This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Baxter 2
various labor camps in the Philippines (mainly Cabanatuan, Bilibid, and the Davao penal colony, which was located on the island of Mindanao) and put aboard the small freighter, Taga Maru, which was docked at Pier 7 on Manila Bay. At roll call (tenko) 400 prisoners were forced into the forward two holds of the freighter and the remaining 400 to the aft single hold.
The small open hatch led to the stairway extending some thirty feet down into the darkened hold. The prisoners were forced and prodded by bayonet into a space which rapidly became overcrowded. The temperature in the hold felt like 120 degrees, and the body heat from 400 sweating men made it even more stifling. Being enclosed in this hellhole with the hatches covered was like being trapped in an oven. The only ventilation came from the small hatch opening by the hold ladder, maybe four by four feet and the only source of daylight. The P.O.W.'s' meager sustenance that night was foul fish heads boiled in water with lugua (rice mush).
At 0300 hours the following day the Taga Maru cleared Corregidor and the mine fields at the entrance to Manila Bay with a draft of 800 American prisoners plus a contingent of officers, sailors, and nationals. Just off Olongapo in the South China Sea the Taga Maru rendezvoused with a small convoy of ships escorted by two Japanese destroyers. On or about September 15, 1943, the convoy was attacked off the coast of Takao, Formosa, by an American submarine which sank one freighter and damaged the steering system of the Taga Maru. Later that night the latter was towed to the port of Takao for repairs. During the whole series of shelling by the American submarine the P.O.W.'s were helpless in the ship's hold with the hatches locked.
On September 27, P.O.W. Jose Conterro became deathly ill from a ruptured appendix. Two doctors, both prisoners, had to operate with only a razor blade and without anesthesia. Miraculously Conterro survived and after the war became