Pvt. George M. Verba

    In January 1941, George was inducted into the U. S. Army while living in Barton, Ohio.  He was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and assigned to C Company of the 192nd Tank Battalion.  The reason for this was that C Company had originally been an Ohio National Guard Company from Port Clinton, Ohio.  Because of this, the army filled vacancies in the company with men from Ohio.

    After training at Fort Knox, George went on maneuvers in Louisiana in the late summer of 1941.  After the maneuvers, he and the other members of the battalion learned that they were being sent overseas.  George received a furlough and returned home to tie up any unfinished business.  

    By three different train routes the 192nd Tank Battalion was sent to Angel Island.  There they received the necessary inoculations before being sent to the Philippine Islands. 

   Upon arrival in the Philippines, George and the rest of the battalion were housed in tents located between Clark Field and Fort Stotsenburg.  The reason for this was the barracks they had been assigned to had not been completed.

    On December 8, 1941, George lived through the Japanese attack on Clark Field.  After several days of guard duty around the perimeter of Clark Field, the tanks of the 192nd were sent to guard a dam against saboteurs.  They were next sent north Lingayin Bay. 

    The tanks were suppose to stop the Japanese advance, but because of the amount of territory each tank had to protect and the number of Japanese troops there was no way for them to do this.  For the next three months the tanks would fall back, hold until the other units had withdrawn and fall back again.

    One of the worse experiences that George had involved a Japanese soldier.  During an engagement, his tank crushed the soldier under its tracks.  Even though the man was the enemy,  the entire crew was so sickened that they could not eat. 

    On another occasion the tanks of C Company had pulled off a road and bivouacked for the night.  Suddenly they heard movement on the road.  As they watched, an entire Japanese bicycle battalion came riding into their bivouac.  The tankers opened fire on the Japanese and wiped out the battalion.  The images of these events would haunt George the rest of his life.

    On April 9, 1942, George became a Prisoner of War when the Filipino-American forces were surrendered to the Japanese.  For George, the death march started at Mariveles at the southern tip of Bataan.  The lack of food and water were the most difficult things he had to deal with on the march.  He also recalled that what made things worse was that the Japanese left the POWs sit in the sun for hours each day.  Among the prisoners, this became known as "The Sun Treatment."

    While he trudged along, George watched men bayoneted by the Japanese because they could not keep up.  He also saw men shot for the same reason.  It was not until George reached San Fernando after six or seven days that he was fed some rice and received water. 

    George was next loaded into a steel boxcar with 99 other prisoners.  The POWs were so packed into the cars, that they could not sit down.  Those who died remained standing until the car was emptied at Capas.    

    From Capas, George marched the last four miles to Camp O'Donnell.  This was a death trap with almost one hundred men dying each day.  In Camp O'Donnell, the POWs lived in bamboo barracks.  They also had to wait in line for water for hours, if not days, because there was only one spigot for the entire camp.  For cooking, water was carried in buckets from a stream that ran near the camp.

    During his time as a POW there, George developed beriberi.  Like the other prisoners, there was nothing that could be done for him since there was no medicine in the camp.  This resulted in the high daily death rate.

    In early June, George was sent to Cabanatuan #1.  Although his time there was short, George witnessed the execution of prisoners who had tried to escape.  Before they were executed, the men were made to dig their own graves.

    George remained in Cabanatuan until he was selected to be sent to Manchuria.  On October 5th he and the other POWs were awakened and taken by train to Manila.  There, they were housed in a warehouse on Pier 7 for two days.  George, with the other prisoners, was boarded onto the Tottori Maru on October 7th.  The ship was also loaded with scrap metal bound for Korea.  The ship sailed for Formosa.

    The prisoners were divided into two groups. One group was placed in the holds while the other group remained on deck.  The conditions on the ship were indescribable, but those in the hold were worse off than those on deck.  This situation was made worse by the fact that for the first two weeks of the voyage the prisoners were not fed.  Many POWs died during the trip.

    While out at sea, the Tottori Maru survived an attack by an American submarine.  Two torpedoes were headed right at the ship, but the captain maneuvered the ship so that the torpedoes passed alongside of it.  At another point, the ship barely missed a mine that had been laid by a submarine.

    The ship continued its voyage arriving at Takao, Formosa on October 12th.  On October 16th the ship sailed from Takao but returned when the Japanese thought that American submarines were in the area.   The ship remained in harbor for two more days.

    On October 18th, the ship sailed again.  When it reached the Pescadores Islands, it dropped anchor.  It remained off the islands until October 27th when it returned to Takao.  The POWs were ordered off the ship.  They were lined up and sprayed with fire hoses.  After this was done, they were put back into the holds of the ship.

    The ship finally sailed on October 30th and went to Makou, Pescadores Islands.  When they sailed again, the ship was attacked by an American submarine.  The submarine shot torpedoes at the ship, but they all missed.   During this trip, the ship was caught in a typhoon which took five days to ride out.

    After 31 days on the ship, the Totori Maru docked at Pusan, Korea on November 7th.  1300 POW's got off the ship and sent on a four day train trip north to Mukden, Manchria.  George was one of the POWs unloaded from the ship.  Another group of POWs remained on board and sent to Japan. 

    George and the other men received new clothes.  They were then marched down the street.  The civilians in the town spit on them and hit them.  They also made fun of the POWs.  The POWs reached a train station where they boarded a train and were given a little box which contained rice, pickled grasshoppers, and a little fish.

    At Mukden, George worked in a machine tool and die factory.  As time went on, George began to withdraw from the other prisoners.  He wanted to be alone as much as possible.  He avoided situations in the camp that put him in a group of prisoners.  

    One day, American paratroopers were dropped into the camp.  This was how the POWs learned that the war was over.  A few days later, the Russian army appeared.  They then made the Japanese go through a formal surrender ceremony in front of the liberated prisoners.  He was discharged on July 15, 1946.

    George returned to Ohio and married.  He and his wife raised a family in Cleveland.  But the effects of his years as a POW stayed with him the rest of his life.  He avoided crowds until the day he died.  

    George M. Verba passed away in October 6, 1978.   

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