My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March
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"Superb." —Stephen E. Ambrose Publishers Weekly Tenney here recounts his experiences as a GI during the fall of the Philippines in 1941, his participation in the Bataan death march and his three-year ordeal in Camp 17, the harshest POW camp in Japan. He witnessed devastating atrocities, including serial slaughter that was a kind of athletic exercise for the guards. Soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he was set free; his wanderings about the countryside and interactions with Japanese civilians and leaderless soldiers form the most interesting sections of this engrossing book. Tenney suffered unexpected heartbreak when, upon being reunited with his family, he learned that his wife, believing him killed in action, had remarried. He also experienced depression based largely on his image of himself as one of ``the losers who had surrendered'' in the Philippines. In 1988, he revisited Japan and found that his psychic war wounds were beginning to heal. For all the suffering he witnessed and endured, Tenney's memoir is remarkably upbeat. He is a retired professor of finance at Arizona State University. Photos. (June)
Foreword xiPreface xvA Hitch in Company B 1Surprise Attack 17The Fall of Bataan 35The March 42Our First Camp 65Life with the Guerrillas 74Back to Bataan-to Work 94Cabanatuan 107The Nightmare Ship 114The Coal Mine 122Camp 17 138Fun and Games 149"We Honor You with Head Cut Off" 158Bombs and Beatings 163Our War Is Over 170"America and Japan Now Friends" 173Looking for the Americans 177Meeting My Brother 182Back to the Philippines 186Home at Last 196Japan Revisited 207Appendix 211Index 215
