S/Sgt. Joe Riley Anness Jr.

    In the fall of 1940, his tank company was federalized as D Company, 192nd Tank Battalion.  He and the other members of the tank company traveled to Fort Knox, Kentucky for a year of federal service.

    At Ft. Knox, he was assigned to supplies.  His job was making sure that the members of D Company received food and other necessary goods.

    After taking part in maneuvers in Louisiana in the late summer of 1941, Joe and the other men learned that they were not being released from federal service.  Instead, they were being sent overseas.

    After receiving an eight day pass home, Joe returned to Camp Polk, Louisiana and readied supplies for transport to the west coast.  Sailing from San Francisco, he arrived in the Philippine Islands on Thanksgiving Day, 1941.  A little over two weeks later, he lived through the Japanese attack on Clark Airfield.

   Joe and the other members of D Company were attached to the 194th Tank Battalion and fought with this battalion.  The official transfer of the company to the battalion was suspended when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.   

    Joe recalled that after the attack that the battalion first was sent south and then north toward Lingayen Gulf.  As they headed north, they were passed by rider less horses of the 26th U. S. Cavalry.  The cavalry had suffered casualties when they mistook Japanese tanks for American tanks.

    On April 9, 1942, Joe and the other members of D Company were informed of the surrender.  Joe, Marcus Lawson, Morgan French, Jack Wilson, John Sadler and other members of D Company decided to attempt to reach Corregidor.  The soldiers found an old boat and worked on the motor.  They were able to get the motor running and rode it to Corregidor.  

    Once on Corregidor, Joe, Morgan French, and John Sadler volunteered to go to Ft. Drum.  One reason they did this was that they believed that duty at the fort was better than sitting in Malinta Tunnel while the island was shelled.  On the concrete battleship, Joe was assigned to load the big gun.

    On May 6, 1942, Joe became a Prisoner of War.  He recalled that he and the other men ate as much food as possible since they did not know when there next meal would come.

    When the Japanese arrived on the island and set up machine guns, Joe and the other men believed that they were going to be shot.  The Japanese lined the prisoners up and took what they wanted from the men.  They also were beaten.  It was the worse day of Joe's life up to the time.

    Joe and the other Prisoners of War were put on small boats and taken to an area near Manila.  There, they were held in sugarcane warehouse.  Around 4:00 in the afternoon, they were lined up and put on a work detail.  The POWs passed rocks all night, all day and night again.  As they worked, the Japanese guarding them drank from buckets of water but made no effort to give any to the POWs.

    After three days, Joe and the other men were returned to the warehouse.  They received food and water and then were loaded onto ships.  They were taken to Manila, disembarked, and marched ten miles to Bilibid Prison.  Anyone who fell out was left behind.

    During the march, Joe saw Filipino's flash him and the other Americans the "V" for victory.  Other Filipinos tried to give them coconuts.  Those who were caught were beaten by the Japanese.

    After being held at Bilibid Prison outside Manila, Joe was next sent to the Barrio of Cabanatuan.  He and the other POWs were held in an school house before being sent to Cabanatuan Camp #3.

    While at Cabanatuan, Joe was selected to go on a work detail to Neilson Field.  For about a year, he and the other POWs built runways for an airfield.  While on this detail, the POWs lived in an old schoolhouse.  With him on the detail were Edwin Rue, George Van Arsdale, Jennings Scanlon, and Charlie Quinn.

    When this work detail ended, Joe was sent to Camp Murphy to work at Nielsen Field.  Once again, he found himself building runways for a new airfield.  This one of the worse details because the Japanese commanding officer killed POWs as he pleased. The longer he was on the detail Joe noticed that the daily rations that he and the other POWs received had grown smaller.  He and the other men knew that this meant that the Americans were getting closer to the Philippines.

    On August 8, 1944, Joe and the other men learned that they were being sent to Japan.  They were taken to the Port Area of Manila and boarded onto the Noto Maru.  The ship had only one hold which was packed with 1,035 POWs.  The ship sailed for Japan on August 27, 1944.  After a stop at Takao, Formosa, the ship arrived at Moji, Japan, on September 4, 1944.  They remained in the ship's hold until they disembarked the ship on September 6th.

    From Moji, the POWs were taken to Hanawa where they were held at Sendai #6.  The only member of D Company in the camp was John Aldred.  The POWs in the camp worked in a copper mine owned by Mitsubishi.  During the winter, Joe and the other POWs had to walk through snow that was often two feet deep.

    It was while at Sendai #6 that Joe received a severe beating simply because he wanted some water for a headache.  The result of the beating was that he had two black eyes, various bruises and a sore head.

    In September 1945, Joe was liberated by American forces.  He was returned to the Philippines to be fattened up.  He returned to the United States by ship.  

    Like many of the members of the 192nd, Joe remained in the military.  When he retired, he was a Staff/Sergeant.  

    Joe R. Anness Jr. passed away on July 1, 1976, in Danville, Kentucky.  Sixteen members of the 192nd served as his pallbearers. 

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Transcript of Interview