When Andrew Carson joined the United States Army in 1941, he was promised good food, travel, a supply of clothing, a place to sleep, and thirty dollars a month. Within seven weeks, Private Carson was shipped to the Philippines—with no boot camp, no training, not one minute of close order drill. Captured by the Japanese less than one year later, the young soldier endured the hardships of the Cabanatuan prison camps, nearly died from dysentery, and then was put aboard a Japanese hellship bound for Japan. There, he worked in the Fukuoa coal mines, a virtual slave laborer until Japan surrendered. This is the harrowing tale of one man’s survival, and how he came through the ordeal with dignity and respect for his fellow soldiers.

Malnutrition in prison camps caused the late Andrew D. Carson to become clinically blind. He lived in Oakland, California.

Andrew D. Carson
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 264
Bibliographic Info: 6 photos, index
Copyright Date: 2013 [1997]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7375-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0522-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments     vii
Preface     1
Note to the Reader     3

May 6, 1942: Fort Drum Surrenders to the Japanese     5
June-October 1942: Cabanatuan Prison Camp #3     36
Cabanatuan Prison Camp #1: Life and Death in the Prison-Camp Hospital     52
Zero Ward: The Dying Place     79
November 1942–July 1944: Brutality of Work on the Farm     104
Hell Ship: The Voyage to Japan     140
August or September 1944: Fukuoka, Japan, and Prison Camp #23     175
September–December 1944: First Look at the Coal Mine     187
Yonoroshi: The Hot Hole     193
January 1945–August 1945: Slave Labor in the Coal Mine     200
August 1945–November 1945: Japan Surrenders and We Come Home     237

Appendix A: “American Salute to Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Memorial Day” (Congressional Record)      247
Appendix B: Hell Ships—Just What the Name Implies     248

Military History of Andrew D. Carson     250
Index     251

“a valuable addition to the growing body of literature on the POW experience”—Military Review.