Celebration:  To show happiness that something good or special has happened

Many times 91-year-old Richard Francies has thought, “Why am I here when so many others did not make it?”   Death surrounded him for over 3 ½ years as a survivor of the Bataan Death March, a nourishment starved slave laborer and disease ridden Prisoner of War.  After these experiences, it would have been easy to carry a grudge or have a negative outlook on life.  That has never been the way that Richard Francies has lived his life in the years following WWII.  The Ohio native understands the value of life and loves to celebrate milestones.  In fact, he actually celebrates two birthdays per year.  One is for the date he was born in 1917, and the second is a celebration of the day he and the other America prisoners were to be exterminated by the Japanese.  

In 1937, Richard Francies decided to join the Army Signal Corps.  During the Great Depression, he enjoyed working with the newest technology in radio and telephone equipment.  His basic training took place in Monmouth, New Jersey and from there he was sent to the Philippines Islands, the farthest official American outpost in the Pacific.  The next few years were spent in relative peace.  It was an exotic location for a young man just leaving his teenage years.  On December 7th, 1941, Richard Francies was only a few days from being rotated back to the United States.  His schedule was abruptly changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and only hours later on the Philippine Islands.  

The situation started to become desperate as the American troops in the Philippines retreated to the Bataan Peninsula.  Rations were cut in half to 1,000 calories per day and local cuisine of monkey, iguana, and caribou were introduced into the everyday diets.  In just a few short weeks, American soldiers like Richard Francies would be salivating for any nutrition.  By April of 1942, conditions were unbearable for the American and Filipino soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula.  As they were surrounded and the rumors of reinforcement supplies were proving to be a fallacy, General King believed there was no option but to surrender the American forces on Bataan.  As the American forces laid down their guns, they had no concept of the utter contempt and brutality that awaited them. 

Richard Francies was ordered from his post and to walk down the mountain trail towards Mariveles, the gathering area for American troops, “We started disassembling our pistols and rifles and threw the pieces into the jungle.”  After three days of waiting with no food and little water the men were then ordered to start walking.  This walk is now known as the infamous “Bataan Death March” and would last eleven days traveling over sixty miles. In Francies’ group of 1,000 men, no food was given during the Death March.  “Our Japanese guard kept saying, food next town, food next town, but there was never food when we reached the next town.”  Those that would stop or attempt to help fallen comrades were shot or bayoneted on the spot.  “There was nothing we could do but to look straight ahead and keep walking.”  A case of malaria was affecting Richard Francies on the march.  Combined with dysentery, a tropical sun, and lack of food and water, he started to falter along the road.  When he believed that no one was looking, he ran fifty feet into the jungle area to find rest.  A Filipino villager found Richard Francies collapsed and hidden in the brush.  Richard was able to use his hands to explain a mosquito had inflicted him with malaria.  The Filipino villager left returning a few minutes later with a Japanese soldier.  Mr. Francies said to himself, “This is it, I am dead for sure.”  Sure enough, he was shot, but not with a gun.  Instead the enemy soldier pulled out a syringe and gave him a medical shot that reenergized his strength and will to live.  As he was led back into the marching columns of American and Filipino prisoners he began to wonder, “How was I lucky enough to live and find a kind Japanese soldier?”  He had cheated death for the time being.   

The march initially ended at San Fernando, where the prisoners were all crammed into boxcars.  Mr. Francies remembers, “We were all zombies.”   After four hours and thirty-seven miles by rail, the men were unloaded to walk the final seven miles to Camp O’Donnell.  Some of the first words at the camp will never be forgotten by anyone that heard the Japanese Commander say, “You are not honorable Prisoners of War, you are captives.  Forget you have names, forget you have parents, wives and children.  Your loved ones no longer care and have forgotten you.”  Death was normal in the next two months at Camp O’Donnell.  At the time of his transfer to Camp Cabanatuan, Richard Francies weighed only one hundred ten of his original one hundred sixty pounds.   

Work details were formed from the American men.  Due to his knowledge of radio and telephone equipment, Francies and fourteen other specialists were chosen for a unique assignment at Ft. McKinley in Manila.  They were assigned to fix the American communication equipment left behind after the surrender.  For Francies this was a “no-no” and he believed they were to “do nothing to help the enemy.”  A plan was hatched to “look useful” but really sabotage the equipment.  Parts were purposely removed from brand new pieces of equipment to make them seem useless.  Occasionally, they would fix a simple part to ensure value to their captors.  The group was also able to sneak radio supplies to the Filipino Guerrillas (Freedom Fighters) without the guards noticing vital electronic parts leaving in the pony feed baskets swinging underneath their carts.  The men on the electronic detail were fed better than those in Camp Cabanatuan and were even able to hear the American war progress being broadcast over shortwave signals from San Francisco.  The Japanese would intimidate the work details by saying “If one man tries to escape, the entire detail will be shot.”  One night at check in, three of Francies comrades were missing.  Francies and the others were interrogated and then placed in front of the firing squad for the next six hours.  Once again Richard Francies said, “I was sure I would die.”  Instead “The Japanese told us they had decided to spare our lives because we had done such a good job on our communications detail,” but the special assignment was over and the men were sent back to Cabanatuan. 

Richard Francies went back to Prisioner of War life including the normal starvation, disease, and death.  In October of 1945, he was loaded along with 1,034 other Prisoners aboard one of the infamous “Hell Ships” heading for the copper mines at Halawa in Northern Japan.  Many of the “Hell Ships” never reached their destination.  The American submarines were becoming proficient in the Pacific.  The Japanese refused to mark the ship as carrying POW’s and were regularly targeted as supply ships.  When the ships were torpedoed, the Japanese would shut the hatches or quickly attempt to exterminate the prisoners.  The men were packed into a 40 x 60 foot cargo hold and sleeping had to be done sitting up.  There was one waste bucket for all the men aboard and many were suffering from dysentery and wet-beri-beri.  The stench of human waste and death filled the two-month trip by sea.  Once again, Richard Francies survived to face hard labor in the Mitsubishi copper mines.  

Food was a little better on the Japanese mainland at Hanawa.  Sometimes the daily ration of rice would have the extra nutritional value of a small vegetable or unknown substance in the soupy mix.  The idea of liberation was simply a dream.  In a state of survival, dreams usually did not come to pass.  In August of 1945, a dream for Richard Francies and the other POW’s did come true as the Japanese military official told the prisoners that the war was over.   Immediately, the POW’s painted a message “Hanawa 550 POW’s” on the barracks roof.   After 3 ½ years of atrocities at the hands of the Japanese, much had changed.  The newly freed prisoners were dropped a new medicine called “penicillin” from an Allied plane (B-29) bigger than they had ever seen before. Francies recalled the figure that, “In the Philippine theater, fifty-seven out of every hundred POW’s died in captivity.” Celebration spread throughout the camp.  Although Richard Francies might not know why he was spared, he had, and still has, a reason to celebrate; he had beaten the odds and lived.