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Bataan March survivor remembers ordeal.
Sierra Vista Herald, Sierra Vista Arizona ^ | 4/15/04 | Michael Maresh

Posted on 04/15/2004 5:58:15 PM PDT by SandRat

Bataan survivor Danny Cooksley poses in a room at the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum. (Michael Maresh-Herald/Review)



BISBEE - Bisbee resident Richard Cooksley knows all about the Bataan Death March because he lived and survived it.

Cooksley and thousands of others were subjected to the infamous march in the early months of 1942 during World War II.

He and the rest of his Army squadron were forced to endure the walk after Gen. Edward King surrendered the Bataan and all the men there to the Japanese.

Cooksley said he was forced to march from the Bataan Peninsula to Camp O'Donnell, which was near Capas. While he survived the 125-mile walk, many of the people he served with did not.

He said he never saw any of the men he served with ever again.

The men who did not or were unable to keep up with others in the march, were either shot or beheaded by Japanese soldiers, Cooksley said. He saw many people being killed for no reason.

Those who collapsed during the march were ran over by tanks - just because they could, he said.

"We lost 5,000 people on that march," he said. About 7,000 Americans and 40,000 Filipinos survived the walk.

Cooksley said the march was brutal, and there was little compassion from their captors.

"They would not feed you, and they would not give you water," he recalled. "If you tried to get water, they would kill you."

Cooksley said the 125-mile march took him about a week to complete. He said there were others who completed the march in a month's time.

"I was pretty sure I was going to make it," he said.

And he said the prisoner of war camp - Camp O'Donnell - where he was forced to march toward, was close to inhumane.

"You have never seen anything like it," he said. "There was one spigot for the 70,000 people who wanted water."

Cooksley was shuttled to six different camps during his three years as a prisoner of war.

"You want to the camp depending on the type of labor they needed," he said. "It all depended on what they had in mind."

Cooksley said all the prisoners normally were required to work 12-hour days.

Cooksley, who moved to Bisbee in 1964, and his fellow prisoners left the POW camp a month after World War II ended.

A U.S. Navy plane spotted the camp and informed the crew told them the war was over.

"We had no radios or newspapers," he said. "We did not know the war was over until that Navy plane found us."

All the POWs were eventually told to go down to a nearby port where a medical ship was waiting to provide treatment for them.

Cooksley said he also remembers testifying in Japan at the War Crimes Commission in 1948.

"As a result, there were quite a few who were sent to their final hunting grounds," he said.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: bataan; heroe; survivor
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To: SandRat
btttttttt
21 posted on 04/15/2004 8:26:49 PM PDT by dennisw (“We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.” - Toby Keith)
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To: SandRat
Bump!
22 posted on 04/15/2004 8:28:55 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Chad Fairbanks
Ping and a bump for incredible stories of survival and strength.
23 posted on 04/15/2004 8:33:01 PM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet ("Lashing out" at Democrats since 1990.)
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To: null and void
Often ignored by history is the story of the women prisoners of war taken captive during World War Two. Sixty seven Army nurses and sixteen Navy nurses spent three years as prisoners of the Japanese. Many were captured when Corregidor fell in 1942 and were subsequently transported to the Santo Tomas Internment camp in Manila, in the Philippines. Santo Tomas was not liberated until February of 1945. Five Navy nurses were captured on Guam and interned in a military prison in Japan.

24 posted on 04/15/2004 8:44:42 PM PDT by Conservababe
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To: Alouette
Thanks for sharing.

I have my uncles story from D-day, but this was even better. Amazing what they lived through -- again, thanks.

25 posted on 04/15/2004 8:56:39 PM PDT by GOPJ (NFL Owners: Grown men don't watch hollywood peep shows with wives and children.)
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To: SandRat
My Uncle Lawrence (my Mother's only brother) died on the Bataan death march. I never got to meet him.
26 posted on 04/15/2004 9:36:07 PM PDT by GeorgiaYankee
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To: SandRat
Almost all the young men of our town were sent to the Phillipines in WWII. Our town drunk was a survivor and even as a kid I knew that everyone tolerated him and treated him with special care but it wasn't until I was an adult that I found out how heroic he had been and how many local lives he had saved. I remember what made me start reading all the books about the march. I was at a friend's house and her father-in-law was drinking coffee at the table and I saw that his thumbs were red and swollen. It looked like it had just happened so I asked him about them. He laughed and said "I stole a chicken and the Japanese hung him from his thumbs for three days. Then he told how they ate rats and cockroaches and anything they could find.

I don't know if it can be found but there is a little book out there with the title of "Kora" the author's last name is McDonald I think and if you can find it read it.

Most of them are dead now but we grew up respecting what they did.

27 posted on 04/15/2004 10:25:35 PM PDT by tiki
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To: chilepepper
Are you from NM?
28 posted on 04/15/2004 10:26:59 PM PDT by tiki
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To: SandRat
Richard Cooksley - Bataan Survivor - American Hero
29 posted on 04/15/2004 10:30:12 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Puns are bad, but poetry is verse.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Thanks. I can't wait to go to the Bataan Memorial this spring... (versus the Baton Memorial - dedicated to the cheerleaders who have lost their lives at the hands of psycho moms...)

Again, thanks for the ping!
30 posted on 04/15/2004 10:35:04 PM PDT by Chad Fairbanks (I havn't seen my therapist in 5 years. Neither has anyone else ;0))
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To: Alouette
As I read the post I was eating large helping of pasta. The brutality of war sickens me and my food tasted bad.

"The boys began to die, we got little or no food, sometimes a ration of rice could be measured out by a tablespoon. "

31 posted on 04/16/2004 12:11:14 AM PDT by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: SandRat; All
Recalling Past Wars- the Bataan Death March, the Fall of Corregidor...
32 posted on 04/16/2004 2:05:24 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the TrackBall into the Sunset...)
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To: tiki
Nope. Family has most of its roots in Kansas.
33 posted on 04/16/2004 5:25:05 AM PDT by chilepepper (The map is not the territory -- Alfred Korzybski)
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To: SandRat
Great post!
34 posted on 04/16/2004 5:30:25 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: SandRat
Do you know what makes all of these men and women of thier time heroes ?? The fact that they DO NOT call themselves heroes. They simply see it as something that had to be done. Heroes are something that you want to be like, I don't think I could ever be like them, they are on a completely higher plain.
35 posted on 04/16/2004 5:57:41 AM PDT by New Perspective (Proud father of a 4 month old son with Down Syndrome)
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To: SandRat
God Bless our heroic WW2 Veterans!!
36 posted on 04/16/2004 6:58:23 AM PDT by blackie (Be Well~Be Armed~Be Safe~Molon Labe!)
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To: SandRat
He said he never saw any of the men he served with ever again.

That's sad. Thanks God as many survived as did.

Does anyone think the Islamicists seem like the Japanese did in WWII? I think there are many parallels.

37 posted on 04/16/2004 7:07:42 AM PDT by eyespysomething (This website may not be idiot proof, but at least it's dimwit resistant.)
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To: backhoe
My Grandfather on my Dads side was taken at Corregidor. Here's a 1956 shot of him on the Navy Memorial page (he's still alive, it archives all Naval Personnel added). He was 86 pounds when liberated from mainland Japan where he was a slave in a mine. He was on the Canopus (AS-9) awaiting an S Class sub that never showed up when TSHTF on Dec. 8 at Cavite. Standing in his shoes I have to hoist myself up to peer over the edge...

Axenolith's Grandfather

38 posted on 04/16/2004 7:39:15 AM PDT by Axenolith
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To: Chad Fairbanks
You're welcome. I'm so glad you're going to the Bataan Memorial Museum; I've been there, and I think you'll find it quite moving.
39 posted on 04/16/2004 9:38:40 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet ("Lashing out" at Democrats since 1990.)
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To: Axenolith
Fine-looking man. Thanks for the link.
40 posted on 04/16/2004 9:43:50 AM PDT by backhoe (--30--)
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