2nd Lt. Charles E. Bennett

    After the maneuvers, Charles traveled by train to Angel Island.  He and the other members of the battalion were given physicals and inoculated.  They then sailed for the Philippine Islands.

    Arriving in the Philippines on Thanksgiving Day 1941, Charles's battalion were taken to Ft. Stotsenburg.  Since their barracks were not finished, they lived in tents along the road between fort and Clark Airfield.

    The morning of December 8, 1941, the Charles heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The members of HQ Company were ordered to the north end of the main runway at Clark Field.  

    Around 12:45 in the afternoon, planes approached the airfield.  The tankers believed that the planes were American.  It was not until bombs began exploding that the tank men knew that the planes were Japanese.  Since HQ Company did not have weapons to fight the planes, they could do little more than watch.

    For the next four months, Charles worked to see that the tanks received the necessary supplies to fight the Japanese.  On April 9, 1942, he became a Prisoner of War when Bataan was surrendered to the Japanese.

    On April 11th, the first Japanese soldiers appeared at HQ company's encampment.  A Japanese officer ordered Charles and the rest of his company, with their possessions, out onto the road that ran in front of their encampment.  Once on the road, the soldiers were ordered to kneel along the sides of the road.  They were told to put their possessions in front of them.  As they knelt, the Japanese soldiers, who were passing them, went through their possessions and took whatever they wanted from the Americans.

    Charles and his company boarded their trucks and drove to Mariveles.  From there, they walked to Mariveles Airfield and sat and waited.  As they sat, the POWs noticed a line of Japanese soldiers forming across from them.  They soon realized that this was a firing squad and the Japanese were going to kill them.

    As they sat watching and waiting to see what the Japanese intended to do, a Japanese officer pulled up in a car in front of the Japanese soldiers.  He got out of the car and spoke to the sergeant in charge of the detail.  The officer got back in the car and drove off.  The Japanese sergeant ordered the soldiers to lower their guns.  

    Later in the day, Charles's group of POWs was moved to a school yard in Mariveles. The POWs were left sitting in the sun for hours.  The Japanese did not feed them or give them water.  Behind the POWs were four Japanese artillery pieces which began firing on Corregidor and Ft. Drum.  These two islands had not surrendered.  Shells from these two American forts began landing among the POWs.  The POWs could do little since they had no place to hide.  Some POWs were killed from incoming American shells.  One group that tried to hide in a small brick building died when it took a direct hit.  The American guns did succeed in knocking out three of the four Japanese guns.

    The POWs were ordered to move again by the Japanese.  Charles and the other men had no idea that they had started what became known as the death march.  During the march he received no water and little food.  At San Fernando, he was put into a small wooden boxcar and taken to Capas.  The cars could hold forty men or eight horses.  The Japanese packed 100 men into each car.  Those who died remained standing until the living climbed out of the car.  From Capas, Charles walked the last ten miles to Camp O' Donnell.

   Camp O'Donnell was an unfinished Filipino training base that the Japanese pressed into service as a Prisoner of War camp.  It turned out to be a death trap with as many as fifty POWs dying each day.  There was only one working water faucet for the entire camp.  To get a drink, men stood in line for days.  Many died while waiting for a drink. 

    When a new POW camp was opened at Cabanatuan, Charles was sent there.  Being an officer, Charles did not have to work unless he chose to work.  It is not known if he was held at any other POW camps.

    On October 10, 1944, Charles and other prisoners were taken to the the dock area of Manila.  They were scheduled to be boarded onto the Hokusen Maru, but since the entire group of POWs who were scheduled to sail on the Arisan Maru had not arrived, Charles's POW group was put on the ship.  The POWs were packed into Hold #2 of the Arisan Maru.  The hold was large enough to hold four hundred men.  The Japanese packed all 1803 POWs into it.  

    The ship sailed, but instead of heading to Formosa it headed south.  Off the Island of Palawan, the ship dropped anchor in a cove.  Within the first 48 hours, five men had died.  The Japanese knew that unless they did something the number of deaths would continue to rise so they moved 800 POWs to the ship's first hold.  

    The POWs discovered that the Japanese had removed the lights from the lighting system but had not turned off the power.  Wit a little work, they manage to wire the ventilation system in the holds.  For several days, the POWs had fresh air.  When the Japanese discovered what the prisoners had done, they cut the power.

    While in the cove, the POWs were allowed on deck at certain times.  One POW attempted to escape and was shot.  Although the ship did avoid an attack by American planes on Manila, the Arisan Maru was attacked once by American planes.   After nine days the ship returned to Manila.   When it returned to Manila, on October 20th, the port showed signs of having been bombed by American planes.

    On October 21, 1944, the ship sailed a second time.  It joined a 12 ship convoy bound for Formosa.  The next day, October 24, 1944, around 4:30 p. m., the convoy was attacked by American submarines.  During the attack a torpedoed passed wide of the ship's bow.  A second torpedo passed the ship's stern.  The next two torpedoes hit the ship amidships.  The ship shook and came to a stop.   

     Some of the POWs had been on deck preparing dinner.  When the ship was hit by the torpedoes, the guards began firing on them in an attempt to force them into the holds.  After they were in, the guards cut the rope ladders and covered the hatches.  They did not tie the hatch covers down.  After doing this, the Japanese abandoned ship.

     Since the hatch covers were not tied down, some of the POWs in the second hold managed to make their way onto the deck.  They reattached the rope ladders and dropped them to the other POWs.  

    The POWs climbed onto the deck.  A group of 35 POWs swam to a nearby Japanese destroyer which was picking up Japanese survivors.  When the Americans reached the ship, they were pushed away with poles and hit with clubs. 

    Five of the POWs found a lifeboat that had been abandoned by the Japanese. It had no oars or sail, so they could not maneuver it.  These men reported that as time passed the Arisan Maru sank lower and lower into the water.  At some point, the ship broke in two.  The men in the boat heard cries for help for several hours until there was silence.

    Of the 1803 POWs who boarded the ship in Manila only nine survived the sinking.   Four were recaptured by the Japanese. Only eight of these men survived the war.  Of the twelve ships in the convoy, only three reached Japan.

    2nd Lt. Charles E. Bennett died on October 24, 1944.  Since he died at sea, his name appears on the Tablets of the Missing at the American Military Cemetery outside of Manila.

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