POWs, World War II diaries tell story of friendship, suffering and death
In September 1944, after two years of suffering in POW camps in the Philippines, U.S. Army Lt. George Washington Pearcy was being transferred to one of Japan’s “hell ships,” bound for captivity in the enemy’s home islands.
Before he left, he entrusted his diary to a fellow prisoner who was s t ay i ng behi nd. Pearcy had written the diary on the backs of tin-can labels and other scraps of paper, and he wanted to make sure it survived him.
He gave it to Lt . Robert Augur, a friend who had lost a leg in the fighting at Corregidor in 1942 and who kept a small journal of his own.
Pearcy, 29, was killed a few weeks later when the prison ship Arisan Maru was torpedoed by an American submarine. Augur, 34, survived the war, made his way home, and brought his friend’s diary with him.
Now, almost 75 years later, the Library of Congress has acquired both men’s writings and posted them online, along with family correspondence.
The acquisitions tell a grim story of World War II prison life, the anguish of families back home and the determination of two men to preserve for history what they experienced.
Pearcy described fellow POWs, thin as skeletons, eating frogs and snails, and clad in rags, or in nothing at all. He noted the diseases he had — including malaria, chronic diarrhea, and beriberi, the debilitating result of vitamin B1 deficiency.
His life was filled with flies, lice, mosquitoes and death, as he was shuttled among prisoner-of-war camps and prison ships. He made toothpaste out of charcoal and powdered salt. He wore shoes that had no soles. He bathed in the rain and shaved with a knife.
Yet he tried to avoid foul language, read the Bible and made plans for the future.
To pass the time, he kept lists — of people he met, foods he ate, expressions he heard and things he wanted to do when he got home.
“Buy record player and start collection,” he wrote. “Buy complete set of pocket books to read in idle moments and going to and from work … Talk to Pop about buying farm … Write officers of Bataan Corregidor campaign and ask them to write back experiences — humorous, pathetic, realistic, and must be true.”
Japan attacked U.S. forces in the Philippines at the same time it attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Most American and Filipino soldiers held out until the bastion of Corregidor fell in spring 1942 and its defenders, including Pearcy and Augur, were captured.
I n J u n e 1 9 4 2 , P e a r c y recorded that he was in Cabanatuan Prison Camp No. 1, north of Manila, and stayed there until Oct. 25.
The detailed pages of his diary begin in October.
“I have run an intermittent fever for the last four days,” he wrote on the 17th. “And it has been coupled with [diarrhea] … My legs both of them are stiffening up again — my feet are swelling in the insteps.”
The next day, a Sunday, he wrote: “It is peculiar to walk right by the church area while the service [is underway] and go either to the urinal or the latrine box and … stand or sit and relieve yourself while you listen to the sermon.”
“The principal thing around here is the constant battle for weight,” he wrote. “You get sick for a few days and drop 10-15-20 pounds … that you can little afford to lose. It takes a long time to gain weight and only a short time to lose it.”
Pearcy was a diligent letter writer before the war broke out , and t he acqui s i t i ons include numerous letters to his parents from the Philippines. The son of a prominent St. Louis attorney, he had a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, according to the Library of Congress.
T h e l i b r a r y ’s Ve t e r a n s History Project received the Pearcy papers in December 2015 from relatives, the proj- ect’s senior reference specialist, Megan Harris, said. It was then the library’s only original POW diary from the Pacific theater, she said.
When t h e p ro j e c t p ro - duced a blog post about the gift last February and mentioned Augur’s role, Augur’s family heard about it, recognized the connection, and offered his papers, too.
H a r r i s i m m e d i a t e l y accepted, and the papers of both men were posted this fall.
Before his capture, Augur had been decorated for heroism in the fighting that cost him his left leg.
In captivity, he jotted down in a small black book the names and home addresses of comrades, and in some cases their fates.