How gentle God's commands!

How kind his precepts are!

Come, cast your burdens on the Lord

And trust his constant care.

—Philip Doddridge, “How Gentle God’s Commands”

Meanwhile, back in Manila, Captain Davey had been among the approximately one thousand POWs taken from Dapecol in June 1944 and shipped to the Bilibid Prison in Manila. Davey, however, was not sent to Japan with the other Latter-day Saint POWs but, after a few days at Bilibid, was sent with a group of other officers back to Cabanatuan. This group of officers included Dwayne Alder, Joseph Webb, and Carlyle Ricks from Utah who had been with Davey in Dapecol.

Davey had been at that camp earlier, but it was now a very different place. When Davey had been there shortly after the fall of Bataan, the camp held around ten thousand prisoners. Now there were about five hundred very sick POWs in the camp hospital, together with a few doctors and medics to care for them. Although Davey’s stay in that camp could never be described as anything other than generally miserable, some good and encouraging things nevertheless began to happen. At Cabanatuan, Davey’s health gradually improved. At one point early in his captivity, his weight had dropped to about 90 pounds, but after a couple of months at Cabanatuan, his weight was back up to 129 pounds.[1]

While working in the rice fields at Cabanatuan, Davey first saw American planes, a flight of more than one hundred planes, going on and returning from bombing raids on the Japanese. “They passed almost directly over us and it surely was a beautiful sight.” They even watched a US fighter plane shoot down a Japanese bomber about a mile from their camp. They had been living on rumors about how the war was going for so long that “it was really a thrill to see an American plane after 2½ years of waiting for them.”[2]

Optimism is what kept the POWs going, especially when fueled by sights such as that. Although there was always the fear that the Japanese would slaughter them first, the POWs grew increasingly optimistic that they soon would be rescued, as it was evident that the Japanese were on the run. That optimism, however, was dashed on October 7, 1944, when they were given orders to prepare to move. The news left them stunned and frightened. With the war not going well for the Japanese, the POWs’ speculations on what the Japanese had planned for them now did not usually include happy endings.[3]

A detail of 950 POWs, including Davey, was scheduled to be sent to Manila by train on a Sunday night. That all changed, however, when a bombing raid on Manila destroyed the ship on which the Japanese had planned to transport them. Instead, they were moved to Manila in groups of two hundred by truck, forty men to a truck, with six guards.[4] Following an uncomfortable seven-hour ride in the trucks, the POWs arrived at the gates of the Bilibid Prison in Manila. Left behind at Cabanatuan were about five hundred sick POWs in the hospital and some medical officers caring for them. A few months later, in January 1945, these sick POWs and the medical officers left behind would be rescued by US Army Rangers in a stunning and famous behind-enemy-lines rescue.[5] For Davey and the others shipped out earlier in October 1944, however, their fate did not include a rescue.

Bilibid was a depressing sight. Having been there twice before, Davey was familiar with the walled-in isolation of the prison with its ten-foot-tall brick walls, the discomfort of sleeping on concrete floors, and, most importantly, the scarcity of food. There were no work details—just boredom, isolation, anxiety about the future, and little food. Twice a day, they were fed a small canteen cup of “boiled rice, about the consistency of wallpaper paste.”[6] Davey was receiving a ration of about 250 grams of rice and occasionally a small amount of coconut. He was beginning to lose weight again, although otherwise he seemed to have recovered from beriberi and the other diseases that had plagued him earlier. They were all losing weight and were continually hungry.

This photograph of the Bilibid Prison was taken shortly after it was liberated; US soldiers are seen searching for any Japanese. The garden to the right was planted by prisoners to supplement the inadequate rations provided by the Japanese. National Archives. Courtesy of John Tewell.

Isolated, bored, and starving, what would the men in this camp talk about? It wasn’t about women or alcohol. Davey noted that he hadn’t heard a “dirty story for months.” They talked about food.[7] In fact, they created a dream world of food. Manny Lawton, one of the POWs, explained,

The main pastime was swapping recipes. From that developed a daily lecture series. At ten o’clock each morning all hands assembled in a large second story room. Sitting in a semicircle on the floor with pencil and note paper, we listened entranced as some expert reviewed the tantalizing details of preparing, cooking and tasting a savory dish. We heard and made note of palate teasing delicacies from every land and every region of the United States: Italian, Polish, Greek, French, German, we eagerly heard them all. . . . Had the compound been divided into various places of amusement for the benefit of the prisoners, I am sure that not even a girlie show would have distracted anyone’s attention from the dream world of food.[8]

Referring to tobacco, Davey observed, “Thank heavens I don’t use it. It is really disgusting to me to see officers going around picking up butts, smoking leaves, trading off their food for cigarettes and tobacco. You can’t realize what a hold it has on these men.”[9] Tobacco was used like a currency in these camps, and other Latter-day Saint POWs also observed the benefit of not smoking—one could trade the cigarettes for something else, such as food and medicine.[10]

Although confined and isolated in the prison, the POWs were aware that the US bombings were devastating Manila and any Japanese ships that managed to get into the harbor. The windows were shuttered so the POWs could not see the damage done by the Allied bombers, but the POWs could hear the bombing, and they could get glimpses through window cracks of the bombers and the destruction. Davey wrote, “I guess that we are the only group in the world that cheer whenever we hear the sirens start.”[11]

The POWs had figured out that the bombings, which had wreaked havoc on the Japanese ships in the Manila harbor, had delayed their shipment to POW camps in Japan. They also knew that the Allies had landed at Leyte, at the far southern end of the Philippines archipelago. There was by this time little doubt among the POWs (and the Japanese) that the Allies were winning the war and would recapture Manila; the key question was how soon. Specifically, for these POWs, would the Allied bombing of Manila prevent the Japanese from getting ships in to take them out before the Allies could retake Manila and rescue them? Several planned departures had already been canceled, keeping that hope alive.

During this period of anxious waiting at Bilibid, Davey wrote a series of letters home to his sister. They were written on scraps of paper and between the lines of letters he had received. They are particularly informative about his prison experience and are filled with poignant and tender wishes to his family. If he were rescued before the Japanese could ship him out, he did not intend to send the letters. Otherwise, he intended to leave the letters with a remaining POW at Bilibid to be delivered to the US Army when they arrived for ultimate delivery to his sister. Accordingly, he began the first letter, dated November 1, “This letter is one of the hardest ones I have ever had to write because if you receive it, it will mean my worst fears have come to pass.”[12]

He recounted his experiences as a POW and provided assurances to his family that, although the food was inadequate and he was again losing weight, he was still relatively healthy and in good spirits. He also wrote lovingly about his family and his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. After thanking them for their letters and packages, he wrote,

Your faith and prayers in my behalf have given me strength and courage to carry on. I am truly thankful that I was born of such wonderful parents and for the teachings they have given me. I know that I have caused them much worry and sorrow and have truly repented of my thoughtlessness and waywardness that has caused them so much pain and heartaches. My only hope is that I can live a life based on what they have taught me and what I have learned from this war to in a small way redeem myself. I am thankful that I was born a member of the Church and for my testimony of the truth of the gospel. I have been protected many times only through the protecting care of my Heavenly Father. . . . I know that the gospel as taught by our Church is true and I am truly thankful for this knowledge.[13]

The regular bombings stopped in late November, either because the Allies had destroyed all the targets or due to a typhoon that had grounded the aircraft. With this pause, the Japanese decided to move the POWs to Japan. On December 12, 1944, Davey wrote,

It looks as though we are going somewhere. Our only hope is that we do not leave the island but move to another camp. Food conditions here are very bad and in the last two weeks ten men have died of starvation. . . . We haven’t had any air raids since November 24, 1944, so maybe they have been able to get in a ship to take us out. It may be that we start from here but there is no assurance that we will get there. I am rather upset about having to leave because it means that much longer to be a prisoner of the Japanese. And at the rate I’m losing weight it doesn’t look as though I will be able to make it. The only thing I can do is put my faith in the Lord and trust in his protecting care.[14]

The next day, December 13, Davey wrote in the dim light of the early morning that they were scheduled to leave at daylight for Japan. He again expressed gratitude for his parents and their teachings, his testimony of the gospel, and the blessing he had received. He also noted that “my health and spirit is good and I feel O.K.”[15]

Later that morning he added to the letter:

10 a.m.

Just announced that the draft has been delayed several hours. I only hope that they can’t get us out. There goes the bell so here we go again, Dammit.

Love,

Bob[16]

That bell marked the end of Davey’s miserable time at Bilibid but also the beginning of one of the most horrendous POW experiences of the war.

Notes

[1] Davey, letter to family, November 2, 1944, reprinted in “Faith Sustains Interned Mormon Captain,” Deseret News, March 24, 1945.

[2] Davey, letter to family, November 2, 1944, reprinted in “Faith Sustains Interned Mormon Captain,” Deseret News, March 24, 1945.

[3] Lawton, Some Survived, 149–50; see Michno, Death on the Hellships, 273–76.

[4] Davey, letter to family, November 2, 1944.

[5] An account of the rescue is contained in Sides, Ghost Soldiers.

[6] Davey, letter to family, November 2, 1944; see also Lawton, Some Survived, 151.

[7] Davey, letter to family, November 14, 1944, reprinted in “Faith Sustains Interned Mormon Captain,” Deseret News, March 24, 1945, 7, 16.

[8] Lawton, Some Survived, 151. Christensen also wrote that POWs in the camps in Japan dealt with their constant hunger by creating books of elaborate recipes they planned to try out if they got back home. Christensen, “My Life Story,” 20.

[9] Davey, letter to family, November 23, 1944, reprinted in “Faith Sustains Interned Mormon Captain,” Deseret News, March 24, 1945.

[10] Jacobsen, We Refused to Die, 102–3.

[11] Davey, letter to family, November 2, 1944.

[12] Davey, letter to family, November 1, 1944.

[13] Davey, letter to family, December 12, 1944.

[14] Davey, letter to family, December 12, 1944.

[15] Davey, letter to family, December 13, 1944.

[16] Davey, letter to family, December 13, 1944.