At first, U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Kenneth Rice did not know what to make of the bright orange and green flash.
A block away from where an atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, Rice was a prisoner of war at the time of the catastrophic explosion.
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“We were accustomed to B-29 bombers making attacks during the day and firebombing at night,” Rice recalled years later to The Record, a newspaper in his home state of Michigan. “But this was different, and a lot of us were confused and scared.”
Rice realized the full scope of the carnage only after the Japanese relocated him and the other prisoners. Nagasaki lay in ruins.
Plane Shot Down over the Philippines
Rice, who joined the Marines shortly after graduating high school in 1939, fortunately wasn’t among the approximately 70,000 people killed in Nagasaki. Then again, he proved he was a survivor repeatedly during World War II.
Rice endured 3½ years as a POW after the Japanese captured him when they shot down his plane over the Philippines in 1942. He was held captive in Manila for a few days before surviving the incomprehensibly cruel Bataan Death March.
Approximately 76,000 POWs (including 10,000 Americans and 66,000 Filipinos) struggled during the march, which began on April 12, 1942. The extremely malnourished, sickly men trekked 65 miles in six days in oppressive heat.
“We marched on the roads until night, then slept on the side of the road,” Rice told The Record. “They gave us raw rice to chew on, and the only water we could drink was the sewage in the ditch. If you couldn’t go on anymore, they executed you right there on the road.”
The Japanese guards typically used clubs or bayonets against the defenseless prisoners. Sometimes, they shot them. Those who survived were crammed into boxcars with precious little ventilation before being let out at the Philippine town of Capas.
A High Death Rate at Camp O’Donnell
From there, they marched several more miles to Camp O’Donnell, a Philippine army base at the time that the Japanese converted into a POW camp.
Rice remained at Camp O’Donnell for 1½ months.
During that time, death and disease surrounded Rice. According to a report from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Camp O’Donnell housed roughly 5,700 U.S. prisoners by the end of May 1942. At that point, an average of 44 were dying daily.
From Camp O’Donnell, Rice was sent to Manila to assist in constructing a runway. The combination of the cruel treatment and heat could break the strongest of men, but somehow Rice endured.
It wasn’t easy, though. One time, Rice noticed a prisoner, who later died, struggling under the extreme conditions and advised him to lie down. This act of compassion earned Rice a severe beating with a pick handle, he told The Record.
Rice next was sent to Japan to work in a coal mine. En route to the island, a U.S. submarine sank the boat carrying the prisoners with a torpedo. Rice managed to climb aboard a raft before the Japanese recaptured him.
They returned to Manila, where 1,200-1,500 American prisoners boarded what Rice described as a “death ship.”
“Men would die, and they would throw them overboard,” Rice said to The Record. “We stood right where we’d defecate, and I had to put my own urine on my lips so they wouldn’t crack. Once every other day, they’d pour cooked porridge down to us and every three days take us outside and throw salt water on us.”
Weighing Only 87 Pounds
Rice’s weight had dropped from 160 pounds to a scant 87 by the time he was liberated at the end of World War II. But he was alive, unlike so many others that he watched die.
About 3,000 POWs, including 500 Americans, are believed to have died during the Bataan Death March. Another 27,500 men (1,500 of whom were American) did not make it out of Camp O’Donnell alive.
After all he endured, Rice went on to serve 22 years in the military and achieve the rank of sergeant major.
“Many of the guys who died as POWs did so because of apathy,” he said. “They didn’t care anymore.”
Rice died on November 12, 2019, at the age of 95.
