Sgt. Harold Joseph Vick

    Harold married Wilma Sue Walker and the couple moved to Salinas, California and joined the California National Guard. He was inducted into the U. S. Army on February 10, 1941 at Salinas Army Air Base.  

    Harold traveled to Fort Lewis in Washington and trained with his company which was now C Company, 194th Tank Battalion.  For the next six months, he and the other soldiers learned the skills of tank crew members.  Harold became a tank commander.

    On September 9, 1941, Harold's battalion sailed from San Francisco for the Philippine Islands.  After arriving there, the members of the battalion worked to ready their tanks for maneuvers.  On December 8, 1941, Harold watched as the Japanese planes bombed Clark Field.  After the attack, Ray and the other tankers saw the devastation caused by the attack.

    Harold with his battalion were sent south of Manila.  After the Japanese landed troops at Lucban, the tanks withdrew slowly toward the Bataan Peninsula.  Harold and with his company continued to fight on Bataan with little food, little medicine, and only the hope of help coming from the United States.

    On April 9, 1942, Harold became a Prisoner of War.  He took part in the death march from Mariveles to San Fernando.  During the march, he and the other POWs received little food and almost no water.  At San Fernando, the POWs were packed into small wooden boxcars and rode to Capas.  There, the living climbed out of the cars while the bodies of the dead fell to the ground. The POWs then walked the last ten miles to Camp O'Donnell.

    Camp O'Donnell was an unfinished Filipino training camp.  There was only one water spigot for 12,000 POWs. Men died in line waiting for a drink.  Since the death rate at the camp was extremely high, Harold, with other members of the C Company, volunteered to go out on a bridge building detail.  This detail was also under the command of Lt. Col. Ted Wickord the commanding officer of the 192nd Tank Battalion.

    The detail was composed of 150 Prisoners of War whose job it was to rebuild bridges that had been destroyed during the American retreat.  Seventy-five of the POWs were selected to work at a sawmill to produce the lumber that would be needed to rebuild the bridges.  

     Harold first worked at Calaun.  There the POWs were amazed by the concern shown for them by the Filipino people. The townspeople arranged for their doctor and nurses to care for the POWs and give them medication.  They also arranged for the POWs to attend a meal in their honor.

    Harold was next sent to Batangas to rebuild another bridge.  Again, the Filipino people did all they could to see that the Americans got the food and care they needed.  Somehow the Filipinos convinced the Japanese to allow them to attend a meal to celebrate the completion of the new bridge.

    While working on the detail, a POW assigned to the sawmill escaped.  Since the Japanese had instituted the "blood brother" policy, ten POWs were selected to be executed.  The Japanese picked the five POWs who slept on both sides of the escaped man.  It was their belief that any of these men could have stopped the man from escaping.  Lt. Col. Wickord was sent to the sawmill to watch the execution and then tell his men what he had seen.  This was to be a warning of what would happen to them if any other POW escaped.

    The next bridge the POWs were sent to build was in Candelaria.  Once again, the people of the town did what ever they could to help the Americans.  An order of Roman Catholic sisters, who had been recently freed from custody, invited Lt. Col. Wickord and twelve POWs for a dinner.  Wickord selected the twelve sickest POWs to attend the meal.

    When the detail ended, Harold was sent to Cabanatuan.  This camp had been opened in an attempt by the Japanese to improve the conditions for the POWs.  On the October 27th, Harold and other POWs were sent to Manila for transport to Davao, Mindano.  The POWs were put on the Erie Maru.  The ship sailed on October 28th for Iloilo and then Cabu City on Cebu Island.  After these stops, the ship sailed for Lasang, Mindanao arriving there on November 7th.  From there, the POWs were taken to Davao.

    Harold and the other POWs on the detail farmed and constructed runways.  He remained on this detail until June 6, 1944.  On June 12th, the POWs were taken to Lasang and boarded onto the Yashu Maru.  The ship sailed for Cebu City and arrived on June 17th.  The POWs  remained in the ship's holds for four days.  On June 21st, Ray and the others were transferred to the Teiryu Maru and sailed for Manila arriving on June 24th.  Upon arriving in Manila, the POWs were taken to Bilibid Prison.  Ray remained there until he was selected for shipment to Japan.

    Harold returned to Pier Seven in Manila and was boarded onto the Canadian Inventor.  The ship sailed for Formosa on July 4th.  After stopping at Takao and Keelung, Formosa, the ship sailed for Naha, Okinawa.  It finally arrived at Moji, Japan on September 1, 1944.  The POWs referred to the ship as the Mati Mati Maru.  This was Japanese for "slow."

    In Japan, Harold was taken to Nagoya #5 which was also known as Yakkaichi Camp.  The POWs in the camp were used to manufacture Sulphuric Acid.  He remained in the camp until he was liberated in September 1945.  The photo below was taken while he was a POW in Japan.

    Harold returned to the United States after the war.  He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.  He married, and with his wife, Sue, raised their daughter.  After the war, he owned several gas stations in Salinas, Paso Robles, and Victorville, California.  he also owned a gas station in Las Vegas, Neveda.  He resided in Chico, California from 1992 until 2006.   He moved to Redding, California after his wife's death in 2006.

    Harold J. Vick passed away on July 5, 2007, in Redding, California.

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