Washington County, PA Obituary: John Emerick / Veteran of the Bataan Death March

[HiredGoon]

Obituary: John Emerick / Veteran of the Bataan Death March

At a 1997 meeting of veterans of the Bataan Death March, one of John Emerick's comrades kidded him about his advancing age.

"I'm going to heaven," he answered. "I've done my hitch in hell."

Mr. Emerick, onetime national commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, died Sept. 22 at Jefferson Regional Medical Center.

The Finleyville resident was 91 and never for a moment forgot or forgave the Japanese who tormented him from 1942 to 1945.

"I curse everything Japanese," he said.

Mr. Emerick was one of the last thousand or so survivors of Bataan, and the memories of Japanese brutality haunted him to the end.

He saw fellow soldiers bayoneted for trying to sneak a drink of water. He heard the final screams of servicemen as they were shot or beheaded because they could not march fast enough for the Japanese. And he endured 42 months as a slave laborer in six Japanese prison camps until his liberation in 1945. By then, he weighed 98 pounds; his normal weight was 175.

Back home, he married and embarked on a career in research with the U.S. Bureau of Mines. But he relied on alcohol to deal with his war experiences until the mid-1970s, when post-traumatic stress disorder became recognized among Vietnam veterans and he sought treatment for his depression and night terrors.

"When I came home, I didn't understand what was wrong with me, so I took to the booze," he recalled. "I crawled into a shell. I didn't say anything (about POW experiences) because no one would have believed me anyway."

He helped start a local support network for POWs and became commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, attending conventions and making sure members received VA benefits.

At one time, some 40 Bataan survivors lived in the Western Pennsylvania region. Only a handful remain.

Mr. Emerick attended his last convention in Louisville in 2008 but was too sick to make this year's meeting in May in San Antonio. The group disbanded after that, although the children of survivors have started a new organization.

Born in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Mr. Emerick graduated from Mount Pleasant Township High School in 1935 and worked odd jobs during the Depression for three years before landing a full-time job at a clothing factory in Norvelt.

But he saw no future there and he decided to join the Army in 1940. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in the hopes of becoming a pilot, but instead found himself consigned to the infantry.

As the Japanese swept across the Pacific after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces dug in on the Bataan Peninsula west of Manila and the island fortress of Corregidor.

Mr. Emerick was among 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos charged with halting the Japanese advance, a mission that proved impossible because they had little food, water or ammo.

Rather than face a massacre, the American commander surrendered his forces at Bataan on April 9, 1942. Mr. Emerick recalled that the Japanese soldier who took his weapon wore a class ring from the University of Oregon and spoke excellent English.

The Japanese, whose code of honor dictated that surrender was a disgrace, marched the 70,000 survivors 65 miles through the jungle with almost no food or water. Between 7,000 and 10,000 died on the way of dysentery, beatings, heat stroke and execution, including some who were buried alive after being forced to dig their own graves.

When they reached their destination, the Japanese crammed them into the holds of prison ships. Some of the men had to drink blood to stay alive because they had no water. A few of the ships also ended up being sunk by American submarines.

The prisoners were sent to camps in Southeast Asia, Manchuria and Japan for the rest of the war, and most of the men were forced into slave labor. Half of them died from abuse and malnutrition.

Mr. Emerick and his fellow prisoners were forced to work mining copper. If they worked, they were rewarded with three bowls of rice a day.

The days and nights blurred together for him until Sept. 12, 1945, when U.S. forces liberated the POWs and sent him home.

He married his wife, the late Theresa, two months later, but he admitted that he was not a good husband and drank too much.

He eventually built a career at the Bureau of Mines, but he struggled with his war experiences. Many of his comrades did, too. He said three men he knew who survived Bataan later committed suicide.

After Vietnam, however, he and three other men who survived Japanese prison camps became activists for better medical care for former POWs. Their efforts led to a pilot project in Pittsburgh that eventually developed into national VA treatment programs.

One of Mr. Emerick's biggest psychological hurdles was survivors' guilt.

"I should never have made 24 and I've made it to 84," he said once.

He never forgot the chant every veteran of Bataan knows by heart. Just before their surrender in 1942, when morale was plummeting, many U.S. soldiers had taken to reciting a grim poem written by newspaperman Frank Hewlett, who had visited the front lines.

For a Memorial Day story in 2002, Mr. Emerick repeated it for a Post-Gazette writer: "We're the battling bastards of Bataan, No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam. No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces, No pills, no planes or artillery pieces, And nobody gives a damn."

Mr. Emerick is survived by his three sisters: Mary Bratberg of North Dakota; Sophie Pipak of Norvelt; and Josephine Curci of Greensburg.

He was buried with military honors on Monday in Finleyville

[Karl/PA]

Man's inhumanity to man. Because of men like him, we'll never know those horrors. Rest well John, you damn well deserve it.

[ChamberedRound]

Man's inhumanity to man. Because of men like him, we'll never know those horrors. Rest well John, you damn well deserve it.

Amen to that. He couldn't find peace in this life, I hope he can find some in the next.

[Azzy]

Living in Finleyville, I never even heard of the man or his passing. I will pass his story on.

RIP

[tdyoung58]

Man's inhumanity to man. Because of men like him, we'll never know those horrors. Rest well John, you damn well deserve it.

Amen to that

[AxiTech]

My sister owns Juskowich Notary in Finleyville. She is usually up on this stuff, but I didn't hear about it from her. Thanks for posting it, I'll forward it to her.

[DaveM55]

Rest in peace John Emerick.


I know a man in Butler that survived the Bataan Death March and wrote a couple books.

His name is Abie Abraham.

http://ghostofbataan.com/

[AxiTech]

I sent my sister in Finleyville an email to let her know about this. She sent me one back reminding me that our Great Uncle Frank Crissman had also survived the Bataan Death March. I had completely forgotten this. The fact that I would forget this troubles me, as we should never forget the sacrifices made by our fellow Americans, especially ones close to us.