“Crack, Crack, Crack. It sounded like firecrackers, and when we heard the “swoosh”, we knew what that was. It was a surprise attack. Twenty-eight Japanese bombers flew wing-to-wing and bombed the Naval base. Then the Japanese Zero fighters strafed anything that moved. It was on the same day that Pearl Harbor was hit – December 7, 1941. But in the Philippines it was already the 8th.” – Sergeant Alvin J. Macko

Macko is a highly decorated, and well respected “China Marine.” This title did not come without sacrifice. During World War II, Macko, of the 4th Marine Regiment survived the cruelest of conditions for three and a half years as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and in Japan. During his captivity, he was known as “Prisoner 503.”

In his Sammamish home today, a small corner of his hallway is dedicated to his service. It includes a display of two purple hearts and 19 medals. There are many more packed away. He has framed two letters from President Harry Truman, the utensils he used during his six year service from 1940-1946, and a picture of himself as Prisoner 503.

Among his favorite medals are two Bronze Stars, one received for being badly wounded and the second for his heroism for pulling a man to safety under fire. His purple hearts were awarded for a leg wound, broken ribs, and blindness due to malnutrition.

Macko is an American wartime hero. He is our neighbor. This is his story.

A young man

Alvin J. Macko grew up during the depression. His family was torn apart by the loss of their mother, and Alvin’s brother and step-brother were sent to an orphanage. Young Alvin joined the Marines as soon as he turned 17.

He served in China for a year and described the food in the mess hall as a “Christmas feast” compared to the food he had at home.

Macko jokes that the Marine Corp was his graduation from high school.

He has fond memories of a famous dog, Soochow, the bulldog-terrier mix that became a beloved mascot of the 4th Marines in China. Soochow would line up alongside his fellow Marines for chow time and then run around to all the men begging for leftovers. Soochow returned home a hero after making it through the horrors of Cabanatuan Prison.

Battle of Corregidor

The 4th Marines were deployed to the Philippines on Nov. 7, 1941. A month later, they were in the midst of a war with Japan.

Macko recalls defending the front lines on the shores of Corregidor, an island in the entrance of the Philippines’ Manila Bay.

“McArthur was on Corregidor and he took all of the Marine’s biggest patrols off of Bataan to defend the Island of Corregidor.” Macko was in that patrol.

At the time of war, Macko was 18 years old and armed with a Browning automatic rifle.

“There was only one automatic rifle to each eleven man squad,” he said. “The rest of the men used single shot rifles. A platoon was made up of 33 men and there were only three automatic rifles to each platoon.”

“The Japanese needed the island because it was in the mouth of the bay. They needed to stop the ships from coming into Manila. The Japanese lined up the canons across the shores on Bataan and bombed Corregidor every day for a month.”

The foxholes gave little refuge to the bombs that tore through the front lines. Sometimes Macko and his men were in the foxholes for up to five hours, depending upon the shelling.

When asked to describe what it was like during the bombings, Macko replied, “I don’t want to think about that. No, I don’t want to think about it.” But he did say, “I was curious about smoking and learned to smoke in those foxholes.”

When they weren’t in the foxholes they built barbed wire that stretched across the ravines.

The food was scarce during the war. Macko would be lucky on days when he could share a small can of corned beef or canned salmon with two of his fellow Marines.

“There was nothing wild on Corregidor to eat (such as berries). We would look for monkeys and bananas,” he recalled. Some days his platoon would go without food at all. “There was nothing living, no green plants or trees left on Corregidor after the bombings.”

Among the other dangers were the ill-built bunkers and the tunnels. The men learned to avoid the 14 species of poisonous snakes on the island.

Macko and the 4th Marines defended the front lines for as long as they could.

POW’s Captured, May, 1942

According to historical documents, by April 9, 1942, the troops of Bataan had been reduced by hunger, disease, and casualties. It was on this day that Maj. Gen. Edward P. King, Jr. surrendered his forces to the Japanese.

General Wainwright surrendered the remainder of the American forces on Corregidor on May 6, 1942.

“The Japanese hit us at night,” Macko said. “They kept coming and coming and ran right over us. The ones that were left (alive), all of the prisoners, were surrounded by the 92nd Garage (an amphibian aircraft ramp that had been converted into makeshift residence). That was the hanger for the PBY’s. The army, sailors, Filipinos, and scouts, maybe 3,000 men at the most, were held there for two weeks with little water and no food. We did have one pipe that ran water and the guys stood in a line for it. There was no food.”

“The ships took us over to Manila. Then they marched us through the streets for six hours to be on display for the townspeople. But the Filipinos wouldn’t watch because they respected the Americans too much. If you stopped walking, from being too weak, the Japanese guards would kill you. About 40 men per day were dying around me.”

“The Japanese put us in banana box cars for about 80 miles to take us to the Cabanatuan Prison Camp. There were no windows. We had to stand the entire time – there was no room to sit. It took about six hours. No bathroom. They had one bucket in the corner. There were about 100 men in each banana car.”

The torture had just begun for the prisoners. This American from Spokane would barely survive unspeakable conditions with no showers or medical attention and with little food and water over the next three and half years in prison camps.

“We were thirsty all the time.” Macko recalled some of his darkest memories. “One of the tortures the Japanese would use would be to deprive us of water for days. We would almost go nuts because we didn’t have water. Some of the men threw away their pills that they were given for Malaria. I was fortunate that I took mine because a lot of men were dying from Malaria.”

Cabanatuan Prison Camp – Philippines. One and a half years.

The prisoners were used as human labor to build rice fields and an airfield. They planted 25-40 acres of corn, peas, beans, and rice patties.

“Guards would yell at you if the lines weren’t straight in a row. There were two men with buckets handing water to one man.”

They had a code word – “Air Raid” – for when a particularly cruel guard was approaching. “I was talking and I didn’t hear him. I can still see the guy today, kicking me and hitting me with the rifle butt. I got the crap beat out of me. I had broken ribs.”

“We were given hot water in the Pattie fields so we wouldn’t faint. The cups were tin and kept the drinks too hot so we couldn’t drink it for hours. They would cut off the carrot tops and feed them to the prisoners, along with rice. I couldn’t eat the carrot tops, or the Okra.”

“It was in the Philippines where I got really sick. I lost down to 95 lbs. I was too weak to work and they sent me back to Cabanatuan to die. That is where the burial ground was. No hospital. We stayed in a shed and if you lived, you lived, and if you died you died. They would give us burnt rice for dysentery. A lot of good that did. Everyone had dysentery. No such thing as water to wash with. If you had water, you’d drink it.”

This would not be the end to Macko’s painful story.

The captives were loaded into transport ships, referred to as “hell ships,” carrying prisoners to Japan to fill in as workers for the young Japanese men who were enlisted. Hundreds of prisoners were packed into the ships.

“They would throw small amounts of food down the holes for us to fight over,” Macko recalled. “We would get two buckets of water a day. One bucket was for a bathroom. Not that we needed it. There was a four-foot square hole and it was the only light you could see from the Philippines to Japan. Never seen daylight until you arrived. The Japanese would bring their own Geisha girls over on the transport ships from the Philippines. The American submarines would sometimes sink the hell ships, not knowing that they had the POWs on board.”

“When we got to Japan the first thing we did was strip down naked and they sprayed us down with powder to kill all the lice and bugs on us. We landed in Tokyo and they put us on a train to Niigata.”

POW Camp Niigata – Japan. Two years.

These camps were particularly harsh for the men working down in the coal and copper mines.

“I was fortunate. I was one of the men loading coal in the open air.”

“They had a trestle about 20 feet in the air. We were on the tracks with the gondolas and we’d push them and fill them. The gondola would dump the coal and we’d walk it to the conveyer to the ship where we would load the railroad cars. We did this during the summer and the winter. We were right on the ocean we would have to hang on because the gusts of wind would blow us off. If you were too slow and didn’t push the gondolas, you’d get your heals hurt and then get beat by the guards for not working fast enough. When it snowed, they would send a POW down to dig the tracks out.”

The prisoners would receive one day per month to rest from the difficult, and often deadly, labor that resulted in Macko having a permanent crooked spine.

The men would wear whatever clothing they could find.

“We wore khaki pants and khaki shirts.” Most of the men had made shorts out of them because they were tattered and torn. Their shoes and jackets were made out of grass.

“We wrapped our legs with anything we could get because if you were over six foot tall, the uniforms didn’t fit you well. During the winter, there were two and half feet of snow and we took Japanese uniforms from the dead.”

Freedom

Macko survived with clear memories of the day that he took his final 14 mile round-trip hike to labor in the coal mines.

“We got there and sat down and waited while the Japanese went into a building. Then they turned us around and marched us back. We thought “what is going on here?” The next morning we woke up and there was not a guard around. They had disappeared in the middle of the night. We started going through the barracks. There were no guards to stop us. We wondered what they were going to do to us now. The third day, we kicked down the 10 foot high walls.”

“We knew that the war was over when we heard the American B29’s drop food, unfortunately, killing some of our own men with the 55 gallon drums. They dropped pamphlets a week or two later to communicate to the men that the war was over and with instructions to catch a train to Tokyo.”

Prisoner 503 had survived. Sergeant Alvin J. Macko was finally heading home to Washington. Although he did not have the hero’s welcome he deserved, the first thing he did when he got home was to take his brothers to lunch.

School sweethearts

Betty was Alvin’s middle school sweetheart. She who had no idea of what he had been through during the war, as they had lost touch.

Alvin jokes that he gave one of his purple hearts to Betty for being married to him for so long, 63 years now. They settled in Sammamish in 1957, where they ran the resort “across the lake.” Betty admits that it took Alvin a very long time to open up to her about his wartime experiences. He is only just now able to eat rice.

Show your appreciation

During his enlistment, Macko said he did not receive a single letter. A simple hug by a stranger a few years back was the best acknowledgement he has received for his heroism. He was also surprised by an anonymous gentleman who picked up his tab at a restaurant.

Although Macko is shy about this attention, Betty said the acknowledgement was nice.

President Barack Obama issued a proclamation marking April 9, 2009, “Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day,” noting that American prisoners of war exemplify the courage and sacrifice that defines the nation’s men and women in uniform.

Girl Scout Troop 41938 is collecting “Hugs for Heroes”, letters and cards for Macko and other Seattle Veterans. Please send a “Hug” – a card or letter – to Macko and his fellow war survivors, c/o The Sammamish Reporter, 1595 NW Gilman Blvd Ste 6, Issaquah, WA 98027. Or drop it in the Girl Scout’s collection bin at The Reporter offices, behind the Shell service station near the intersection of Gilman Blvd and SR-900.

Macko is currently in a Veteran’s facility recuperating from a recent fall, where he broke the second vertebrae in his neck.

Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts from around the area are reaching out to Betty and Alvin to offer their help, around the house, in the garden, or however it is needed. Want to show your appreciation for the service of veterans like Alvin Macko? E-mail Melissa Heitkamp at mheitkamp@comcast.net.

Melissa Heitkamp is a leader of a Girl Scout Troop 41938, a freelance photographer, and a resident of Sammamish.