In their article, “Witness to Bataan”, Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman of the American Heritage Magazine recount the horrifying experiences of Ben Steele surviving the infamous death march in Bataan.
In his first face-to-face encounter with his captors, Steele sensed the feelings of hate that the Japanese soldiers exuded. Yet, in his first close encounters with death itself, he felt it would serve him better to just remain aloof. “So many were dropping to the road, he thought, it was better not to get close to anyone.” But Steele’s humanity could not easily be removed; he did not leave a fallen soldier even though he himself was wounded.
Following months of hard labor, and the death of one in three men in his work detail, Steele and the other ailing survivors were shipped to a makeshift hospital. There, a chaplain administered him last rites as he again faced death this time battling various afflictions, including malaria, beriberi, bronchial pneumonia, dysentery, jaundice, and liver infection. The writers described his tenuous grip on life at that time, “Some days he knew he was alive; some days not.”
After his condition turned around, Steele still remained on the brink. “I’d better do something or I’ll go crazy.” He began scratching figures on the floor then eventually sketched pictures in paper. The object of his sketches would be the images of his comrades and his captors. Through the final chapters of his internment in the labor camps in Japan, Steele continued to document via his sketches the many ordeals he would witness and endure.
The authors’ rendition of Steele’s story is a befitting tribute to the army private’s will to survive and his continued hope of achieving freedom. Perhaps in sharing his personal accounts with his family and loved ones, Steele also discloses the complex confluence of emotions that still stir him to this very day. Perhaps his sketches are sufficient enough. Words do sometimes get in the way. But with regards Michael and Elizabeth, their words make us reflect on the thin balance that binds and separates us all. We remember the past to live the present with greater hope on what lies ahead.
In his first face-to-face encounter with his captors, Steele sensed the feelings of hate that the Japanese soldiers exuded. Yet, in his first close encounters with death itself, he felt it would serve him better to just remain aloof. “So many were dropping to the road, he thought, it was better not to get close to anyone.” But Steele’s humanity could not easily be removed; he did not leave a fallen soldier even though he himself was wounded.
Following months of hard labor, and the death of one in three men in his work detail, Steele and the other ailing survivors were shipped to a makeshift hospital. There, a chaplain administered him last rites as he again faced death this time battling various afflictions, including malaria, beriberi, bronchial pneumonia, dysentery, jaundice, and liver infection. The writers described his tenuous grip on life at that time, “Some days he knew he was alive; some days not.”
After his condition turned around, Steele still remained on the brink. “I’d better do something or I’ll go crazy.” He began scratching figures on the floor then eventually sketched pictures in paper. The object of his sketches would be the images of his comrades and his captors. Through the final chapters of his internment in the labor camps in Japan, Steele continued to document via his sketches the many ordeals he would witness and endure.
The authors’ rendition of Steele’s story is a befitting tribute to the army private’s will to survive and his continued hope of achieving freedom. Perhaps in sharing his personal accounts with his family and loved ones, Steele also discloses the complex confluence of emotions that still stir him to this very day. Perhaps his sketches are sufficient enough. Words do sometimes get in the way. But with regards Michael and Elizabeth, their words make us reflect on the thin balance that binds and separates us all. We remember the past to live the present with greater hope on what lies ahead.
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