Author Shares Poignant Story of WWII POW

A ROUGH START

Born in 1926, Joe Johnson had anything but an easy beginning in life. He was deeply affected not only by the Great Depression, but by the pain and hardship of growing up without a dad. When Joe was just four, his dad went looking for work and never returned to his family of five.  Joe took on the role of “man of the house” way before his time.  

By age 12, Joe’s after school hours consisted of chopping wood, carrying coal, looking after his two younger siblings while his mom worked, preparing the family dinner, and making the beds. When his mom’s boyfriend moved in with the family later that year, Joe felt replaced and belittled. He decided to leave. Joe hopped a train from Memphis to San Antonio in search of his dad. He found him, and a few other relatives, and was welcomed into their lives. 

For the next two years, Joe greatly enjoyed having a dad and receiving the male affirmation he’d yearned for throughout his boyhood. In late 1940, when things turned sour with the situation, Joe was given the choice to return to his mom or grandmother. Neither appealed to him, so at the ripe old age of 14, Joe walked into an Army recruiter’s office, told them he was 18, and asked to enlist. The recruiter didn’t believe his spurious claim for a minute, but while the office was looking into it, Joe became a member of the U.S. Army.  

UNLIKELY LOVE

Stationed in the Philippines with the 31st Infantry Division, now 15-year-old Joe went with a couple of older Army buddies to clubs, feeling utterly out of place. One such establishment was a brothel, where Joe met a girl his own age, Perpetua, who was as uncomfortable in her role as he was in his. The pair became unlikely friends, helping one another endure what life had thrown at them. Joe’s developing sense of empathy led him to want to rescue her, all the more so when he learned she was pregnant, possibly by him. One night, he smuggled Perpetua out of the brothel to a convent, and paid her room and board. Though the pair knew each less than six months, the profound effect of their love and friendship lasted the rest of their lives. 

WWII AND LIFE AS A POW

On December 8, 1941 the day after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines. Joe’s division was sent to fight on the notorious Bataan peninsula followed by Corregidor Island. The extreme stress of violent combat was traumatizing for the 15-year-old, though he proved to be an expert marksman. The battle lasted five months before Joe’s world drastically changed again. 

The Americans were outgunned and outmanned by the Japanese and suffered terribly as they ran out of food, medicine, ammunition and supplies. Hunger and disease were rampant. On May 6, 1942, General Wainwright ordered American troops on the islands to surrender, to many soldiers’ bewilderment, and others’ relief. The men became prisoners of war.

The next three plus years would hold unspeakable horrors for Joe: the loss of his closest friends, constant malnutrition, a grisly injury to one leg, witnessing the torture and killing of other prisoners, forced hard labor, and merciless beatings. As hellish as it all was, a resilience grew in Joe that he’d never known before. He needed it for one of the worst experiences of those years, which came after faking insanity and threatening a guard. 

He was stripped and forced into an “eiso,” a small, coffin-like box for a week. The implement of torture was too small for a man to lie flat or sit up, and he was given no food or water. Joe knew of no one who had come out alive. It was there that Joe, not a religious man, uttered one of the few prayers of his life, asking God for mercy. That prayer was answered when it rained, providing the drinking water which saved his life.  Weak, filthy, and starving, he was let out of the contraption after a week and given a respite at the hospital.   

In December 1944, Joe and 1600 other prisoners were loaded on a ship for Japan to work in their mines; only 450 of them survived the six-week trip. Eight months later, when at last came the surrender of Japan to the United States in August 1945, Joe had grown to 6’4” and weighed a paltry 109 pounds.

LIFE AFTER THE WWII

Joe’s return home was prolonged for a couple months while he received much-needed treatment in a Manila hospital. The latter weeks were some of the sweetest of his life, as they included a brief reunion with Perpetua, then studying to be a nurse. On his way home, he opened a gift she had sent him. It was a framed photo of her son … who looked very much like Joe as a boy. Finally, in October 1945, after seven years that seemed more like a lifetime, Joe was warmly greeted by his family in Memphis. Though his outer scars would heal, the inner ones would fester for many decades. 

Joe’s heart and mind, like all troops who have experienced bitter combat, were deeply wounded. PTSD took its crushing toll. He and Perpetua exchanged letters for a long time until his mom started hiding the girl’s letters, thinking it best for Joe to let her go. Joe assumed Perpetua had lost interest and stopped writing after many more attempts. 

He served his country again in both the USAF and the Marines, fought in Korea, was divorced twice, married a third time, struggled with jobs, admitted to being a not-so-good father (but a better step-father), and in midlife, entered a psychiatric hospital to deal with his demons of unforgiveness and bitterness. He credited the doctors there with convincing him that unforgiveness was only making him – and his loved ones – miserable. Slowly, finally, Joe determined to let go of his anger. 

REDEMPTION 

Joe had never been a religious man, even in the bitter trials of his POW years. Then, in 2016, at the age of 90, he was listening to Charles Stanley preach the gospel on TV and liked how he presented it. He said Dr. Stanley talked about how God allows us to go through the valley of the shadow of death in this life, but He walks with us. 

Joe felt compelled to bow his head and ask God to save him. “Well, I knew lots about that valley,” Joe wrote in a book about his life. “So many times in the Philippines things happened, you know, where I just couldn’t explain it. I don’t know why one man dies and another man lives, and if you start trying to figure that out, you’ll go nuts. But I knew I needed God more than ever. Right in my living room I bowed my head and made it official. Even for me. The grace of Christ is deep and wide.”  

Marcus points to the fact that Joe believed God was working on his heart before he came to Him. “I looked back over my last few years and noticed a change had been happening all along. Maybe God had been working in my life even if I didn’t know it was Him at work. Once I was bitter and untrusting. I was selfish and suspicious. I wasn’t pleasant to be around. I was crafty. I knew just how far to push any situation and just when to stop so my *** was covered. Fortunately, I had enough smarts to turn that around, to learn to love.”  

Joe Johnson died on June 24, 2017, age 91, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.