graphite
NES Member
I was reminded of my Great Uncle Pete today.
When I was about 7 years old, my grandmother's youngest sister came to New England that summer for a couple of weeks to visit family. She came with her husband, Uncle Pete, and they drove from their home in Baton Rouge.
One day of their trip, along with my grandparents, they visited us and stayed through supper. That afternoon we were all in the backyard and my father was showing Uncle Pete around the yard. They were at the back of the property on the edge of a stream which separated our yard form a dirt road and field beyond it. Suddenly my father yelled "Watch it Pete there's a snake!".
I looked to see Uncle Pete wrestling with a long black snake that coiled around his wrist and promptly sank its fangs into the back of his hand. My father started to help him and Uncle Pete said, "I'm OK", grabbed the snake's head, pulled it off his hand and swiftly twist and broke its neck and tossed it into the weeds next to the stream. My father asked if he was OK and they knew it was just one of those black water snakes so no worry about it being poisonous. Uncle Pete says, "I'm fine. I've had worse. That would've been good eating for us." My mother came down and disinfected the wound on the back of his hand and wrapped it in gauze.
Later, after they left following supper, I asked my father what happened with the snake and why Uncle Pete said it would be good to eat. This is when my dad told me about Uncle Pete.
Uncle Pete served in WWII and he was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. I was told what that meant and what they endured. He told me that snake would be a prized meal among the POWs given their state of starvation and malnutrition. He told me his real name was not Pete, but an abbreviation of his last name, Petersen, because his first name was Hartman and either he didn't care for it or his buddies found it easier to call him Pete. He told me no one in the family really ever heard him talk about the war and his experiences other than every now and then he would talk about how they scavenged for any kind of food be it lizards, bugs, snakes, etc.
Fast forward to my early teens and one weekend I got to stay with my grandmother after my grandfather had passed and talk turned to her siblings of which there were many. She talked at one point about her older brother who served in the Coast Guard in the Pacific in WWII. This reminded me of the snake and Uncle Pete which I asked her about as now some years later I had some knowledge of WWII events and history.
She said she didn't know much, only a little bit her sister had told her. I learned Uncle Pete was stationed in the Philippines for a little while before the war. When the Japanese invaded - most don't remember or realize that this happened December 8th the day after Pearl Harbor - they were unprepared and over time were beaten back onto the Bataan peninsula where they eventually had to surrender and he was taken prisoner. She told of one account he gave her sister of him in the last weeks before surrender of having almost no food, men being very sick and run down and almost out of ammo. He was in a foxhole with two other men on the front line. At night they would lay quietly in the foxhole, a string tied between each others feet and if they heard the Japanese nearby they would move their foot so the pull on the string would awaken and alert the guys who were asleep.
So some time ago, I read the book Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides about the Rangers rescue of Bataan Death March survivors at Cabanatuan. I then started looking for info on him. He, my great aunt, and my grandparents had all passed 20 years ago or more so I could gather no info from them. But I did find websites detailing some of the people and events. I’ve since learned -
His hometown was Roslindale, MA. He was a U.S. Army corporal serving in the Philippine Division HQ when the war broke out. After his capture and his surviving the Bataan Death March, he was put in the Cabanatuan POW camp. But when the Rangers arrived in January of '45, he wasn't there to be rescued. He was among 1500 POWs removed from the camp and shipped out on November 7th, 1942 aboard a Hell Ship (you can look up what those were), the Nagato Maru. 18 days later they were delivered to the Tsuruga POW camp outside Osaka and used as slave labor on the docks of the nearby port. He was finally released in September 1945 after the Japanese surrendered and he arrived in San Francisco on October 20th.
Today is the anniversary of the start of the Bataan Death March. I never saw Uncle Pete again after that day in my yard when I was seven years old but I never forgot the man. Tonight I will toast him with a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue, from a bottle that has not yet been opened, in memory of him, and his sacrifice, and the good life he led .
When I was about 7 years old, my grandmother's youngest sister came to New England that summer for a couple of weeks to visit family. She came with her husband, Uncle Pete, and they drove from their home in Baton Rouge.
One day of their trip, along with my grandparents, they visited us and stayed through supper. That afternoon we were all in the backyard and my father was showing Uncle Pete around the yard. They were at the back of the property on the edge of a stream which separated our yard form a dirt road and field beyond it. Suddenly my father yelled "Watch it Pete there's a snake!".
I looked to see Uncle Pete wrestling with a long black snake that coiled around his wrist and promptly sank its fangs into the back of his hand. My father started to help him and Uncle Pete said, "I'm OK", grabbed the snake's head, pulled it off his hand and swiftly twist and broke its neck and tossed it into the weeds next to the stream. My father asked if he was OK and they knew it was just one of those black water snakes so no worry about it being poisonous. Uncle Pete says, "I'm fine. I've had worse. That would've been good eating for us." My mother came down and disinfected the wound on the back of his hand and wrapped it in gauze.
Later, after they left following supper, I asked my father what happened with the snake and why Uncle Pete said it would be good to eat. This is when my dad told me about Uncle Pete.
Uncle Pete served in WWII and he was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. I was told what that meant and what they endured. He told me that snake would be a prized meal among the POWs given their state of starvation and malnutrition. He told me his real name was not Pete, but an abbreviation of his last name, Petersen, because his first name was Hartman and either he didn't care for it or his buddies found it easier to call him Pete. He told me no one in the family really ever heard him talk about the war and his experiences other than every now and then he would talk about how they scavenged for any kind of food be it lizards, bugs, snakes, etc.
Fast forward to my early teens and one weekend I got to stay with my grandmother after my grandfather had passed and talk turned to her siblings of which there were many. She talked at one point about her older brother who served in the Coast Guard in the Pacific in WWII. This reminded me of the snake and Uncle Pete which I asked her about as now some years later I had some knowledge of WWII events and history.
She said she didn't know much, only a little bit her sister had told her. I learned Uncle Pete was stationed in the Philippines for a little while before the war. When the Japanese invaded - most don't remember or realize that this happened December 8th the day after Pearl Harbor - they were unprepared and over time were beaten back onto the Bataan peninsula where they eventually had to surrender and he was taken prisoner. She told of one account he gave her sister of him in the last weeks before surrender of having almost no food, men being very sick and run down and almost out of ammo. He was in a foxhole with two other men on the front line. At night they would lay quietly in the foxhole, a string tied between each others feet and if they heard the Japanese nearby they would move their foot so the pull on the string would awaken and alert the guys who were asleep.
So some time ago, I read the book Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides about the Rangers rescue of Bataan Death March survivors at Cabanatuan. I then started looking for info on him. He, my great aunt, and my grandparents had all passed 20 years ago or more so I could gather no info from them. But I did find websites detailing some of the people and events. I’ve since learned -
His hometown was Roslindale, MA. He was a U.S. Army corporal serving in the Philippine Division HQ when the war broke out. After his capture and his surviving the Bataan Death March, he was put in the Cabanatuan POW camp. But when the Rangers arrived in January of '45, he wasn't there to be rescued. He was among 1500 POWs removed from the camp and shipped out on November 7th, 1942 aboard a Hell Ship (you can look up what those were), the Nagato Maru. 18 days later they were delivered to the Tsuruga POW camp outside Osaka and used as slave labor on the docks of the nearby port. He was finally released in September 1945 after the Japanese surrendered and he arrived in San Francisco on October 20th.
Today is the anniversary of the start of the Bataan Death March. I never saw Uncle Pete again after that day in my yard when I was seven years old but I never forgot the man. Tonight I will toast him with a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue, from a bottle that has not yet been opened, in memory of him, and his sacrifice, and the good life he led .
Last edited:
