Back to Bataan continued:
Digging their own graves
Joe was transferred later in the spring of 1942 from Camp O'Donnell to Cabanatuan Camp 1, also on Luzon.
''For the first four months, we were fed nothing but a very small quantity of gourd soup and rice for the three meals each day,'' he told the war crimes investigator.
''We worked from [7 a.m. until 5 p.m.] six days a week on road construction and miscellaneous construction. Â… Treatment was brutal for the slightest offense.
''I personally saw five American soldiers shot to death for bribing the guard and leaving the camp for procuring food from a nearby Filipino village. These soldiers were given
the choice of [being shot or] standing for three days tied to a post neck-high, with their heads resting back on the posts in the face of the tropical sun.
''On the third day one of the boys made a break to escape, and all of the boys were forced to dig their own graves and were shot down in the graves while they were singing
'God Bless America.'''
Another time, Joe testified, three officers were caught trying to escape. ''They were deprived of any clothing and were compelled to stand out in the cold weather,
during which time they were whipped, stoned and spat upon by Japanese soldiers.
''This lasted for about three days, following which the officers became delirious and were marched down the road and shot to death.''
Testimony from Szczepanski and other survivors helped convict some 3,000 Japanese of war crimes. Many defendants got prison terms; more than 900 were executed.
Nagasaki's blazing sky
After more than a year at Cabanatuan, Joe and several hundred other POWs deemed fit to work were crowded into the hold of an old cargo vessel and taken to Kyushu,
where they were held at Fukuoka Camp 17 and forced to labor for a coal mining company. Joe would remain there for the rest of the war.
Many years later, Joe told his son about his struggle to survive despite disease -- he had beriberi, caused by vitamin B1 deficiency -- cruel guards and desperate hunger.
He talked about the lengths a man had to go to stay alive.
''I remember my dad saying he used to wait till one of his friends was just about dead and drag him out to get his food, then take him back and have his food because his friend
was on the way out. ''Another thing is, he crushed his own foot in order to get out of the coal mines for several months. He crushed it with a big piece of coal.''
Beginning in late 1944, Joe's parents, sisters and others back home sent postcards to him while he was at Fukuoka Camp 17. Joe wrote the name Charlie Balaza
on the back of one. He wrote the names of other fellow captives on cards, as well.
Rick scoured POW Web sites and found Charlie's name. He lives near Trenton, N.J., and had published a memoir, ''Life as an American Prisoner of War of the Japanese,''
but it doesn't mention Joe.
Rick and his wife, Gloria, visited the 86-year-old in October 2007 to find out why his name was on the card. Rick was amazed at what he discovered.
Charlie served in an Army coast artillery unit on Corregidor, an island fortress that guarded the mouth of Manila Bay. Its troops weren't captured until May 1942,
after the Bataan Death March. But Joe and Charlie were both held at Cabanatuan Camp 1, and they were among 500 fit POWs who were carried in a ship's cargo hold
to Kyushu in July 1943, then marched to Fukuoka Camp 17.
Charlie said he was with Joe outside the camp's barracks at 11:02 a.m. on Aug. 9, 1945. He remembered seeing a high-flying B-29 bomber and a billowing mushroom cloud.
Joe saw the smoke and fire, too
. ''I viewed the sky blazing over Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped, although it was about 40 miles away,''
he wrote to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader when he got home.
Rick was thrilled to meet someone who was with his father at that historic moment.
'Imagine, two POWs, both seeing the Nagasaki bomb cloud -- my father telling me when I was no older than 13 that he was with another POW when this happened.
Then out of pure luck, meeting this other POW.''
At peace with himself'
Joe walked out of Camp 17 on Sept. 12, 1945, almost a month after the Japanese surrender.
He returned to the States on a transport ship operated by the US Coast Guard, the USS Admiral C.F. Hughes. (not to be confused with the USS Hughes).
Joe spent 18 months recuperating at Valley Forge General Hospital. One weekend in February 1946 when he was home, he met Catherine Wardzel at a Wilkes-Barre
dance hall. They were married four months later.
Remaining in the military, Joe specialized in aerial photography with the Air Force and was posted across the country and in Canada and Britain. He was a technical sergeant
with more than two decades of service when he retired in 1959. But he wasn't through working. He studied Spanish at King's College in Wilkes-Barre and taught at Becahi
for 10 years. Then in 1985, in his mid 60s, he was hospitalized with emphysema and almost died. Rick said it was a turning point for his dad.
''He was a smoker, so he quit smoking, cold turkey, and he quit drinking. He made a comment at the time: 'That's it, I'm not going to let the past run my life anymore.'
He just let go. At that point, I'd say, he was at peace with himself.''
Late in 1999, after Joe had grown frail, Rick got him into the Veterans Affairs nursing facility in Wilkes-Barre. Five-and-a-half years later, Joe Szczepanski died of lung cancer.
A path still to follow
In his mission to grasp what his father endured, Rick has read about 20 books on Bataan and prisoners of the Japanese.
He belongs to an e-mail group that disseminates POW information, and he has spent countless hours exploring Web sites related to his dad's service and captivity.
He has attended national conventions of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, a veterans group his father belonged to but wasn't active in.
And this year, Rick will be among the descendants who keep the organization going.
In addition, he and Gloria are considering a trip to the Philippines next year to follow his father's path.
''I understand now why he was the way he was. I can visualize many things today. But once you understand, you start wanting more information. I am still searching.''
Credit: David Venditta of the Morning Call david.venditta@mcall.com
Joseph Szczepanski Photo Gallery (click here) News Article featuring Joseph
then click on photo for album to appear
