Telling His Story: POW #1000

The Japanese captain ominously declared, “You will all die here.” His words carried the chilling certainty of the enemy—an enemy the American and Filipino captives had come to know and fear as they were forced to march through the unforgiving terrain of the Bataan Peninsula. Still, in the midst of their suffering—starving, dehydrated, and exhausted—they clung to the hope that survival was possible. They had already endured the unimaginable horrors of the infamous Bataan Death March, witnessing the brutality of the Japanese guards who bayonetted, shot, beheaded, or buried alive any soldier who fell behind. But more terror awaited them in the camps where disease, starvation, thirst, and death seemed to wait for them around every corner, day and night.

Such was J. C. Pardue’s nightmare. In Telling His Story: POW #1000, Dr. Janis Pardue Hill, as primarily a compiler and editor, provides the details of his story, from his entry into the US Army Air Corps through his WWII experiences in the Philippines. Most prominent among her father’s memories was the miracle of his Bible. Surviving a direct hit from a fragmentation bomb, confiscation in a POW camp, and disposal on a Hell Ship, that Bible always returned. His most treasured possession—his Bible, the weapon he considered the most valuable of all, came home with POW #1000.

Janis Pardue Hill, PhD, a retired university professor and lifelong educator, holds a BS in English education, an MA in literature, and a PhD in Curriculum Theory. She has worked in secondary and university classrooms, as a Program Coordinator in the LA Department of Education, and as a Curriculum Coordinator in the Ouachita Parish School System. Dr. Hill and her husband, Charles A. Hill, Jr., have two children, a son-inlaw, and three grandchildren and live in North Louisiana.