Veteran’s Day

Posted on | November 11, 2009 | 5 Comments

Today is for remembering those who gave so much for the freedoms we enjoy in this country and in many others. This is a story published about my grandfather, a veteran of both World Wars. He was a remarkable person and it would have been nice to get to know him.

New Bataan Hike Horrors
Originally published May 17, 1945
Major Hans G. Hornbostel
The Lord’s Prayer in German

Grim details of the Bataan “death march,” hitherto unpublished, were revealed here today by Major Hans G. Hornbostel, Philippine mining engineer, who turned soldier anew when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Hornbostel — a sensationally successful recruiting sergeant of Marines here during World War I — still was rail-thin from the ravages of beri-beri, malaria, dysentery and jaundice suffered during three years of cruelty, malnutrition and inadequate medical care in Japanese prison camps.

With his wife, Gertrude and his daughter, Johanna, 21, also prisoners of the Japanese, Hornbostel was here, newly debarked from the Philippines, en route to New York for medical care and reunion with friends.

Recounts Horrors

“All the stories of horror you have read about the Bataan march are true… and more,” Hornbostel said.

“I was in a unit that had been kept in a prison camp directly under the fire of our own 12-inch mortarson Corregidor, staying there until eight days after the surrender.

“As we marched along, we would stop at camps used by Americans and Filipinos, and we would be forced by armed guards to bury the dead to prevent the putrefying bodies from menacing the health of the Japanese.

“The Japanese even forced the burial of some who were not yet dead, but dying.

“In one camp we were too exhausted to handle picks and shovels, and the sadistic enemy forced our marchers to bury the dead in the filth of latrine pits used by all the previous marchers.”
Christian Ritual

Once a Japanese guard kicked Hornbostel, made the sign of the cross, and indicated that he wanted some Christian burial ritual said over the dead. Hornbostel, not remembering any prayer in English, said the Lord’s Prayer in German, and was kicked again.

“I made an impromptu address under the Jap’s gun,” Hornbostel said, “ This time it was in English, based on Sidney Carton’s farewell on the gallows, in ‘The Tale of Two Cities,’ beginning ‘It is a far, far better thing I do.’ That satisfied him.”

A mining engineer in the Philippines after service in the Marines and as an archeologist for Bishop Museam in Honolulu — when he visited hundreds of Japanese and barely escaped poisoning and death a dozen times — Hornbostel became a combat engineer after Pearl Harbor.
Bataan Veteran

During the Bataan campaign he blew up bridges and highways in the way of Japanese advance, and constructed dummy guns that drew heavy enemy fire to areas not occupied by installations.

After three years in prison camps, Hornbostel’s weight had Dropped from 180 pounds to 90. Reunion with his wife and daughter, his grandson and his son, Earl, who was recued after having been condemned to be shot, was celebrated at Santo Tomas prison camp by “eating good American grub.”

After hospitalization in New York, Hornbostel intends to return “home,” in the Philippines, and return to his pre-Pearl Harbor job as mill superintendent of the Coco Grove Mining Company, rich Luzon Property owned by the Marsman interest of San Franciso.

View the original article (scan)

Category: Family Stuff
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Comments

5 Responses to “Veteran’s Day”

  1. Edith
    November 12th, 2009 @ 3:05 pm

    wow, all I can say is wow!

  2. phisch
    November 12th, 2009 @ 4:53 pm

    He was pretty neat. After getting better, they found out my grandmother had leprosy which they think she got during their internment in a Japanese camp. She was sent to live at the leprosarium in Carville, LA. They didn’t allow folks who were well to live there unless they were staff but my grandfather insisted until they let him. She was eventually cured.

  3. k.d.
    November 12th, 2009 @ 5:41 pm

    what a post.

  4. phisch
    November 12th, 2009 @ 8:14 pm

    Ehr ist gut, ja?

    Did I say that correctly? Hehe.

  5. k.d.
    November 14th, 2009 @ 6:59 pm

    99% correct. *wink*

    ja, diese geschichte war sehr gut.

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