[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 106 (Friday, July 29, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1698-E1699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               A DEBT OF GRATITUDE OWED TO PAUL LANKFORD

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 28, 2005

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I have often said that veterans have been 
called on to give more for their country than most of us ever will. 
Paul Lankford, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and a resident of 
Maryville, Tennessee, is living proof of that.
  Mr. Lankford was captured by the Japanese military on the Bataan 
Peninsula on April 9, 1942, and was freed by Russian soldiers in July 
1945. In those three years and three months in captivity, he survived 
horrific conditions.
  At Bataan, Lankford was forced to march 65 miles in five days in 
unbearable heat, walk on human flesh, and bury his comrades. After the 
march, he was forced into slave labor.
  When Lankford joined the Army Air Corps in 1941, his weight listed at 
150 pounds. After being freed in 1945, he weighed 60 pounds.
  After taking six months to recover from this terrible ordeal, 
Lankford continued his service to the Air Force, retiring in 1968 as 
chief master sergeant. A building at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard 
Base is named in his honor.
  Mr. Speaker, this Country owes a debt of gratitude to Paul Lankford. 
He is a fine man, and our Nation is a better place because of his 
service.
  I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues and other 
readers of the Record the following article from the July 17 edition of 
the Knoxville News Sentinel.

           [From the Knoxville News Sentinel, July 17, 2005]

                          March of Death, Life

                            (By Fred Brown)

       Paul Lankford slipped back through his memory, as if 
     turning pages, recalling a scene, and then explaining details 
     of what he saw. It was like a movie reeling off in front of 
     him, frame by frame. A war movie. A war movie of hell.
       Six decades ago in July 1945, Lankford was a prisoner of 
     war, having been held by the Japanese military for three 
     years and three months. He had been captured along with the 
     rest of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's army April 9, 1942, on the 
     Bataan Peninsula.
       He was 23 years old the day of his capture and 26 upon 
     release. In July 1945, Lankford still had one more month to 
     go before being liberated by a wild Russian army.
       With the arrival of the Russians, who went on a rampage, 
     Lankford and other POWS were transformed from slave to 
     master. The allied soldiers who had been POWS were now 
     guarding their former masters. The situation was surreal in 
     the extreme.
       In fact, Russian soldiers instructed former American POWs, 
     including Lankford, to pick out a guard they particularly 
     disliked, and the Russians would politely shoot him for the 
     Americans.
       Lankford's ordeal began the day MacArthur deserted the 
     Philippines, leaving the bruised, battered and beaten army to 
     survive the best way they could. He sent a message from the 
     safety of his headquarters in Australia that the army was to 
     fight to the end.
       The end came April 9, 1942, after three months of aerial 
     and artillery bombardment, starvation and disease. Lankford 
     and the soldiers were out of ammo and food, with no choice 
     but to surrender.
       With the surrender of the Philippines, Lankford and his 
     27th Bomb Group were corralled. There were perhaps 1,200 
     defenders on Bataan, but including all soldiers, allies and 
     Filipinos, the number was around 70,000.
       Of that number, maybe 8,000 would survive the next three 
     years. Of the 1,200 of Lankford's group on Bataan, an 
     estimated 200 are alive today.
       There are few, if any, monuments to the soldiers and 
     sailors of Bataan--those Battling Bastards of Bataan, as they 
     were known.
       Lankford was born near Gadsden, Ala., and joined the U.S. 
     Army in 1939. He then made the transfer to the U.S. Air Force 
     when it was formed in 1948.
       Now 86, he lives in Maryville, having retired in 1968 as 
     chief master sergeant. He became the first commandant of the 
     Professional Military Education Center at McGhee Tyson Air 
     National Guard Base until his final retirement in 1981.
       But in 1945, he was one of the few who survived the Bataan 
     Death March.
       ``I had one canteen of water for 10 days,'' Lankford began 
     his story.
       ``There was one rice ball, about the size of my fist,'' he 
     said, making a ball with his hand.
       Lankford was, he said, among the lucky. He was marched 65 
     miles from one end of the peninsula to the other. He 
     eventually was moved from the Philippines to Korea and then 
     wound up in Mukden, Manchuria.
       When he left Korea for Manchuria in December 1942, it was 
     30 below zero. He had little warm clothing for the trip.

[[Page E1699]]

       ``The Japanese needed slave labor,'' said Lankford. ``I 
     worked on farms, in steel mills, tool and dye plants, tanning 
     plants, foundries.''
       The day his personal march into hell began, Lankford made a 
     promise to himself: ``I said I would never give up, I would 
     survive,'' he said. ``I would take whatever they threw at 
     me.''
       That was a fairly easy deduction for a fellow who was 
     already down to eating horse, iguana and mule meat to 
     survive.
       ``When you get hungry,'' says Lankford, ``you will eat 
     anything.''
       The soldiers who had survived Japanese bombardment were 
     already listless from four months of half rations, then no 
     food at all. They suffered from malaria and dysentery. 
     Lankford had a severe case of malaria and malnutrition with 
     sores around his mouth, nose and eyes.
       ``Our fighting men were zombies,'' he said.
       He marched from the south in Mariveles, at the very tip of 
     Bataan Peninsula in the South China Sea, north to San 
     Fernando and then to Camp O'Donnell, a former Philippine Army 
     training camp.
       Along the way, historians believe some 10,000 Filipino 
     soldiers died at the hands of Japanese guards. About one of 
     every six on the march would die from brutality, murder, 
     dehydration, beatings, starvation or other atrocities.
       Of the 70,000 who began the march, some figures cite that 
     54,000 reached O'Donnell.
       Lankford was bayoneted in the right shoulder because he was 
     not moving fast enough or had infuriated his Japanese guard. 
     He never knew why he had been bayoneted. He just was.
       Lankford marched 65 miles in five days in the broiling sun. 
     The only time the prisoners were allowed to rest--standing, 
     not sitting--was at a change of Japanese guards. They were 
     allowed no food, no water. If they dropped to the ground, 
     they were shot. If they fell behind, they were shot.
       If they cried out in agony, they were shot--or worse.
       ``If they heard a soldier screaming, they would cut his 
     head off,'' said Lankford.
       ``The first day, we lost maybe 50. The second day, we lost 
     200. The third day, we lost another 300,'' said Lankford.
       ``Shortly after we started the march, a truck would come 
     through, and if you didn't get out of the way, it would just 
     run over you. There were bodies all over the road.
       ``At times, you walked on human flesh. It was like walking 
     on jelly,'' said Lankford.
       ``We marched day and night. What I tried to do was to stay 
     as far to the right side of the road as I could. Trucks 
     filled with Japanese soldiers would come by, and they would 
     bayonet you or hit you with bamboo rods,'' he said.
       ``It never crossed my mind that I would die, but you never 
     knew what was going to happen to you.''
       Like being stuffed into narrow French-made boxcars on a 
     narrow-gauge railroad.
       The boxcars were big enough for maybe 50 men. Hundreds were 
     jammed inside. The steel cars had no windows, no ventilation. 
     There was no air, and it was pitch dark. Lankford said they 
     were fast using up what oxygen there was in the railcar.
       ``Some of the men who were claustrophobic went stark raving 
     mad,'' said Lankford. ``Others died standing up.''
       When the cars were unloaded at one of the designated stops 
     before arriving at Camp O'Donnell, the dead fell out.
       He was at Camp O'Donnell until he was moved to Manila in 
     November 1942. While at O'Donnell, he was placed on burial 
     detail, bringing bodies to graves that were dug by POWs from 
     sunup to sundown.
       He had to transport his best friend to a grave.
       ``He had just given up and passed away,'' said Lankford, as 
     if talking about a wisp of air that passes by and is gone.
       During the O'Donnell ordeal, if an escape was attempted, 
     the guards would take prisoners out and execute them, 
     Lankford said, as an example to the others.
       After working at other camps, Lankford was eventually put 
     aboard a ship.
       He and 1,500 other prisoners were forced down into the 
     ship's hold, which had been used to transport horses and 
     cattle. Filthy straw, with scattered piles of manure and the 
     strong stench of urine, was everywhere, he says.
       ``We were suffering from dysentery, and some men went 
     mad.''
       Men began dying immediately. They were fed a thin gruel of 
     fish-head soup and a handful of rice twice a day.
       They were sailing from Manila to Korea. U.S. naval vessels 
     and submarines were hunting Japanese ships. The POW ships 
     were unmarked and were attacked by the American vessels of 
     war with impunity, never knowing that U.S. POWs were aboard. 
     Thousands of American POWs died an ignominious death below 
     decks in horse manure, human waste, vomit and stacks of the 
     already dead.
       It took his ship one month to go from Manila to Pusan, 
     Korea. When the ship arrived, Lankford was among the 175 men 
     in the worst condition.
       He was taken to a racing track being used for a hospital. 
     The remainder of the men he had traveled with were sent to 
     Mukden, Manchuria.
       ``Each morning I would wake up, and there would be dead men 
     on my left and right,'' he said.
       The day he arrived in Mukden, he was given a big bowl of 
     stew. Being from Alabama, he loved beef stew.
       ``This was dog meat. It tasted mighty good,'' said 
     Lankford.
       ``You didn't see many stray dogs around there.''
       When he arrived in the Army Air Corps back in 1941, he had 
     weighed about 150 pounds. In Manchuria at liberation, he 
     weighed 60 pounds.
       The Russians arrived, he said, and things became rather 
     chaotic.
       ``I'll never forget it. These Russians were front-line 
     troops. They were plenty rough. The Russians would make raids 
     every night.
       ``It was like the Fourth of July every night. Everybody was 
     shooting at everybody else.''
       Lankford was set free of his Japanese ordeal Aug. 20, 1945. 
     The Russians put the POWs aboard a train and sent them back 
     toward American lines.
       He arrived in Port Arthur, Manchuria, and ran into an old 
     navy chief who asked him what he'd like to eat.
       ``I told him I wanted some ice cream,'' said Lankford. 
     ``But I couldn't eat it. The chief said he'd just put it up 
     for me with my name on it. I could have all the ice cream I 
     wanted.''
       Eventually he was returned to Manila, put aboard a Danish 
     ship and sent home.
       ``We were heading home,'' said Lankford. ``We were so 
     happy.''
       In the state of Washington, he boarded a hospital train. 
     There he was given slippers and pajamas for the first time in 
     four years.
       ``We crossed the big, ol' U.S.A.,'' he said, his face 
     beaming with pride.
       He was able to meet his family in Atlanta and spent about 
     an hour with them before leaving for Augusta, Ga. Unlike 
     most, Lankford had been able to let his family know by 1944 
     that he was a POW. They just didn't know where he was or 
     under what conditions he had survived.
       ``I was lucky. Most of the POW families never knew their 
     soldiers were alive until they got back to America.''
       He took six months to recover in an Augusta hospital. After 
     a short time at home, Lankford decided to make the Air Force 
     a career.
       Today, a building at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base 
     is named for Lankford. It houses all of his medals, and he 
     plans to be buried there. The tombstone is already up.
       But he is at peace now.
       ``For the first four or five years after I came home, I 
     hated the Japanese,'' he said.
       ``Then I got to thinking about it. Why should I hate them? 
     It didn't have anything to do with the war.''
       He and his wife, Edna, of 59 years, returned to Japan in 
     2001.
       ``It was no problem, really,'' he said. ``I feel very 
     fortunate that I got to speak to the Japanese people again.''
       But that hasn't stopped the nightmares. He still sees the 
     brutal guards and their nicknames in his dreams. ``The 
     Bull,'' was one, he said.
       ``We knew who to stay away from.''
       Some nights in the early months after his return, said 
     Edna, her husband would scream out and grab her by the 
     throat.
       And then Paul Lankford would wake up. He was back home and 
     not in Manchuria, dodging the Bull.

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