a thirty-third degree
Mason.
A note on sources: Most of this article is composed of reminiscences by Chaplain
Taylor in 1992. A 2001 book, Ghost Soldiers devotes a few pages to him and a
biography by Billy Keith, Days of Anguish, Days of Hope is the only independent
study of this remarkable man's life.
Chaplain Currey is a former member of the U .S. Army Reserve, and retired in 1992 with the rank of
colonel. For 30 years he has been a professor at the University of South Norida in Tampa. He has
authored several books, including Victory at any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam's General Vo
Nguyen Giap
(foreword by John Keegan). released in 1997 by Brassey's, Inc.