 My name is Paul Kircham. I was born 25 January 1920. I'm 102 years old and I'm a Bethan Death March survivor. In my younger years, I had no idea of him being a POW. In fact, I think when we moved here and back in 1989 is when it started to change, when I really first heard his first talk and the horrendous things that he went through, then it started me thinking about him and some of the issues he had and why he had them and it gave me a lot of compassion for him. Grandma would intimate just that he's been in the war. Probably I was in my 20s when he really started opening up about what it happened and even then it was all the funny stories. I met him when I was 14 years old. He was in the Air Force. I didn't even know that he was in the Army so that kind of sets the tone, right? I just knew he was in the Air Force. It wasn't until later that I even found out that her father was a survivor of Bethan. During the Great Depression, it was customary. You reached the age of 16. You dropped out of school, got a job, worked for two years and helped support your family. When I turned 16, I dropped out of school, got a job, worked for two years and then, 6th January 1938, I decided to join the Navy and see the world. The Navy recruiter asked me, do I have a high school diploma? I said no and he said, go across the hall, they'll take anybody. So, I joined the Army. Well, I was on my second hitch and actually it was the picnic, really. We had low calls in the morning and then we were off for the rest of the day. Once in a while, we'd go out on maneuvers but it was like a picnic. When the main line that was just collapsed on the early of January, 1942, the main line was handled by the Philippine Army and the Philippine Division was ordered to counter-attack. We counter-attacked. Quite a few guys lost their lives. A lot of them from snipers in the jungle and that's the reality that really set in. There was no longer a picnic. That night before the surrender, our captain, Thompson, gathered what few of us were left and he said, the surrender is going to take place tomorrow and he said, as far as I'm concerned, you're all on your own. Corporal Hicks, the other squad leader and I took off to the jungle. We roamed all over the night and next morning, we stumbled into a Japanese camp. Thank God it was a quartermaster camp because we could tell a dozen trucks, a lot of buzzles and things like that. No helmets, no weapons. And we talked for a while. Finally, they put us on a truck and when they closed the flat, one of them went. So they drove us for a while, stopped and there was a fence in the area. They got us over the fence and took off. It was a schoolyard and we found that the first step of the death march was up there and there were field devils in the camp already. So we joined the battalion death march. During the actual battalion death march, we were formed in three lines and I was always in the middle line because the last line along the road, the Japanese trucks were heading for Marvellous because Corrigador was still holding up and they would whack the people in that line with their rifles and whatever they had in their hand. So I found out, stay in the middle line and I just watched the shoes in front of me and that was it. When we were at the cabins, we were on a prison camp and on the field every night we were on a litter detail carrying oranges to the Japanese kitchen. We had a Japanese guard with us and one time he said okay stop for a rest and he turned around and I grabbed three oranges and put them under my straw hat, you know. He was going to try and get it back to the rest of the guys. And we started to walk again and my hat was sort of dirty and he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. You know, observed his hat moving around on his head which was not too, you know, it's kind of a clue, right? I knew I was in deep trouble because when we first entered the prison camp at Carpatho I they handed each of us the rules of the camp. Everything ended up you would either be shot or severely beaten and Steely was one of those rules. So I figured I was in deep trouble. We stopped again. He took my hat off. The oranges fall out. He picked up two and gave them back to him. He said, two, joto, good. He said, ichi, damigara. Three, no, no. And he whacked me on the butt. Well, I could have been, I couldn't have beaten that for a shot, you know. October 1943 I was part of a 500 man work detail sent to that area near the village of Las Vegas 40 miles of a vanilla. There for the next 12 months we built an airfield for the Japanese. The Japanese guard. He was built like a brick. You know, he walked around with a big handle. So he asked, anybody here have survey experience? I looked around at the picturesque shovels. Dummy meat here. For about two weeks I walked around like a big shot, you know. One day he came, got his hand in these and then right away he would go like that. He came over and whacked me on his big handle. Well, I was lucky because I saw guys getting killed for doing less than that, you know. Early November 1944 we were at the end of the runway when one of the men began kneeling and pointing towards vanilla. There in the sky above vanilla Japanese and American aircraft in a real combat. Later we learned that was the time General MacArthur returned to the Philippines. Next morning 1100 of us were put aboard the Japanese Haro Maru. Our ship was part of a nine ship convoy with Japanese destroyer escort headed for Japan. The convoy, you know, soon left the village of Bay then we came under American submarine attack. The holes were covered we remained in complete darkness. All I kept hearing was seemed like endless days the explosions from the depth charges of the Japanese destroyer the constant swarming and zigzagging of our ship. After 18 horrendous days and nights we ended up in Hong Kong. When we docked in Hong Kong I happened to be by the ladder and a Japanese guard had motioned for me to come up to the ladder. I grabbed a water hose I dredged myself drank and drank and drank filled my two canthines hooked them back in my belt then I proceeded to fill canthines and water bottles and they were sent up to the two holes. This went on for three or four hours when, lo and behold, some were from China here come American aircraft rookie for targets of opportunity. Back down in a hole off we went again. Three days, three or four days later we pulled them to Taiwan. After two weeks on Taiwan we were put aboard the Australian cruise ship the Melbourne Maroo. After two weeks we headed north and headed for Japan. After an eventful trip we pulled into Moji on the northern tip of Kyushu the second largest Japanese island. We were ferried across the bay we were stuffed into the train and headed north. Now this was in November 1944 eventually we reached the port city of Sunlight. There we took a narrow gauge railroad way up in the mountain to the village of Asakura. When we got up there we worked at Richard Bishibain number 11 until the end of the war. One day, instead of taking us down to the mine, at 6 o'clock they took us down at 10 o'clock and when we got there they put machine guns on each end of our outfit and it was a Japanese general on a telephone. He put the phone back on and topped it a little bit and marched us back up to the hill and the next day B-29 came over and dropped food, medicine and clothing and the news that the war ended. But a few days before that the B-29 came over and bombed the smelter a few buildings in the area and the narrow gauge railroad and that was the only way to get down to Sendai, no road and we had to wait the camp for 30 days while the railroad was repaired. After World War II I re-enlisted until it was within the Army Air Corps you know and there were about 30 of us on the 31st Infantry that re-enlisted and we were stationed at Marksfield, California and we were complete communications. We probably had PTSD but it was unheard of the time. We broke every rule regulation at the base and even some of the rules and regulations at the local city of Riverside eventually most of us were busted down to private. His wife was a very pivotal person in his development to the person that he is today. I gotta mention Gloria again after we went to the Air Force it took us about a year before I got over the PTSD and she stuck by me day and night. She would get after him when he started doing things she would say, Paul don't talk bad about people we don't talk bad about people she laid down the law with him and he would say, okay Gloria and do it. She was a love of my life she passed away two years ago with the diary for 74 years one short of the diamond deal of 74 and I don't know if it wasn't for her I don't know how I could have made it true. One time I asked him about God in prison camp and he said to me there was no God but now I think that's what brought him to the point of forgiving and letting go is his faith. It wasn't long after World War II that in my heart I forgave him what he did. Once he was able to accept and forgive then he moved on. He's very generous he's a philanthropist he's helped so many people financially he's just a good man and he's never one of those people that thinks that because he did something for you you owe him he and grandma have always had a very hospitable house it's part of generosity I hope I can pass that on to my own kids and grandkids it's been tough I think the world's kind of closed in on him a little bit since hitting his hundreds it's been a little more difficult but he was always active in church he was always active going down to little league teams that he was sponsoring but yeah he's had to slow down obviously I think his knee which he totally blames on the Japanese he's really kept him from doing more right now but I mean if that's the worst that he's got and he's so far he's 102 he's doing good he's always loved life he wouldn't be here this long if he didn't love life and always made the best of it always found something to laugh about something to joke about he's just got a lot going for him