Typical Day as a POW
Heroes Remember
Typical Day as a POW
Day began at, Reveille began at six o'clock.
You were given a little bowl of usually of barley
and chrysanthemum tops and sometimes some tea.
And at seven o'clock you were lined up on
the parade square to be marched to the mine.
When we got to the mine,
we would be assigned to our foreman and put to work.
There would be a break at noon for cold rice,
sometimes depending where you were, in little wooden boxes,
with maybe some Japanese pickles.
We would work then til four o'clock or five o'clock in
the afternoon, march back to the camp where we would be counted
and where around six o'clock we would have
another small bowl of usually barley.
Rice was too good for us and some greens
or whatever they could scrape together.
Then at about nine o'clock there would be another roll call
and there would be a complete accounting
for all the prisoners against their records which would keep
the men up, standing up for another half an hour, forty minutes.
And then it would be lights out and that would be the end of the day.
We worked 13 days in a row and had the 14th day off.
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